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Champion is an American brand of spark plug.
Champion is a longtime sponsor of various racing events, cars, and series including two series run under sanctioning by IMSA.[ citation needed ]
Albert Champion Company was founded by Albert Champion in June 1905 in Boston's South End, in the landmark Cyclorama Building, to import French electrical parts, including Nieuport components. Champion presided as president of the Albert Champion Company with partners Frank D. Stranahan as treasurer and younger brother Spencer Stranahan as a clerk. By 1907, The Albert Champion Company was manufacturing porcelain spark plugs with the name Champion stamped on the side, Robert Stranahan, the youngest of the Stranahan brothers, finished his classes at Harvard, ahead of his class of 1908, and went to work in the stockroom.
Champion was not happy in his job because he had no control over his work. In 1908, he went to see William C. Durant of the Buick Motor Co. Durant asked to see some of his prototypes. Buick at that time was using Rajah spark plugs. Durant thought they could manufacture spark plugs to Champion's design cheaper than buying them from Rajah, and set Champion up in a workshop in Flint, Michigan. Champion went to work producing spark plugs to be used in Buick automobiles.
In 1910, the company moved to Toledo, Ohio to be close to the Willys-Overland Auto Company. [1]
In 1931, Champion introduced its first suppressor-type spark plugs. It used a carbon-based resistor to reduce the effects of ignition noise on radio waves. [2]
On February 13, 1961, two geode prospectors discovered a metal artifact encased in hard clay near the town of Olancha, California. The artifact was dubbed "Coso artifact" due to alleged claims that there were fossils in the clay that were 500,000 years old, which would make the item an out-of-place artifact. The object turned out to be a Champion spark plug from the 1920s. [3]
In 1989, Champion was purchased by Cooper Industries and is now a wholly owned brand of Federal-Mogul Corporation. Its main products are a line of spark plugs for a wide range of cars, trucks, SUVs, racing, and marine applications. Also included in the brand, depending on the regional market and brand history, are spark plug wires, wiper blades, batteries, oil filters, lighting, and glow plugs. [2]
A character, Cliff Booth, portrayed by Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood wore a Champion shirt, briefly causing it to become a fashion statement in 2019. [4]
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American multinational automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. By sales, it was the largest automaker in the United States in 2022, and was the largest in the world for 77 years before losing the top spot to Toyota in 2008.
Chevrolet is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941), Arthur Chevrolet (1884–1946) and ousted General Motors founder William C. Durant (1861–1947) started the company on November 3, 1911 as the Chevrolet Motor Car Company. Durant used the Chevrolet Motor Car Company to acquire a controlling stake in General Motors with a reverse merger occurring on May 2, 1918, and propelled himself back to the GM presidency. After Durant's second ousting in 1919, Alfred Sloan, with his maxim "a car for every purse and purpose", would pick the Chevrolet brand to become the volume leader in the General Motors family, selling mainstream vehicles to compete with Henry Ford's Model T in 1919 and overtaking Ford as the best-selling car in the United States by 1929 with the Chevrolet International.
Buick is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American marques of automobiles, and was the company that established General Motors in 1908. Before the establishment of General Motors, GM founder William C. Durant had served as Buick's general manager and major investor.
Walter Percy Chrysler was an American industrial pioneer in the automotive industry, American automotive industry executive and the founder and namesake of American Chrysler Corporation.
A spark plug is an electrical device used in an internal combustion engine to produce a spark which ignites the air-fuel mixture in the combustion chamber. As part of the engine's ignition system, the spark plug receives high-voltage electricity which it uses to generate a spark in the small gap between the positive and negative electrodes. The timing of the spark is a key factor in the engine's behaviour, and the spark plug usually operates shortly before the combustion stroke commences.
McLaughlin Motor Car Company Limited was a Canadian manufacturer of automobiles headquartered in Oshawa, Ontario. Founded by Robert McLaughlin, it once was the largest carriage manufacturing factory in the British Empire.
Durant Motors Inc. was established in 1921 by former General Motors CEO William "Billy" Durant following his termination by the GM board of directors and the New York bankers who financed GM.
Flint East was an automobile component production complex owned by Delphi Corporation in Flint, Michigan. The complex, parts of which were over 100 years old, was located on Dort Highway, stretching along Robert T. Longway Boulevard past Center Road. The plant produced numerous automotive components, including instrument panels, instrument clusters, spark plugs, filters, air meters, fuel pumps and other parts. Flint East once employed nearly 14,000 people, but by 2007, the number was down to nearly 1,100 hourly workers. The plant closed entirely in November 2013 and the remaining buildings were razed. In 2017, Phoenix Investors, a Wisconsin-based commercial real estate firm, purchased the land.
