Marvel Motor Car Company

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Marvel Motor Car Company
legal form Corporation
founding 1906
resolution 1907
Seat Detroit , Wayne County , Michigan , USA
management JC Foster
Branch Automobiles

The Marvel Motor Car Company was an American automobile manufacturer . The brand name was Marvel . There is no connection to the Duesenberg brothers' Marvel automobile .

Company history

The company was founded in late 1906. The managing director was JC Foster and William A. Phister held the position of the production manager. Their headquarters had the Marvel Motor Car Company in the premises of the former Detroit Automobile Manufacturing Company at the Rivard street 284 to 290 , near the intersection Mullet street in Detroit ( Michigan ), where she particularly small Voiturettes the brands La Petite and Paragon had made.

Bankruptcy had to be filed in the early autumn of 1907; In the end, US $ 40,000 in debts was set against assets of US $ 4,000. The company was taken over by the Crescent Motor Car Company , founded in May , which produced the Marvel Runabout together with the Reliance in their premises on Meldrum and Champlain streets until 1908 . The latter had previously been manufactured by Reliance Automobile Manufacturing Company in Owosso, Michigan and came to Crescent because Reliance wanted to focus on commercial vehicles. As Reliance Motor Truck Company , it was taken over by General Motors in 1909 and then merged with the GMC brand .

Marvel Model A

The Marvel ("wonder", "marvel") was the company's only product. It was also a voiturette, but a little larger than La Petite or the Paragon . There is also no reference to the former Detroit Automobile Manufacturing Company and its products.

The Marvel is known to have only been offered as a two-seat runabout . It had a front-mounted, water-cooled two - cylinder boxer engine of unknown origin that developed 14 bhp (10.4 kW); the ALAM rating resulted in 12.8 hp, which also corresponds to the British R.AC. rating at the time, but says little about the actual engine performance . The vehicle, which is reminiscent of French designs such as the Darracq 15 CV or Luc Court 8 CV , had cardan drive according to one source (which is also indicated by a contemporary illustration) and chain drive according to another , and was controlled by means of a steering wheel .

An annual production of 325 vehicles was aimed for. The vehicle came on the market for US $ 800 at a reasonable price, but could not hold its own.

Temple-Marvel

Ralph Temple operated a car dealership in Chicago , Illinois . Among other things, he sold Marvel vehicles. According to his idea, Marvel manufactured specially body vehicles for him, which he exclusively offered as Temple-Marvel . They differed particularly in the rear area. So jump seats have been handed down.

Remarks

  1. ↑ ALAM = Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers , the first US American standards organization, from around 1904–1912. The benefit is calculated; Cylinder bore ² × number of cylinders; the result is divided by 2.5. The successor organization NACC ( National Automobile Chamber of Commerce ) used the same formula. Around 1920 the SAE-PS prevailed.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c American Automobiles: The Marvel Automobile & The Marvel Motor Car Co.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Kimes, Clark: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 1996, pp. 933-934 (Marvel)
  3. ↑ Kimes, Clark: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 1996, p. 841 (La Petite)
  4. ↑ Kimes, Clark: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 1996, p. 1150 (Paragon (1906))
  5. ↑ Kimes, Clark: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 1996, p. 389 (Crescent (1907))
  6. ↑ Kimes, Clark: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 1996, pp. 1277-1278 (Reliance)
  7. ↑ a b Dluhy: American Automobiles of the Brass Era. 2013, p. 96 (Marvel)
  8. ↑ NACC: Handbook of Automobiles 1915–1916. 1970, p. 212 (HP Rating)
  9. ↑ American Automobiles: Marvel Runabout, 1907 advert.
  10. ↑ Beverly Rae Kimes, Henry Austin Clark Jr .: Standard catalog of American Cars. 1805-1942. Digital edition . 3. Edition. Krause Publications, Iola 2013, ISBN 978-1-4402-3778-2 , pp. 1456 (English).