Yahoo Autos This One Car Is All That's Left of an Early 20th Century Michigan Automaker
The small northern Michigan town of Alpena is known as a vacation destination today, but in 1911 it was home to a small car company. The Alpena Motor Car Company was one of many firms in the early 20th Century that jumped into the automobile business and–like most of them–it has long since been forgotten. However, of the several hundred cars built by Alpena Motor Car, just one spectacular example survives, and it is on display in Alpena at the Besser Museum.
The Alpena Motor Car Company was founded in 1910 with plans to begin production the next year. As with many automobile startups, founders issued optimistic numbers for expected production. They told the press they would build two models and hoped to be producing 3,000 cars a year in the near future. Advertisements for the car touted its "wonderful, silent, powerful and efficient motor," where everything was enclosed "including valves." In fact, the engine was "troubleless."
The factory employed 70 workers and new Alpena Flyers began shipping to customers in 1911. Prices ranged from $1,450 to $1,600. Later models would include small variations and different engine choices. While there is a lot of information on the cars available in newspaper articles and advertisements, there is a shortage of the actual cars themselves these days.
Ron Winter set out to find a Flyer a few years ago and located a basket case. It was little more than a frame and an assortment of loose parts. But since a better example couldn't be found, Winter bought it and brought it to Restorations Unlimited II to have it restored. They saved the parts they could and fabricated some parts that were missing. It took them nine years but the finished product is what you see here: A Brass Era car that looks like it rolled out of the factory yesterday, even though it is over 100 years old.
This example is a 1911 Standard Touring Alpena Flyer. It is "Dark Royal Blue," the only color the Flyers came in that year. It is powered by a 33-horsepower 4-cylinder Northway engine and is right-hand drive, which was common at the time.
Alpena Motor Car ran into legal and financial problems shortly after this car was first built. In 1912, the company was sued for patent infringement over its suspension design. We don't know the actual outcome of the case but a cash shortage followed and the company was insolvent by 1914. Production figures are sketchy but the company probably did not make more than 1,000 cars during its brief existence. A few hundred is probably a more reasonable estimate. And until someone finds another example, the only one you can see today is this one, home again in Alpena.
Steve Lehto is a writer and attorney from Michigan. He specializes in Lemon Law and frequently writes about cars and the law. His most recent books include Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow, and Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird: Design, Development, Production and Competition. He also has a podcast where he talks about these things.
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