14. La Chaux-de-Fonds, http://www.chaux-de-fonds.ch (accessed December 16, 2013).
15. Borgeson, Golden Age of American Car Racing, p. 53.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. “Frontenac, Louis de Baude, comte de Pallau et de,” The New Encyclopedia Britannica (London, 2005). See also Historical Narrative of Early Canada, http://www.uppercanadahistory.ca (accessed June 29, 2014).
21. “Frontenac, Louis de Baude, comte de Pallau et de”; Historical Narrative of Early Canada.
22. Borgeson, Golden Age of American Car Racing, p. 62.
23. “Chevrolet’s Opinion of the Big Race,” Automobile, June 24, 1909, p. 1014.
24. Borgeson, Golden Age of American Car Racing, p. 54.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.; citation of Louis Chevrolet’s 1992 induction into the International Motors-ports Hall of Fame in Talladega, Alabama, Talladega Superspeedway, http://www.talladegasuperspeedway.com/Hall-of-Fame-and-Museum.aspx (accessed May 3, 2000); “Louis Chevrolet, Auto Pioneer, Dies: Builder of First Car to Bear His Name, Once World’s Leading Racing Driver, Set Mile Speed Record,” New York Times, June 7, 1941.
28. Borgeson, Golden Age of American Car Racing, p. 54.
29. Ibid., p. 60.
30. “Chevrolet’s Opinion of the Big Race,” p. 1014.
31. Pound, Turning Wheel, p. 143.
32. Pound, Turning Wheel, p. 143; Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 91.
33. Gustin, Billy Durant, pp. 92–93.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., p. 137; Bernard A. Weisberger, The Dream Maker: William C. Durant, Founder of General Motors (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979), p. 140.
36. Weisberger, Dream Maker, p. 140.
37. Ibid.
38. Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 88.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid., p. 89.
41. Charles Leerhsen, Blood and Smoke: A True Tale of Mystery, Mayhem, and the Birth of the Indy 500 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011), p. 49.
42. Ibid.
43. Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 137.
44. “Calendar Production Figures for GM,” GM: The First 75 Years of Transportation Products (Princeton, NJ: Automobile Quarterly Productions; Detroit: General Motors, 1983), p. 216.
45. Ibid.
46. “Albert Champion, Head of AC, Dies in Paris Hotel,” Flint Journal, October 28, 1927.
47. Phone interview with Daniel L. Dolan, Media Relations, AC Rochester (predecessor to today’s ACDelco division), January 31, 1994. Dolan discussed stories passed down from retired AC Spark Plug workers.
48. “Albert Champion, Head of AC, Dies in Paris Hotel.”
49. Citation of Louis Chevrolet’s 1992 induction into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame; Borgeson, Golden Age of American Car Racing, p. 55.
50. Borgeson, Golden Age of American Car Racing, p. 106.
51. Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 94.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Beverly Rae Kimes, “The Early Years of the Marque: Launching the Chevrolet,” Automobile Quarterly (Kutztown, PA) (Third Quarter 1980): 228.
56. Pound, Turning Wheel, p. 120; Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 123.
57. Weisberger, Dream Maker, p. 112.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Pound, Turning Wheel, p. 125.
61. Ibid., p. 126.
62. Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 125, citing a 1909 profile by Louis E. Rowley in Detroit Saturday Night.
63. Alfred P. Sloan Jr. with Boyden Sparkes, Adventures of a White-Collar Man (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1941). p. 113.
64. Pound, Turning Wheel, p. 95.
65. Ibid.
66. Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 124.
67. Ibid., p. 134.
68. Ibid., p. 136; Richard P. Scharchburg, ed., The GM Story: Corporation Created by Dynamic Flint, Bold Men (Flint: MI: General Motors Institute, 1958), p. 5.
69. Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 139.
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid., p. 141; Pound, Turning Wheel, p. 128.
72. Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 142.
73. Ibid.
74. “Calendar Production Figures for GM,” p. 216.
75. Ibid.
76. Richard P. Scharchburg, W. C. Durant: “The Boss” (Flint, MI: General Motors Institute, 1973), p. 31.
77. “An Abridged History of SAE,” Society of Automotive Engineers International, http://www.sae.org/about/general/history (accessed June 22, 2014).
78. Ibid.
79. “Albert Champion,” Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers (November 1927): 617.
80. Al Rothenberg, “The Mystifying Millionaire: The Best Known and Least Known of GM’s Leaders,” Automotive News, September 16, 1983; “Mott, Charles Stewart,” The New Encyclopedia Britannica (London: 2005).
