 Reber logo from advertisement | |
| Industry | Automotive |
|---|---|
| Predecessor | Acme Manufacturing Company |
| Founded | 1901 |
| Founder | James C. Reber |
| Defunct | 1903 |
| Fate | name change |
| Successor | Acme Motor Car Company |
| Headquarters | Reading, Pennsylvania, |
Key people | James C. Reber, James Heaslet |
| Products | Automobiles |
The Reber was a make of American automobile manufactured at Reading, Pennsylvania from 1902 until 1903. It was made by the Reber Manufacturing Company, founded in 1901 by James C. Reber. [1]
Reber was admitted to Reading Boys High School in 1883 at the age of 15. [2] He became Secretary of the Young Men's Society of Christian Endeavour in 1886. [3] He was also Noble Chief of Fraternity Castle No 302 of Reading and in 1891 a Deacon of St Andrews Reformed Church. [4] [5] In 1890 he was the traveling agent for hardware merchants Bard, Reber, and Co, his father's company. [6] He married Mary Uhrich in September 1891 and the couple lived at 1852 Mineral Springs Road. [7] In 1895 Reber was a timer at the Penn Wheelmen bicycle races. [8]
In February 1894 Reber's father James T Reber founded the Acme Machine Company with capital of $40,000 and was its President. Reber was appointed as its General Manager. [9] The company was set up in Court Street to make bicycles and cigar-making machinery. [10]
On 1 July 1899 the Reber's resigned their interest in Bard, Reber, and Co (which first became Bard, Schlott, and Co and then in 1902 Bard Hardware Co) to concentrate their effort on Acme. Acme was making bicycles at that time. [11] Later in the month Acme joined, along with 44 other firms, the American Bicycle Company. [12]
On 15 July 1901 Reber announced that he was retiring from the American Bicycle Company and was constructing an automobile manufacturing plant at Wyomissing, east of the Montello brick plant. He had already constructed and tested a prototype which he believed would be popular. [13]
Reber Manufacturing Company made a number of experimental models. One of the earliest is held in the Reynolds-Alberta Museum, Canada. In 1902 James Reber hired engineer James Heaslet from Autocar to help him design a 'French type" automobile. [1] The result was the Reber Type IV Model A tonneau, powered by a vertical-twin engine from 1902 to 1903. This car was the crossover model with Acme. Reber's transmission was said to be used by Henry Ford in his first car. [14]
In June 1903 Reber acquired the old Acme Machine Company's bicycle factory on the corner of Eighth and Elm Streets, Reading for $47,000 at a receivership auction of the American Bicycle Company. Reber stated that he was going to use the factory to manufacture automobiles under the Reber Manufacturing Company name. [15] With the purchase of this site Reber also announced that Reber Manufacturing was changing its name to the Acme Motor Car Company. [16]
in 1903 James Reber hired Victor Jakob from Daimler in Germany to develop a new car that would become the 1904 Type V Acme. [1]
The Reber Manufacturing Company of Pottsville is a later company.
The Acme was a make of American automobiles made in Reading, Pennsylvania from 1903 to 1911. They were the successor of the Reber which was made from 1902 to 1903 by Reber Manufacturing.
L'Aster, Aster, Ateliers de Construction Mecanique l'Aster, was a French manufacturer of automobiles and the leading supplier of engines to other manufacturers from the late 1890s until circa 1910/12. Although primarily known as an engine mass manufacturer the company also produced chassis for coach-works and a complete range of components.
A Steam Car is a car (automobile) propelled by a steam engine. A steam engine is an external combustion engine (ECE), whereas the gasoline and diesel engines that eventually became standard are internal combustion engines (ICE). ECEs have a lower thermal efficiency, but carbon monoxide production is more readily regulated.
The Swift Motor Company made Swift Cars in Coventry, England from 1900 until 1931. It grew progressively from James Starley's Coventry Sewing Machine Company, via bicycle and motorised cycle manufacture. The cars ranged from a single-cylinder car in 1900 using an MMC engine, through a Swift-engined twin-cylinder 7-horsepower light car in 1904, and a 3-litre model in 1913. After the First World War a successful range was sold during the 1920s, but the Cadet of 1930 was its last vehicle as it could not compete economically with volume manufacturers such as Ford and Morris Motors.
