Automobile Manufacturer
He was one of America's first men interested in automobiles, and in 1897, he built the first Rambler motor car.
Jeffery was serious about motor cars so he sold his stake in G&J and founded the Thomas B. Jeffery Company. He used the G&J money to buy the old Sterling Bicycle Co. factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he set up shop to manufacture automobiles on a large scale. From 1902 until 1908, Jeffery moved steadily to bigger, more reliable models. His cars were built on assembly lines (the second manufacturer to adopt them -- Ransom Olds was first), and in 1903 he sold 1,350 Ramblers. By 1905, Jeffery more than doubled this number. One reason may have been because he went to the steering wheel before 1904. In 1907, he was building a large variety of different body styles and sizes. Among them was a five-passenger, $2,500 Rambler weighing 2,600 pounds and powered by a 40-hp engine.
Thomas B. Jeffery died in 1910 while on holiday in Pompeii, in Italy, and after his death, Charles T. Jeffery changed the automotive branding from Rambler to Jeffery to honor Thomas B.
Ultimately, his family sold the manufacturing business to Charles Nash, who renamed the company Nash Motors and greatly expanded manufacturing efforts.
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Famous quotes containing the word automobile:
“I shall not bring an automobile with me. These inventions infest France almost as much as Bloomer cycling costumes, but they make a horrid racket, and are particularly objectionable. So are the Bloomers. Nothing more abominable has ever been invented. Perhaps the automobile tricycles may succeed better, but I abjure all these works of the devil.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)