81. Rothenberg, “Mystifying Millionaire”; “Mott, Charles Stewart.”
82. Rothenberg, “Mystifying Millionaire.”
83. “Buick and Weston-Mott Plants,” Automobile, February 1, 1906, p. 324.
84. Sloan, Adventures of a White-Collar Man, p. 48, mentions that Durant provided $100,000 cash for expenses and construction of the plant.
85. Ibid.
86. William Pelfrey, Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of Two Unique Men, a Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time in American History (New York: American Management Association, 2006), p. 100.
87. Sloan, Adventures of a White-Collar Man, p. 49. Sloan wrote that he liked to work with Mott: “Neither of us took pride in hunches. We left all the glory of that kind of thinking to such men as liked to be labeled ‘genius,’” a swipe at Durant, who was content to let the press credit him as a genius.
88. Pelfrey, Billy, Alfred, and General Motors, p. 61.
89. Ibid., p. 61; Pound, Turning Wheel, p. 101.
90. Pound, Turning Wheel, p. 104.
91. Ibid.
92. Ibid., p. 106; Pelfrey, Billy, Alfred, and General Motors, p. 134.
93. Pound, Turning Wheel, p. 107.
94. “Albert Champion.”
95. “Presentation to A. L. Clayden,” SAE. Bulletin, 1912, p. 15.
96. SAE 70th Anniversary Book (Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers International, 1980), p. 16.
97. Ibid.
98. Kimes, “Early Years of the Marque,” p. 232; Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 145.
99. Kimes, “Early Years of the Marque,” p. 232.
100. Borgeson, Golden Age of the American Racing Car, p. 99.
101. Ibid., p. 100.
102. Kimes, “Early Years of the Marque,” p. 233.
103. Ibid.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid., p. 239; Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 157; Borgeson, Golden Age of the American Racing Car, p. 55.
106. Borgeson, Golden Age of the American Racing Car.
107. Kimes, “Early Years of the Marque,” p. 236.
108. Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 156.
109. Borgeson, Golden Age of the American Racing Car, p. 53.
110. Kimes, “Early Years of the Marque,” p. 239; Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 157.
111. Borgeson, Golden Age of the American Racing Car, p. 56.
112. Ibid.; Pound, Turning Wheel, p. 146.
113. Borgeson, Golden Age of the American Racing Car, p. 100.
114. David J. Andrea, “AC Spark Plug,” Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography, the Automobile Industry, 1896–1920 (New York: Bruccoli Clark Layman, 1990), p. 3; Richard P. Scharchburg, “Albert Champion,” p. 80; “Albert Champion,” The AC Rochester 85th Anniversary (Linden, MI: McVey Marketing and Advertising, 1993), p. 19.
115. William C. Durant, William C. Durant: In His Own Words, The Unedited Memoirs of William C. Durant (Flint, MI: Scharchburg Archives at Kettering University, 2008), p. 23.
116. US Patent No. 959,052, issued May 24, 1910
.
117. Borgeson, Golden Age of the American Racing Car, p. 99.
118. Ibid.
119. Ibid.
120. Ibid., p. 100.
121. Ibid., p. 56. Borgeson, editor-in-chief of Motor Trend and writer for Sports Car Illustrated, predecessor of today’s Car and Driver, conducted several interviews in the 1950s with Cornelius Willett van Ranst, who was in charge of engineering the engines of Frontenac racecars that won the Indy 500 in 1920 and 1921, a rare occasion when the same manufacturer won back-to-back titles. Borgeson’s The Golden Age of the American Racing Car was acclaimed by the Society of Automotive Engineers International for rescuing the memory of the era of brilliant racecar work in America. In 1977 SAEI published a second edition of the book, which is still in print.
122. Ibid., p. 56; Kimes, “Early Years of the Marque,” p. 239. Kimes (1939–2008) was a leading automotive writer renowned as a stickler for accuracy and detail in her plethora of articles and books. She cites Borgeson in describing the fight between Champion and Chevrolet.
123. Borgeson, Golden Age of the American Racing Car.
CHAPTER 13. FIGHTING CHANCES
1. “How Willys Entered Auto Industry,” Automobile, October 28, 1909, p. 738.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. “Overland Buys Pope-Toledo Factory,” Automobile, April 8, 1909, p. 590.
5. “Stranahan Brought Firm, Heavy Debt to Toledo in 1910: Industrial Empire Built from Modest Start, Sold His Product to Willys, Ford,” Toledo Blade, February 8, 1962.
