![]() | |
Industry | Automobile |
---|---|
Founded | 1916 |
Founder | William M. Murray |
Defunct | 1920 |
Headquarters | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
Products | automobiles |
Murray Motor Car Company was an American automobile manufacturer based in Pennsylvania.
William N. Murray, who worked for a Packard distributor, founded the company in Pittsburgh in 1916. [1] His goal was to create powerful, distinctive "prestige" cars. [2] Murray was an automotive enthusiast and was said to have driven the first motorized vehicle, a De Dion-Bouton tricycle, on the streets of Pittsburgh. [3] The company was located at 3727 Webster Avenue in Pittsburgh with the manufacturing facility at 3700 Grand Boulevard. [4] [5] The same year, automobile production began. In December 1916, the first vehicles were on display at the New York Show. Production ended in 1920. [6] [7] In 1917 James Radcliffe Murray, president of the company's other office in Baltimore was killed in an automobile accident while test driving a new car. [8] [9] The company made 269 vehicles in total: 121 vehicles in 1917; 87 in 1918; and 61 in 1919. Their sales manager resigned in 1920. [10]
In 1920 the company went into receivership and was purchased and moved production to Newark, New Jersey and Murray was said to still be involved. [11] [12] [13] The company opened up a service station in New York City. [14] The company was then reorganized in Boston, Massachusetts under the leadership of John J. McCarthy as the Murray-Mac Car Company and operated until 1929, though it still issued stock under the name "Murray Motor Car Company". [15] [16] [17]
The company made one basic model in 1917. The Eight had a V8 engine from Herschell-Spillman with Westinghouse starters and lighting. [2] It was rated at 34 horsepower. The aluminum chassis, with "colors optional" had a 128-inch wheelbase. [18] The 1917 models had electric clocks and slanted windshields. [17] In 1918, a touring car with seven seats and a roadster with two seats were available. Both new cars had radiators "of the Rolls Royce type." [19] In 1918 the price of the seven-passenger touring car was raised from $2550 to $2800. [20] [21]
In 1918, the roadster remained unchanged. The 1918 touring car had four seats. The touring car was described at the New York Auto show. [22]
so very angular that it was positively cubist. Nothing better than this car could illustrate the tendency to run to the very extreme of anything new. If there was an angle acute, obtuse, indiscreet or impertinent that this car does not contain, you would have to go to Euclid to find out what it was and to name it.
The "cubist motor car" description caught on. Their stock car was described that way in Vogue magazine in 1918, pointing out the square mud-guards and saying the car was "entirely individual and distinctive." [23] A limousine with five seats was also added. The 1918 models came with shock absorbers as standard equipment. [24] When production moved from Pittsburgh to Newark, the company planned "only a few minor changes" to their models. [14]
Very few Murray-Mac cars were ever built. They came on to the market "one or two at a time" and "none of them were exactly alike." [25] [17] [26] The company produced specifications for a car called the Murray-Mac 70-T, a six-cylinder car, but it's unclear if any were ever built. [27] [28] The Boston company came out with a new car, the Murray Six, in 1926 which was shown at the Boston Automobile Show. [29]
Year | Model | Cylinder (engine) | Horsepower | Wheelbase (in) | Construction |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1917 | Eight | 8 | 34 | 128 | Touring wagon 7-seat, Roadster 2-seat |
1918 | Eight | 8 | 34 | 128 | Touring wagon 4-seat, Roadster 2-seat, Limousine 5-seat |
1921 | Six | 6 | 52 | 128 | |
1922 | 70-T | 6 | 131 |
Charles Williams Nash was an American automobile entrepreneur who served as an executive in the automotive industry. He played a significant role in building up General Motors as its fifth president. In 1916, he bought Thomas B. Jeffery Company, makers of the popular Rambler automobile, and renamed it Nash Motors. The resulting firm played an independent role in an automobile industry increasingly dominated by the Big Three: General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler.
Louis-Joseph Chevrolet was an American racing driver, mechanic and entrepreneur who co-founded the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in 1911.
