Tincher

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Thomas L. Tincher (1903-1907)
Tincher Motor Car Co. (1907-1909)
legal form Sole proprietorship
corporation
founding 1903
resolution 1909
Reason for dissolution Cessation of production
Seat South Bend , Indiana , USA
management Thomas L. Tincher
Branch Automobiles

Tincher was a brand of automobiles that operated in Chicago , Illinois from 1903 to 1906 and in South Bend , Indiana from 1907 to 1909 . The car was named after its designer, Thomas L. Tincher . The Tincher was one of the most exclusive and expensive automobiles available in the United States at the time. It wasn't until 1907 that a company was formally established to manufacture the vehicle, with virtually all of it being funded by Studebaker Corporation .

Company history

Thomas L. Tincher was vice president of a printing company before turning to automotive engineering. The vehicle was presented at the Chicago Auto Show in 1903 . The Tincher's air brakes were the technical highlight of the event. The compressed air device was not only used for braking, it could also be used to inflate the tires and operate the whistle , which replaced the horn in many early automobiles, but was mostly operated with the exhaust gases from the exhaust pipe . The engine's overhead valves were also among the advanced solutions .

The Tincher was a luxurious automobile. It was manufactured by the Chicago Coach and Carriage Company until the move . It was extremely complex, so that only five to six vehicles were completed annually; the annual production never exceeded six vehicles. A similar amount of work as at Tincher was only carried out at competitor Alco , where it also took several months to produce a few cars. This meticulousness meant that neither Tincher nor Alco could operate profitably. At least Alco had much larger plants and manufactured around 5000 vehicles from 1906 to 1913.

So it's not surprising that the Tincher was one of the most expensive cars on the market at the time. Prices started at US $ 5,000; a race version cost US $ 12,000. Customer-specific and closed bodies could also raise the price significantly higher. The Studebaker historian Thomas E. Bonsall called the prices at Tincher "desperately high"; they would have reached "into the stratosphere ". A fair comparison; In 1906 an Oldsmobile Curved Dash was US $ 650 and in 1908 a Ford Model T Touring was US $ 825.

In 1907 a minor economic crisis , also known as the 1907 Panic, had struck the US . Many automobile manufacturers suffered as a result. Studebaker mastered it quite well, but the traditional wagon business stagnated. Only the automotive division, which largely consisted of the sale of third-party brands, achieved growth. The company policy at Studebaker was initially to gain know-how and capacities through cooperation with manufacturers. Studebaker participated in these companies and sold the vehicles exclusively through its own dealer network. Against this background, the financing of the Tincher Motor Car Company with US $ 200,000 should be seen and so the move from Chicago - one of the early automotive centers in the USA - to South Bend in Indiana makes sense, because this is the Studebaker parent plant. From Studebaker's point of view, Bonsall judges this deal as "bizarre", which probably meant the obvious discrepancy between the huge sales network and the small vehicle "output" at Tincher.

It can be assumed that after the move to Indiana at the latest, Tincher vehicles such as Garford and later EMF were sold exclusively through Studebaker; after the complete takeover, the latter formed the basis for Studebaker's own production of motor vehicles. Tincher no longer had to worry about sales and distribution and probably hoped that the close proximity to the Studebaker brothers would help in the development of new cars and bodies. The disappointment came quickly and was mutual.

The Tincher 50 HP with a 7.7 liter four-cylinder engine, introduced in 1906, has been the backbone of production since 1906. Like all Tinchers, it had the engine at the front, a conventional four-speed gearbox and a drive chain to drive the rear wheels. Only in 1908 was a six-cylinder with 11.6 liters of displacement placed on the wheels on the same chassis . Four and six cylinders had the same dimensions for cylinder bore and stroke , namely 5 × 6 inches (127 × 152.4 mm), which results in an ALAM rating of 40 and 40, respectively. 60 HP results. The effective power is given as 50 and 90 bhp (37.3 and 67.1 kW). Cylinder blocks were usually cast in pairs and it is reasonable to assume that two pairs were used for the 50 HP and three pairs for the six-cylinder.

Whether a 50/60 HP Model H listed according to a single source for 1909 was still built is not further proven. The technical data available at the same location correspond to the 50 HP in the version from 1908. It is therefore not clear what this model name was based on; Apart from the measured and calculated output, the output at 1000 rpm was occasionally given.

In 1909, production was stopped because the small number of units made no profit could be made. Thomas Tincher filed for personal bankruptcy in the summer of 1909. Studebaker had to write off the invested capital and expanded the other collaborations.