6. “General Trade News,” Automobile, June 2, 1910, p. 1031; Ann Stranahan, An American Chronicle: The Stranahan Chronicles (Perrysburg, OH: 2004), p. 16.
7. “Introduced Wife, Surprised Mother: Spencer U. Stranahan, Brookline, and His Bride Marry without Publicity,” Boston Herald, May 31, 1907.
8. Copy of Record of Death, Town Clerk’s Office, Brookline, MA.
9. “Stranahan Brought Firm, Heavy Debt to Toledo in 1910”; “Robert A. Stranahan Sr. Dead; Founded Champion Spark Plug,” New York Times, February 10, 1962; “Company Profile, Champion Spark Plug Co., Toledo, Ohio,” Motor Age (December 1976): 55.
10. “Stranahan Brought Firm, Heavy Debt to Toledo in 1910.”
11. Stephen Stranahan, “The Entrepreneurial Years,” in Ann Stranahan’s family memoir An American Chronicle, unnumbered pages, June 6, 2006, based on corporate records in the family.
12. Ibid.
13. “How Willys Entered Auto Industry.”
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. “John Willis,” Encyclopedia of World Biography (New York: 2004), http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404707705.html (accessed February 1, 2014).
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. “Overland Buys Pope-Toledo Factory.”
20. Ibid.
21. Honored by the US Postal Service in the 1990s as the subject of a first-class thirty-two-cent stamp.
22. “Overland Buys Pope-Toledo Factory.”
23. “Col. Pope Passes Away,” Bicycling World and Motorcycle Review, August 14, 1909, pp. 779–81.
24. “News in Brief from the East, West, and South,” Automobile, December 1, 1910, p. 940.
25. “Stranahan Brought Firm, Heavy Debt to Toledo in 1910.”
26. “How Willys Entered Auto Industry .”
27. “Calendar Year Production Figures for GM,” GM: The First 75 Years of Transportation Products (Princeton, NJ: Automobile Quarterly Productions; Detroit: General Motors, 1983), p. 216.
28. Robert Lacey: Ford: The Men and the Machine (New York: Ballantine Books, 1987), p. 112. Lacey lists Ford Model Ts selling 18,664 cars in the fiscal year of October 1, 1909, to September 30, 1910, and 34,528 cars sold in the next fiscal year.
29. “Stranahan Brought Firm, Heavy Debt to Toledo in 1910.”
30. Ibid.
31. “Champion Seeks to Sell Its Spark Plugs to Ford after Sale of Autolite,” Wall Street Journal, April 21, 1972. The Champion Spark Plug Company was Ford’s exclusive supplier of spark plugs from 1911 through 1961, when Ford acquired Autolite.
32. “Union Adds Arizona and New Mexico,” Chronicle of America: From Prehistory to Today (New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1995), p. 573.
33. “Work Is Albert Champion’s Main Pastime—Says He Can’t Quit Now,” Detroit News, August 21, 1927.
34. Patent Number 1,042,619, granted October 29, 1912, from the US Patent Office.
35. Ibid.
36. Stranahan, American Chronicle.
37. Corporate card file, http://www.sec.state.ma.us./CorpWeb/CardSearch.aspx (accessed September 15, 2013).
38. Stranahan, American Chronicle.
39. Ibid.
40. Motor World, March 7, 1912, p. 1070, published a Champion Spark Plug Company advertisement facing a Champion Ignition Company ad, p. 1071.
41. Ibid.
42. Motor World full-page ad, March 7, 1912, p. 1082.
43. Albert Champion, “Spark-Plugs for High-Speed Engines,” 1917 Transactions (New York: Society of Automotive Engineers, 1918), p. 354.
44. Ibid.
45. Automobile, February 6, 1905, p. 41.
46. Automobile, January 24, 1907, p. 44.
47. “Keeping Pace with 2000% Growth: What Burroughs Direct-to-Ledger Posting Has Done for the Champion Spark Plug Company,” Burroughs Adding Machine Company advertisement, Daily Register Gazette (Rockford, IL), April 19, 1917.
48. “In the Courts,” Bay City Times (Bay City, MI), May 8, 1917.
49. Ibid.
50. Alfred P. Sloan with John McDonald, My Years with General Motors (New York: Currency and Doubleday, 1990), p. 8.
51. “Ford Assembly Line Open,” in Chronicle of America: From Prehistory to Today (New York: Dorline Kindersley), p. 580.
52. “To Sell Cars to the Common Man, Ford Offers Workers $5 a Day,” in ibid., p. 582.
