A Car Designed To Sell To An Automotive Company
While employed in the engineering department of the Budd Body Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Muller convinced his employer to invest in developing a front wheel drive prototype automobile. Budd would then sell the rights to the car to an automotive company which would contract with Budd for the body work. While Muller designed the drive train, Joseph Ledwinka designed the body for the car and the project was completed in 1928.
In an era when the American automobile had an average height of six feet from the ground to the level plain of the roof, Muller’s car was only 53 inches (1,300 mm) high, a feat accomplished by eliminating the drive shaft to the rear wheels. Ledwinka accentuated the lowness to ground through the elimination of the running boards.
Instead of attracting an automotive producer, Muller’s concept car attracted the attention of Archie Andrews, a member of Budd’s Board who also sat on the Board of Hupmobile. Andrews recognized the possibilities of producing the car and made it possible for Muller and Budd to present the idea to Hupp.
When Hupp passed on the car, Andrews took on the project himself, and with Muller formed New Era Motors which would market the car. Still, Andrews lacked an ability to build the car, and hoped-for support from Peerless, Gardner, and Marmon failed to materialize.
Read more about this topic: Ruxton (automobile)
Famous quotes containing the words car, designed, sell and/or company:
“Raising children is a spur-of-the-moment, seat-of-the-pants sort of deal, as any parent knows, particularly after an adult child says that his most searing memory consists of an offhand comment in the car on the way to second grade that the parent cannot even dimly recall.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“They are a very decent generous lot of people out here and they don’t expect you to listen.... It’s the secret of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“If you want to be on good terms with everyone in this world, sell goods on credit and never ask for payment.”
—Chinese proverb.
“I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances. I much prefer the company of ploughboys and tin-peddlers, to the silken and perfumed amity which celebrates its days of encounter by a frivolous display, by rides in a curricle, and dinners at the best taverns.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)