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Featured Article
Image of The Week
By Sigur Whitaker
The Empire Motor Company was started by Indianapolis Motor Speedway founders Carl Fisher, James Allison, and Arthur Newby and Robert Hassler to manufacture a low cost, four-cylinder, 20 horsepower car. It was 1909, the same year as the construction and opening of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Not only were the partners busy with the details of the construction of the Speedway, Fisher also had an automobile agency (dealership) and was a partner with Jim Allison in the Prest-O-Lite company which was the power source for early headlights. Jim Allison was not only involved with Prest-O-Lite but also with his family’s company, Allison Coupon. Arthur Newby was a principal in Indianapolis-based automobile company National Motor Car Company.
They delegated the daily responsibility for the Empire Motor Car Company’s operations to Hassler who was a mechanical engineer with National Motor Car Company. The company took over the manufacturing facility for the Mohawk Cycle Works on West 29th Street and Elmira Street. The business plan was to produce between 1,000 and 2,000 automobiles annually. The press releases were quintessential Fisher, stating that the Empire had “been under development for a year” and through “long and careful experimental work it had reached a very high state of perfection.”
The company’s first car, the Twenty, was offered in two different models. Model A, priced at $800, was a conventional runabout with a rumble seat for a third passenger. The “B” model, known as the Little Aristocrat, had bucket seats, a longer hood, and higher gearing and retailed for $850. While it was not an expensive car, the advertising for the Little Aristocrat promised that it would “look classy and perform as well as the most costly car you can buy.” While it was stylish, the car couldn’t deliver its advertised maximum speed of 35 mph. The top speed was 20 mph.
The Speedway opened in August 1909 and the results were disastrous. While the racing was exciting, the track broke up and the 300-mile feature race on the second day of racing was canceled after 235 miles. The partners had a decision to make. Were they going to modify the track by paving it with either brick or concrete or were they going to just absorb the loss and close the Speedway. They made the decision to pave the Speedway with 3.2 million bricks which was accomplished by December 1909. To encourage racing at the Speedway in 1910, they held some races on December 17 and 18.
An Empire was the first car to attempt a new speed record on a bitterly cold day with temperatures in the single digits. Driven by Newell Motsinger, the car was the only competitor in its class of under 160 cubic inches. Its performance in the 20-mile free for all, it finished sixth out of seven entrants. The seventh-place racer was a National which ran out of gas. The next day, which was even colder, Newell Motsinger was one of three drivers to take the car on the track.
Allison, Fisher, and Newby understood that if the car performed well in auto races, it was good advertising for the cars. They entered the Little Aristocrat in a three-day program at the end of May 1910. Once again, the car’s performance was disappointing. In a one-mile flying start, Newell Motsinger covered the distance in 107.1 seconds. Other participants had times in the 41 to 46 second range. The Empire was the first of fifteen starters in a five-mile free for all. Despite having been the first to start, it finished last. The “Little Aristocrat” was also entered in a ten-mile free-for-all. It finished four minutes behind the other entrants except Herb Lytle’s car which crashed.
In June 1910, management announced they would build only one model (the “C”). Priced at $950, it was a two-seat roadster and had extras including an “racy type top” for $50, a folding glass front for $25 and a Prest-O-Lite tank fitted to the car with a supply line installed for $20.
Empire turned in its best performance at the 4th of July events at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Charlie Merz drove the car in a flying one-mile start at 63.38 seconds. It also participated in a ten-mile free-for-all and finished sixteenth out of twenty entries. After having proclaimed for the past year that the Empire could run with any other car and not having the performances to measure up to the promotion, Allison, Newby, and Fisher stopped the promotion. The Empire’s racing days were over.
Allison, Fisher, and Newby, who had been very focused on the inaugural Indianapolis 500 as well as their other business interests, turned their attention to Empire Motorcar Company. Robert Hassler had been running the company without any direction from the other partners. When they delved into the company’s records, they were confronted with results that were much worse than they had thought.
In an attempt to restructure the company, they hired Harry Stutz as the designer and factory manager. At the time of the announcement, Stutz, the former chief engineer and designer for the Marion Motor Car Company, had formed Stutz Auto Parts to market his transaxle. In announcing the change, the partners announced that Stutz was “making radical and beneficial changes in the design of this car.” What was unknown to the partners when they hired Stutz, is that he was designing his own car. His focus was on this car rather than the Empire. It didn’t take long for Stutz’s involvement with Empire to end. By the end of 1911, the partners had sold the car and retooled the factory to manufacture Prest-O-Lite starters.
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