Mercer Motors Corporation

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mercer Autocar Company (1910)
Mercer Automobile Company (1910-1919)
Mercer Motors Company (1919-1925)
Mercer Motors Corporation (1929-1931)
legal form Corporation
founding 1910
resolution 1931
Seat Elkhart , Indiana , USA
Branch Automobiles

Mercer 22/72 Touring (1916)
Fritzi Scheff at the wheel of her Mercer Type 35R Raceabout (1913)
Mercer Raceabout (1912) at the 2007 Goodwood Festival of Speed
Harold Higgins (far left) with workers, including driver Eddie Pullen - Mercer Automobile Co. workshop, ca.1910 (Photo courtesy of Janelle Higgins Jones)

Mercer Motors Corporation , previously the Mercer Autocar Company , Mercer Automobile Company, and Mercer Motors Company , was an automobile manufacturer in the United States prior to World War II .

history

Mercer united various talents and donors: Ferdinand Roebling, son of John A. Roebling , was president of the company and his nephew Washington Roebling II was the managing director. The Roebling family was very successful in the manufacture of steel cables and suspension bridges; they were used to engineering. The chief financial officer was John L. Kuser, who, along with his brothers Frederick and Anthony, had amassed a sizable fortune in banking, brewing and bottling.

Washington Roebling was friends with William Walter , who had made a small number of luxury automobiles in New York City . The Kuser family owned an empty brewery in Hamilton, New Jersey, and Walter and his factory were housed there in 1906. Walter, however, had so much debt amassed in 1909 that the Roebling and Kuser families paid him off before he had to file for bankruptcy. They changed the name of the company to Mercer, named after the location in Mercer County in New Jersey . The company name was in 1910 Mercer Autocar Company and the seat was in Trenton , New Jersey. In the same year the name was changed to Mercer Automobile Company . Talented engineers and racing drivers brought new success and the company concentrated on proving its capabilities in automotive competitions .

In October 1919, after the death of the last Roebling brother (Washington Roebling II in 1912 was the sinking of the Titanic to), a company bought by Wall Street society and put the former Vice President of Packard , Emlen Hare , at the head of the company who brought Mercer under the umbrella of Hare's Motors. The new company name was Mercer Motors Company . Hare wanted to expand, expanded the model range and production and also bought the Locomobile and Crane-Simplex brands . Over the next several years, Hare's Motors had to pay a bitter price because of these acquisitions and the recession : Locomobile was liquidated and bought by Durant Motors in 1922, and Mercer made its last cars in 1925; in total there were about 5000 pieces.

The Elcar Motor Company tried to revive the brand name. In addition there was from November 21, 1929 the new name Mercer Motors Corporation . The seat was in Elkhart , Indiana . Two vehicles were presented at the New York Automobile Show . The sources disagree on whether it was January 1930 or January 1931. In 1931 the company was dissolved.

Type 35R raceabout

The result was one of the most famous sports cars of the decade: The 1910 Mercer Type 35R Raceabout, a bare, two-seater Speedster designed to "safely and reliably" reach a speed of 70  mph (113  km / h ). He even made over 90 mph (145 km / h). The four-cylinder in - line engine of the Raceabout with sniffer valves had a displacement of 4.9 liters and developed 58 bhp (42 kW). He won five of the six auto races for which he was registered in 1911, and hundreds of other wins followed. The Raceabout became one of the best racing cars of its time, highly valued for its high manufacturing quality and excellent driving characteristics.

In the road race for the Elgin National Trophy 1914 in Elgin, Illinois , two raceabouts collided and were destroyed. One of the drivers, Spencer Wishart , a well-known racing driver who always wore a shirt and tie under his overalls, died in the accident along with his mechanic John Jenter. This caused the company to stop their racing activities. The raceabout's designer left that year, and none of the following designs ever returned to the glory and ambition of the Type 35R.

In February 1914, Eddie Pullen , who had been with the company since 1910, won the American Grand Prize with a race over 403 mi (648.6 km) in a raceabout. You can see Pullen together with workshop manager Harold Higgins in the picture on the right, exactly to the right of the gearbox.

literature

  • 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. 958-961 (English).
  • George Nicholas Georgano (Ed.): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile . Volume 2: G-O . Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , pp. 1008-1009 (English).

Web links

Commons : Mercer Motors Corporation  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d George Nicholas Georgano (Ed.): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile . Volume 2: G-O . Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , pp. 1008-1009 (English).
  2. ↑ a b c 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. 958-961 (English).