Dragon Automobile Company

Last updated
Dragon Automobile Company
Automobile Manufacturing
Industry Automotive
Genre Touring cars
Fate succeeded by Dragon Motor Company
Founded 1906
Defunct 1908
Headquarters Detroit, Michigan and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , United States
Area served
United States
Products Vehicles
Automotive parts
1907 Dragon Touring Car 1907 Dragon Touring Car.jpg
1907 Dragon Touring Car

The Dragon Automobile Company manufactured automobiles from 1906 to 1908, first in Detroit, Michigan, and then in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [1] It was followed, briefly, by the Dragon Motor Company.

Contents

Beginnings in Detroit

They hired an excellent engineer to design its automobile: Leo Melanowski, who had apprenticed with the Otto Gas Engine Company in Vienna, worked for Panhard-Levassor and Clement-Bayard in France and Waltham in the United States and had been manufacturing foreman for Winton. Dragon also enlisted the services of famed racing driver Joe Tracy as an engineering consultant and test driver.

Leo Melanowski was an American automotive engineer in the Brass Era.

Vienna Capital city and state in Austria

Vienna is the federal capital and largest city of Austria, and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primate city, with a population of about 1.9 million, and its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 7th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union. Until the beginning of the 20th century, it was the largest German-speaking city in the world, and before the splitting of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I, the city had 2 million inhabitants. Today, it has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin. Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC. The city is located in the eastern part of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region. Along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In July 2017 it was moved to the list of World Heritage in Danger.

Waltham Manufacturing Company

Waltham Manufacturing Company (WMC) was a manufacturer of bicycles, motorcycles, motorized tricycles and quadricycles, buckboards, and automobiles in Waltham, Massachusetts. It sold products under the brand names Orient, Waltham, and Waltham-Orient. The company was founded in 1893, moving to self-propelled vehicles after 1898.

The result was a fine four-cylinder motorcar that featured sliding gear transmission and shaft drive, and price tags in the $2,000 range, which were quite reasonable considering the specification. The matter Dragon skimped upon, it would appear, was quality control in production. Melanowski left early on to design the Aerocar from Detroit, and Joe Tracy didn't hang around long either. The company had been incorporated in Maine in the summer of 1906 with Harold P. Knowlton as president, Albert E. Knowlton as treasurer.

Maine State of the United States of America

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Maine is the 12th smallest by area, the 9th least populous, and the 38th most densely populated of the 50 U.S. states. It is bordered by New Hampshire to the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and northwest respectively. Maine is the easternmost state in the contiguous United States, and the northernmost state east of the Great Lakes. It is known for its jagged, rocky coastline; low, rolling mountains; heavily forested interior; and picturesque waterways, as well as its seafood cuisine, especially lobster and clams. There is a humid continental climate throughout most of the state, including in coastal areas such as its most populous city of Portland. The capital is Augusta.

Production began in Detroit in late fall, and the first models were ready for the New York Automobile Show at Grand Central Palace that December.

The move to Philadelphia

Meanwhile the plant of the J. G. Brill and Company in Philadelphia had been secured, and operations were moved there. Soon thereafter two attachments were served by the Sheriff of New York County on the cars and property of the Dragon Automobile Company.

These resulted from two complaints. The first was from C.W. Ward, the Dragon agent for Newark (New Jersey), who stated that three cars had been delivered to him that "were not up to the standard guaranteed, and it was found impossible to get the company to put them in proper repair." Ward wanted his advance deposit back. The other complainant was W.S. Daniels of Boston, a former Dragon employee, who demanded back salary and commissions amounting to $1,700. Nor was this all. It was further reported that the Dragon Automobile Company had borrowed $136,000 from a Philadelphia bank, using as security 200 Dragon touring cars that had been placed in storage in Philadelphia, to be removed therefrom only under the bank's direction and with a percentage of their sale price to be applied as part payment for the loan.

By this time screaming creditors included the Herschell-Spillman engine manufacturers and the coil-and-sparkplug-producing C.F. Splitdorf company. By December 1907 the Dragon Automobile Company had given up, its president John Kane Mills declaring personal bankruptcy three months later. By that time the firm had been succeeded by the Dragon Motor Company organized by J.E. Calhoun with a grand capitalization of a million dollars and the idea of entering the taxicab market.

Personal bankruptcy law allows, in certain jurisdictions, an individual to be declared bankrupt. Virtually every country with a modern legal system features some form of debt relief for individuals. Personal bankruptcy is distinguished from corporate bankruptcy.

Dragon Motor Company

In March 1908 Calhoun, already in trouble, agreed to receivership although he denied insolvency. Among his problems was the five months back rent that had been owed the J.B. Brill Company by Dragon Automobile Company, the payment for which Brill was now demanding of Dragon Motor Company. By late March Calhoun decided to give up, too. Seventy touring car chassis remained to be completed when the Dragon plant and its assets were sold at public auction in early April 1908. Gorson Auto Exchange of Philadelphia bought everything, and presumably finished building the last 50 Dragons.

A public auction is an auction held on behalf of a government in which the property to be auctioned is either property owned by the government, or property which is sold under the authority of a court of law or a government agency with similar authority.

Models

Model(year) Engine HP Wheelbase Weight
1906-1907 4-cylinder [2] 24/26 104"1,950lbs
1908 Roadster 226.2 CID 4-cylinder 35 96" 1,900lbs. [3]
1908 Touring 4-cylinder 24/26 104" [2] 1,950lbs.