Thomas Buckland Jeffery was a British emigrant to the United States who co-founded the Gormully & Jeffery company which made the Rambler bicycle. He invented the "clincher" rim which was widely used to fit tires to bicycles and early automobiles, and in 1900 established the Thomas B. Jeffery Company to make automobiles, again using Rambler branding.
Pope Manufacturing Company was founded by Albert Augustus Pope around 1876 in Boston, Massachusetts, US and incorporated in Hartford, Connecticut in 1877. Manufacturing of bicycles began in 1878 in Hartford at the Weed Sewing Machine Company factory. Pope manufactured bicycles, motorcycles, and automobiles. From 1905 to 1913, Pope gradually consolidated manufacturing to the Westfield Mass plant. The main offices remained in Hartford. It ceased automobile production in 1915 and ceased motorcycle production in 1918. The company subsequently underwent a variety of changes in form, name and product lines through the intervening years. To this day, bicycles continue to be sold under the Columbia brand.
Alexander Winton was a Scottish-American bicycle, automobile, and diesel engine designer and inventor, as well as a businessman and racecar driver. Winton founded the Winton Motor Carriage Company in 1897 in Cleveland, Ohio, making the city an important hub of early automotive manufacturing. His pioneering achievements in the automotive industry included taking one of the first long-distance journeys in America by car and developing one of the first commercial diesel engines. Winton left the automotive manufacturing business when he liquidated his car company in 1924 to focus on his powertrain engineering firm, Winton Gas Engine & Mfg. Co., which he had established twelve years earlier to focus on engine development. This business was sold to General Motors in 1930 and became the Cleveland Diesel Engine Division. Winton died in 1932 and is interred in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.
Rex, Rex Motorcycles, Rex-Acme, was a car and motorcycle company which began in Birmingham, England in 1900. Rex soon merged with a Coventry maker of bicycles and cars named Allard and then later in 1922 the company merged with Coventry's 'Acme' motorcycle company forming 'Rex Acme'. The company existed until 1933, and, in its heyday, was considered one of the greatest names in the British motorcycle industry.
The Union automobile was a vehicle manufactured by the Union Automobile Company from 1902 until 1905. It was designed by John William Lambert, who had developed the three-wheel Buckeye gasoline buggy in 1891. Over the next decade, Lambert substantially refined the vehicle, with modifications including an additional wheel, a more powerful engine, and a new transmission system. The Union Automobile Company was formed as a subsidiary of Lambert's Buckeye Manufacturing Company solely to manufacture the Union, which took its name from Union City, Indiana, the city where it was built and which endorsed its production. In total, the company built over three hundred Union automobiles, before development shifted to the Lambert automobile, the Union's successor.
The Gladiator Cycle Company, Clément-Gladiator, was a French manufacturer of bicycles, motorcycles and cars based in Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, Seine.
Gilbert Car Company was a railroad car builder based in Troy, New York. It began manufacturing streetcars in the late 1880s. Gilbert cars were sold and exported worldwide.
The Buckeye Manufacturing Company was a company noted for manufacturing gasoline engines and farm implements. It manufactured the engines for its sister company, the Union Automobile Company.
The Buckeye Gasoline Buggy, also known as the Lambert gasoline buggy, was an 1891 gasoline automobile, the first made in the United States. It was also the first automobile made available for sale in the United States. It was initially a three-wheel horseless carriage, propelled by an internal combustion gasoline engine; it was later developed into a four-wheel automobile with a gearless transmission, and mass-produced during the first part of the twentieth century. The platform was later expanded into a line of trucks and fire engines.
The Union Automobile Company was an automobile factory to manufacture the Union automobile through the Buckeye Manufacturing Company. It began manufacturing automobiles in 1902 and produced them through 1905. The company was located in Union City, Indiana.
Cecil Walkden Wood was a New Zealand engineer from Timaru who made New Zealand's first motorcycle in 1901 and second known indigenous motor car in 1902. He also instructed Richard Pearse on making an engine for his flying machine in 1901 and 1902.
SGV was a Brass Era American automobile manufacturer that made luxury automobiles using Lancia components, from 1911 to 1916.
Arthur Calvin Newby was an American businessman and pioneer of the bicycle and automotive industries in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was best known as one of the founders of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