Frank Richard Stranahan was an American sportsman. He had significant success in both amateur and professional golf. He was ranked number one in his weight class in powerlifting, from 1945 to 1954, and he became known on the golf course and off as the "Toledo strongman" long before the modern game of golf and fitness. After he retired from tournament golf in the early 1960s, he became a prolific long-distance runner, competing in 102 marathons.
The Coso artifact is an object claimed by its discoverers to be a spark plug encased in a geode. Discovered on February 13, 1961, by Wallace Lane, Virginia Maxey and Mike Mikesell while they were prospecting for geodes near the town of Olancha, California, it has long been claimed as an example of an out-of-place artifact. The artifact has been identified as a 1920s-era Champion spark plug.
Metroparks Toledo, officially the Metropolitan Park District of the Toledo Area, is a public park district consisting of parks, nature preserves, a botanical garden, trail network and historic battlefield in Lucas County, Ohio.
Autolite or Auto-Lite is an American brand of spark plugs and ignition wire sets. Autolite products are sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Australia. Until 2011, the Autolite brand was a part of Honeywell's automotive Consumer Products Group, along with FRAM and Prestone. Since then, it has been manufactured and marketed by FRAM Group. Autolite has been the official spark plug of NASCAR since April 2000.
Flint, Michigan is a city which previously relied on its automotive industry, and still does to an extent. Over the past several decades, General Motors plants in Genesee County have experienced re-namings, management shifts, openings, closures, reopenings, and spinoffs.
Wildwood Preserve Metropark is a nature reserve and historic estate located in Sylvania Township, Ohio. Wildwood is the most-visited of the 19-park Metroparks Toledo district.
Albert Champion was a French track bicycle racer and later an industrialist who won the 1899 Paris–Roubaix. In 1905 he incorporated the Albert Champion Company in Boston to make porcelain spark plugs with his name on them. Three years later founded the Champion Ignition Company in Flint, Michigan. In 1922 he changed the name to AC Spark Plug Company, after his initials, to settle out of court with his original partners in the Albert Champion Company. The company is now known as ACDelco and is owned by General Motors.
ACDelco is an American automotive parts brand owned by General Motors (GM). Factory parts for vehicles manufactured by GM are consolidated under the ACDelco brand, which also offers aftermarket parts for non-GM vehicles. Over its long history it has been known by various names such as United Motors Corporation, United Motors Service, and United Delco. The brand "ACDelco" should not be confused with GM's former AC Delco Systems, formed in 1994 from the merger of AC Rochester Division and Delco Remy Division. In 1995 Delphi Automotive Systems absorbed AC Delco Systems.
Rainier Motor Car Company was an American automobile manufacturer founded in 1905 by John T. Rainier in Flushing, New York and from 1908 produced in Saginaw, Michigan. The company specialized in manufacturing large and luxurious automobiles. In 1909, the company was bought by General Motors who maintained the brand until 1911.
The Sheridan was a brand of American automobile manufactured from 1920 to 1921. Manufacture of the car was based in Muncie, Indiana. The Sheridan nameplate has the distinction of being the first automotive brand started from scratch by General Motors. Prior to the Sheridan, General Motors, under William (Billy) Durant, grew its automotive marques Chevrolet, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac, by acquiring independent manufacturers and then folding their operations into the GM structure.
Josiah Dallas Dort was an American engineer and automobile pioneer of the United States automobile industry. He was born in Inkster, Michigan on February 27, 1861. His father was a well-to-do country squire and merchant, well connected politically, who died in 1871 when Josiah was 10. Dort left school at age 15 to help his mother in business and to work at a crockery firm. He moved to Flint, Michigan in 1879. In 1881, he began working at a Flint hardware store, and within a few years opened his own hardware store.
George Secor Stranahan was an American physicist and entrepreneur, best remembered for founding the Flying Dog Brewery, Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey, and the Aspen Center for Physics. His family owned the Champion Spark Plug Company, and his inheritance was used to found these ventures. He founded the Woody Creek Tavern, which was the favorite watering hole of Hunter S. Thompson, who was also Stranahan's best friend. He founded and was principal of the Aspen Community School.