See also

Related Research Articles

The REO Motor Car Company was a Lansing, Michigan-based company that produced automobiles and trucks from 1905 to 1975. At one point the company also manufactured buses on its truck platforms.

The Locomobile Company of America was a pioneering American automobile manufacturer founded in 1899, and known for its dedication to precision in the pre-assembly-line era. It was one of the earliest car manufacturers in the advent of the automobile age. For the first two years after its founding, the company was located in Watertown, Massachusetts. Production was transferred to Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1900, where it remained until the company's demise in 1929. The company manufactured affordable, small steam cars until 1903, when production switched entirely to internal combustion-powered luxury automobiles. Locomobile was taken over in 1922 by Durant Motors and eventually went out of business in 1929. All cars ever produced by the original company were always sold under the brand name Locomobile.

Brass Era car

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 things as lights and radiators. It is generally considered to encompass 1896 through 1915, a time when these vehicles were often referred to as horseless carriages.

Marathon Motor Works producers of the Marathon automobile

Marathon Motor Works was an early automobile manufacturer based in Tennessee. It grew out of an earlier company called Southern Engine and Boiler Works founded in 1889 which made industrial engines and boilers in Jackson, Tennessee. As such, the firm had metal-working and power plant experience which could easily be transferred into the then-new and rapidly expanding automobile industry. It turned its attention in this direction shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. From 1907 to 1914, the company manufactured the Marathon automobile.

Stoddard-Dayton

Stoddard-Dayton was a high quality car manufactured by Dayton Motor Car Company in Dayton, Ohio, USA, between 1905 and 1913. John W. Stoddard and his son Charles G. Stoddard were the principals in the company.

Acme (automobile) defunct motor vehicle manufacturer

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.

Ateliers de Construction Mecanique lAster

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.

Northern (automobile)

Northern Manufacturing Company was a manufacturer of Brass Era automobiles in Detroit, Michigan, automobiles designed by Charles Brady King.

St. Louis Motor Carriage Company was a manufacturer of automobiles at 1211–13 North Vandeventer Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri, founded by George Preston Dorris and John French in 1898, with French taking charge of marketing and Dorris heading engineering and production. St. Louis Motor Carriage was the first of many St. Louis automakers and produced automobiles from 1899 to 1907.

Premier Motor Manufacturing Company

The Premier Motor Manufacturing Company was organized in 1903 by George A. Weidely and Harold O. Smith in Indianapolis, Indiana. The company built automobiles with air-cooled engines.

Cartercar company

The Cartercar was an American automobile manufactured in 1905 in Jackson, Michigan, in 1906 in Detroit, and from 1907 to 1915 in Pontiac, Michigan.

Lambert (automobile)

The Lambert automobile and Lambert truck were built by the Lambert Automobile Company as an American vehicle from 1905 through 1916. The Lambert automobile motor in the early part of manufacturing moved around on the chassis. It was on the back of the chassis, then in the center, then to the front, and back again to the rear of the automobile. The early motors were built at the Lambert factories of the Buckeye Manufacturing Company and later they were outsourced to other proprietary manufactures.

Dolson

The Dolson was a brass era automobile manufactured in Charlotte, Michigan by the J.L. Dolson & Sons from 1904 to 1907. They later changed the company name to the Dolson Automobile Company. The Dolson was a large car with a 60-horsepower engine. They offered a seven-seater touring car, that in 1907 cost US$3,250. It was advertised as the "Mile-a-Minute" car. They also offered smaller vehicles, with chain- and shaft-driven 20 hp flat-twins, and a shaft driven four of 28/30-horsepower.

Ross (steam automobile) brass era steam automobile

The Ross was a brass era steam automobile built in Newtonville, Massachusetts from 1906 to 1909.

Union Automobile Company

The Union Automobile Company began to make automobiles in Union City, Indiana in 1902. It built the Union automobile from 1902 through 1905. The company was located in Union City, Indiana from 1902 to 1905. In 1905 it moved to Anderson, Indiana.

Jewell (automobile) American auto manufacturer

The Jewel Motor Car Company of Massillon, Ohio manufactured the Jewel automobile from 1906 to 1909.

Kansas City Motor Car Company

The Kansas City Motor Car Company was a manufacturer of automobiles in the Sheffield neighborhood in Northeast Kansas City, Missouri from 1905 to 1909 and was one of the twenty now defunct automakers operating out of Kansas City in the early 20th century.

Flint Wagon Works of Flint, Michigan, manufactured wagons from the early 1880s. One of the world's most successful horse-drawn vehicle makers they formed with their Flint neighbours a core of the American automobile industry. In 1905 Flint was promoting itself as Flint the Vehicle City.

References

  1. Dragon Automobile Company Brochure (Dragon Touring Car) - 1906 Archived February 21, 2009, at the Wayback Machine .. Original Historic Brochure from the Dragon Automobile Company, circa 1906. Accessed March 2010.
  2. 1 2 Kimes, Beverly (1996). standard catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. Krause publications. ISBN   0-87341-428-4.
  3. Dluhy, Robert (2013). American Automobiles of the Brass Era. McFarland & Company Inc. ISBN   978-0-7864-7136-2.