The Brass Era is an American term for the early period of automotive manufacturing, named for the prominent brass fittings used during this time for such features as lights and radiators. It is generally considered to encompass 1896 through 1915, a time when cars were often referred to as horseless carriages.
The Lexington was an automobile manufactured in Connersville, Indiana, from 1910 to 1927. From the beginning, Lexingtons, like most other Indiana-built automobiles, were assembled cars, built with components from many different suppliers. The Thoroughbred Six and Minute Man Six were popular Lexington models.
The Owen Magnetic was a pioneering American brand of hybrid electric luxury automobile manufactured between 1915 and 1922. Car models of the brand were notable for their use of an electromagnetic transmission and were early examples of an electric series hybrid drivetrain. The manufacture of the car was sponsored by R.M. Owen & Company of New York, New York. The car was built in New York City in 1915, in Cleveland, Ohio, between 1916 and 1919 and finally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1920 and 1921.
Crane-Simplex was the common name of the Simplex Crane Model 5 luxury automobile, produced by the Simplex Automobile Company in New Brunswick, New Jersey, from 1915 to 1918.
The Standard was an American automobile manufactured in Butler, Pennsylvania from 1914 until 1923 by the Standard Steel Car Company.
Harry Clayton Stutz was an American automobile manufacturer, entrepreneur, self-taught engineer, and innovator in the automobile industry. Stutz was part of the burgeoning Indianapolis automotive industry of the early 20th century, where he founded the Ideal Motor Car Company, later known as the Stutz Motor Car Company, and the short-lived H. C. S. Motor Car Company.
Scripps-Booth was a United States automobile marque based in Detroit, Michigan. Established by James Scripps Booth in 1913, Scripps-Booth Company produced motor vehicles and was later acquired by General Motors, becoming a division of it, until the brand was discontinued in 1923.
Oliver Parker Fritchle was an American chemist, storage battery innovator, and entrepreneur with electric vehicle and wind power generation businesses during the early twentieth century. His initial battery patent was awarded in 1903 and by 1904 he had established what was to become the Fritchle Automobile & Battery Company in Denver, Colorado. He was an early adaptor and developer of significant automotive technologies, such as regenerative braking and hybrid drivetrains, that did not reemerge on production vehicles of major car companies until late in the twentieth century.
The Ogren Motor Car Company was a vintage era luxury automobile manufacturer based in Chicago, Illinois from 1915 to 1917 and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from 1920 to 1923.
Inglis Moore Uppercu (1877–1944) was an American businessman involved in both the automotive and aviation industry. He was the founder and president of Aeromarine Plane and Motor Company.
Ferdinand Nickolas Kahler Sr. was an American inventor, entrepreneur and automobile pioneer who founded The Kahler Co. in New Albany, Indiana.
Owen Ray Skelton was an American automotive industry engineer and automobile designer. Along with Fred M. Zeder and Carl Breer, he was one of the core group who formed the present day Chrysler Corporation. He made material contributions to Tourist Automobile Company, Allis-Chalmers, Studebaker, and was the main engineer behind the Chrysler Airflow automobile. He was elected to the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2002.
The Simplex Automobile Company was formed in 1907 to take over the manufacturer of the S & M Simplex. The Simplex was an American luxury Brass Era automobile manufactured from 1907 to 1918. Headquartered with a manufacturing plant in New York City, manufacturing from 1912 was in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The Simplex Crane Model 5 was commonly called Simplex-Crane and Crane-Simplex. The Crane-Simplex Company of Long Island, New York, was an attempt in 1922 to revive the brand but closed after only a few chassis were built.
Phianna was an American luxury automobile manufactured from 1916 to 1922, first in Newark, New Jersey and then Long Island City, New York.
Henry Middlebrook Crane was an American engineer and pioneer in the automobile industry. He was the president of Crane Motor Car Company, vice president of engineering for the Simplex Automobile Company, and designed the Pontiac Six motor for General Motors.