In January 1910, Thomas Tincher took on the position of plant manager at the Economy Motor Car Company in Joliet (Illinois) , where a completely different vehicle was manufactured: The Economy was a technically extremely undemanding high-wheeler with a two-cylinder engine, which was mainly sold from US $ 475 Farmer was sold.

Model overview

Only incomplete data is available for the models from 1903 to 1905.

construction time model ALAM
rating		 engine
Cubic capacity c.i. / cm³		 Power
bhp / kW		 Wheelbase
inches / mm		 body Prices
US $		 Remarks
1903 18 HP R4 ohv 90/2286 Touring , 5 pl.
1904 45 HP R4 ohv 90/2286 Touring, 5 pl. 5,000
1904 90 HP R4 ohv 90/2286 Racing car, 2 pl. 12,000
1905 60 HP R4 ohv 125/3175 Touring, 7 pl. 5,000
1906 50 HP 40 HP R4 ohv 471.2 / 7,722 50 / 37.3 120/3048 Touring, 7 pl. 6,000
1907 50 HP 40 HP R4 ohv 471.2 / 7,722 50 / 37.3 120/3048 Touring, 7 pl. 6,000
1908 50 HP 40 HP R4 ohv 471.2 / 7,722 50 / 37.3 110/2794 Roadster , 3 pl. 5,500
1908 50 HP 40 HP R4 ohv 471.2 / 7,722 50 / 37.3 127/3226 Touring, 7 pl. 6,500
1908 Six 60 HP R6 ohv 706.9 / 11,584 90 / 67.1 127/3226 Roadster, 3/4 pl. 6,500
1908 Six 60 HP R6 ohv 706.9 / 11,584 90 / 67.1 127/3226 Touring, 7 pl. 6,500
1909 Model H 40 HP R4 ohv 471.2 / 7,722 50 / 37.3 127/3226 Touring, 7 pl. 6,500

The information in this table has been compiled and converted from several sources. The ALAM rating results from the ALAM / NACC table based on the cylinder bore.

Remarks

  1. ↑ The table can be viewed here. The formula according to RAC Horsepower , ALAM and NACC is identical. Unfortunately, engine data are only available from 1906 onwards, so it is not possible to determine whether the performance data according to the model designation for these vehicles refer to measured bhp or calculated ALAM values.

literature

  • Beverly Rae Kimes (ed.), Henry Austin Clark Jr.: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. Krause Publications, Iola WI, 1996; ISBN 978-0-87341-428-9 .
  • Beverly Rae Kimes: Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels: The Dawn of the Automobile in America. Ed. SAE ( Society of Automotive Engineers ) Permissions, Warrendale PA, 2005; ISBN 0-7680-1431-X .
  • George Nick Georgano (Ed.): Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars, 1885 to the Present. Dutton Press, New York, 2nd Edition, 1973; ISBN 0-525-08351-0 .
  • Thomas E. Bonsall: More Than They Promised: The Studebaker Story. Stanford University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-8047-3586-7 .
  • Robert D. Dluhy: American Automobiles of the Brass Era: Essential Specifications of 4,000+ Gasoline Powered Passenger Cars, 1906-1915, with a Statistical and Historical Overview. Mcfarland & Co Inc. publishers, Jefferson NC, 2013; ISBN 0-78647-136-0 .
  • Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers (Ed.): Handbook of Gasoline Automobiles / 1904–1905–1906. Introduced by Clarence P. Hornung, Dover Publications, New York, 1969.
  • National Automobile Chamber of Commerce ; Inc. (NACC): Handbook of Automobiles 1915-1916. Dover Publications, Inc .; Reprint; 1970.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Kimes, Cark: Standard Catalog of American cars, 1805-1942. 1996, p. 1470 (Tincher).
  2. ↑ Kimes: Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels. 2005, p. 164.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Bonsall: More Than They Promised: The Studebaker Story. 2000, pp. 62-63.
  4. ↑ a b Kimes, Cark: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 1996, p. 23 (ALCo).
  5. ^ Kimes, Cark: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 1996, p. 1063 (Oldsmobile Curved Dash).
  6. ^ Kimes, Clark: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 1996, p. 575 (Ford T 1908–1909)
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Dluhy: American Automobiles of the Brass Era , 2013, p. 124 (Tincher).
  8. ^ Kimes, Cark: Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1805-1942. 1996, pp. 516-517 (Economy).
  9. ^ NACC: Handbook of Automobiles 1915–1916 (Reprint 1970), p. 212