53. “History of the Atlas Valley Country Club,” http://www.atlasvalleycountryclub.com (accessed June 29, 2014).
54. “Country Club Celebration on Labor Day,” Flint Journal, September 5, 1916. His score for eighteen holes was 101.
55. “Dinner Dance at Country Club,” Flint Journal, September 21, 1916.
56. Ibid.
57. “Cups Offered in Golf Tournament,” Flint Journal, September 18, 1916; “Mrs. Albert Champion Wins Women’s Putting Contest,” Flint Journal, September 4, 1917.
58. “Work Is Albert Champion’s Main Pastime.”
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid.
62. “Runs Automobile into Ditch to Avoid Collision: Albert Champion Has Narrow Escape from Serious Injury,” Flint Journal, May 31, 1916.
63. Arthur Pound, The Turning Wheel: The Story of General Motors through Twenty-Five Years, 1908–1933 (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1934), p. 150.
64. Lawrence R. Gustin, Billy Durant: Creator of General Motors (Flushing, MI: Craneshaw Publishers, 1984), p. 164.
65. Ibid., p. 165.
66. Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 165; Sloan, My Years with General Motors, pp. 9–10.
67. William Pelfrey, Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of the Two Unique Men, a Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time in American History (New York: American Management Association, 2006), p. 183.
68. Ibid., p. 185; Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 165.
69. Pelfrey, Billy, Alfred, and General Motors, 194.
70. Ibid.
71. Sloan, My Years with General Motors, p. 12.
72. Ibid., p. 187.
73. Ibid., p. 193; Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 178.
74. Sloan, My Years with General Motors, p. 188; Gustin, Billy Durant, p. 168.
75. Gustin, Billy Durant, pp. 167–68.
76. Ibid., p. 170.
77. Ibid., p. 178; Sloan, My Years with General Motors, p.11; Pelfrey, Billy, Alfred, and General Motors, p. 194.
78. Gustin, Billy Durant, pp. 181–83.
79. Ibid., p. 173; Sloan, My Years
with General Motors, p. 11; Pelfrey, Billy, Alfred, and General Motors, p. 190.
80. Sloan, My Years with General Motors.
81. “Under Fire of Aeroplane Guns of the Germans, Albert Schmidt Returns to Flint after Five months in French Army,” Flint Journal, January 20, 1915, p. 1.
82. John B. Rae, The American Automobile, A Brief History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 72.
83. Gérard and Bertrand Pommier, Nieuport: A Biography of Edouard Nieuport (Atglen, PA: Shifter Publishing, 2002), pp. 65–73.
84. Ibid., p. 86.
85. “America Irate over Lusitania’s Sinking,” in Chronicle of America, p. 587.
86. “United States Enters the War ‘To Save Democracy,’” in ibid., p. 599.
87. “Plan Flint Industrial Survey for Defense,” Daily Telegram (Adrian, MI), May 20, 1916.
88. “Puts New Spark Plugs on Market: One of New Devices Is for Use in Aviation to Stop Mishaps,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 31, 1916.
89. “Work Is Albert Champion’s Main Pastime.”
90. “Albert Champion Is One Busy Man: Head of Ignition Company Is Director of Many Departments,” Flint Journal, February 20, 1917.
91. Ibid.
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid.
94. Ibid.
95. Ibid.
96. “Work Is Albert Champion’s Main Pastime.”
97. “Albert Champion Is One Busy Man.”
98. “What Spark Plug Means to the Motor: Facts Concerning Making of Important Little Contrivance,” Flint Journal, February 23, 1917.
99. Ibid.
100. “Under Fire of Aeroplane Guns.”
101. Ibid.
102. Rae, American Automobile, p. 66.
103. “Once Champ Rider Now Spark Plug King: Albert Champion Has Increased the Output of His Factory to 12,000,000 a Year and Now Leads in This Field—A Pioneer in This Line,” Boston Herald, March 4, 1917, p. 55.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid.
106. Ibid.
107. Ibid.
108. “United States Enters the War ‘To Save Democracy.’”
109. Richard P. Scharchburg, ed., GM Story: Corporation Created by Dynamic Flint, Bold Men (Flint, MI: General Motors Institute), p. 10.
110. “In the Courts.”
111. “Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and the District Courts of the United States, March-April 1918,” Federal Reporter, vol. 247 (St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1918), CHAMPION SPARK PLUG CO. v. CHAMPION IGNITION CO., et al. (District Court, E.D. Michigan, N.D. November 22, 1917), pp. 200–207.
The Fast Times of Albert Champion Page 45