EMF Model 30 Touring 1912, Estados Unidos
Exterior : Vermelho
Interior : Preto
Fotografia
Fonte : https://rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/hf19/hershey/lots/r0050-1912-e-m-f-model-30-touring/759576
The E-M-F
Company was an early American automobile manufacturer that
produced automobiles from 1909 to 1912. The name E-M-F was gleaned from the
initials of the three company founders: Barney Everitt (a custom auto-body builder from Detroit), William Metzger (formerly of Cadillac), and Walter Flanders (who had served as Henry Ford's production
manager).
Byron F. "Barney"
Everitt was born in 1872 at Ridgetown,
Ontario, and learned wagon-building in Chatham, Ontario. In the early
1890s he worked for carriage-maker Hugh Johnson in Detroit. In 1899
he started his own bodybuilding company, with orders from Ransom Olds, and then Henry Ford. In about 1904 his
own first assembled car was the Wayne. The car model bearing his name was the Everitt, 1909-1912.
William E. Metzger was born 1868 in Peru, Illinois. He was one of the
first car salesmen, a buyer and reseller and, in the late 1890s, established
possibly the first United States automobile dealership, in Detroit. He was a
key figure in the Association
of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, and also promoted early races at Grosse Pointe. In 1902 he became
affiliated with the Northern
Motor Car Company and the same year helped organize Cadillac before taking
orders at the New
York Automobile Show in January 1903.
Walter E. Flanders was born March 4, 1871 in Waterbury,
Vermont. He was a machinist who started with servicing
sewing machines during an apprenticeship at Singer
Corporation, followed by an association with Thomas
S. Walburn in general machining in Cleveland, Ohio, in the late
1890s. An order came from Henry Ford in Detroit to the company for a thousand crankshafts, and Ford was
impressed by the response. Then in the early 1900s Flanders again worked with
Walburn, this time for Ford at the Ford
Piquette Avenue Plant at the corner of Piquette and Beaubien Streets in
Detroit. Flanders became manager of manufacturing at the plant, where he also
worked with the two future vice-presidents in charge of manufacturing, Peter E. Martin, and Charles
E. Sorensen. Flanders was replaced by those two when he resigned
abruptly on 21 April 1908. Flanders' skill was in setting up and effecting
timesaving procedures and methods at the plant, where engineers had developed
the Model
T in late 1907, which then began production in 1908, and
led eventually to invention of the new moving assembly line to meet
skyrocketing demand for the Model T in 1910.
In 1909, E-M-F bought the Detroit plant of
the De Luxe company and began production of E-M-F cars.
E-M-F produced several models of its own design and contracted to sell them
through Studebaker wagon dealerships.
E-M-F vehicles outsold all but Ford.
Late in 1909, E-M-F established a Walkerville, Ontario,
branch plant to produce the E-M-F 30 and Flanders 20.
Shortly afterward, E-M-F was bought out by
Studebaker, which formed Studebker Canada,
and rebadged E-M-F's products: the E-M-F as the Studebaker 30,
the Flanders as the Studebaker 20 Sales
of these rebadged models continued through the end of 1912.
Studebaker's president Fred Fish (son-in-law
of John M. Studebaker), being
unhappy with E-M-F's poor quality and lack of management, gained control of the
assets and plant facilities (at Detroit and Walkerville, Ontario) in
1910. To remedy the damage done by E-M-F, Studebaker paid mechanics to
visit each unsatisfied owner and replace the defective parts in their vehicles
at a cost of US$1 million to the company. The E-M-F name continued into
1912 with the Studebaker name becoming more and more prevalent on the cars. In
1913, the E-M-F name was replaced by Studebaker.
Problems aside, E-M-F vehicles had sold well
in the growing marketplace. In 1909 E-M-F placed fourth (producing 7,960
vehicles) in total US automobile production, behind that of Ford Motor Company, Buick,
and Maxwell, with Cadillac fifth. In 1910 the firm built 15,020 vehicles
and again held on to fourth place behind Ford, Buick, and Overland. In 1911, the
firm placed second in overall assemblies with 26,827 automobiles produced for
the year. In his history of E-M-F, Anthony Yanik stated Studebaker built its
strong automotive base "on the shoulders of E-M-F", having
"purchased the entire company for an outrageous price in 1910". However, the E-M-F production figures had been
underpinned by Studebaker's vast resources, and sales were largely dependent on
Studebaker's reputation and marketing network.
Flanders also ran the short-lived Flanders Automobile Company,
which produced cars wholly based on previous E-M-F designs. The Flanders
company was absorbed into Maxwell Motor Company (Incorporated) which was
reorganized out of the assets of the United States Motor Company in
1913.
On June 20, 2005, the E-M-F Plant on Piquette
Avenue (at John R) caught fire and within a few hours it was gone. The
five-alarm fire nearly spread to the famous Ford Piquette Avenue Plant
where Henry Ford built the first Model T.
