Of Super Sports and
COBRAS
by Jan Eyerman
This article first came out in two parts in the
Crosley Automobile Club Quarterly in December 1976 and March 1977. I
believe this article by Jan Eyerman is one of the most complete
general histories to be written in a short article. So with ony minor
changes from the oringinal two part article it was repeated in the
June 1981 Quarterly. It is now being published on the net for all the
web surfing Crosley fans. (JEB)
Four wheel disc brakes, first all steel station wagon, possibly the
first "slab sided" car, the first post war U.S. sports car, the first
low priced U.S. overhead cam engine ... etc. The list goes on and on.
And, not only first in technical achievements, but first in names;
Cobra, Super Sports, both nearly twenty years ahead of Shelby and
Chevy. What exotic, expensive, low production car was this? The
Crosley, of course, one of the most advanced and interesting cars
ever to run on American roads, and one of the least expensive
too! Like all unique vehicles such as Bugatti, Ferrari, the Edsel
Ford's Continental, the Morris Mini and the Model T Ford, the Crosley
was really built to please just one man. Powel Crosley. No
committees, no Executive Decision board. Just Powel Crosley, his
stamp, his character and personality are what made the Crosley
interesting and unique.
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Powel Crosley was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on September 18,
1886 to Charlotte and Powel Crosley, Senior. He spent his childhood in
Cincinnati and developed a great love for his "hometown". It has been
claimed that Powel was a chauffeur after school in 1905, and this was
at a time when a chauffeur was as much of a mechanic and machinist as a
driver. Evidentally he learned a lot about automobiles because two
years later at the age of 21 he organized a company with ten thousand
borrowed dollars to build the ill-fated "Marathon Six". The price of
the new car was to be $1,700 or several hundred dollars lower than any
other six on the market. It was also at a time when four cylinder
engines dominated the market. Few, if any, Marathon Sixes were built.
Possibly because the panic of 1907 did the company in, but the Marathon
Six never got beyond the prototype stage. Thus ended the first Crosley
car.
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After the failure of the Marathon, Crosley moved from
Cincinnati to Indianapolis and went to work for the Carl Fisher
Company. He didn't stay with Carl Fisher long and left to become the
sales manager of the Parry Automobile Company. Parry was not too
successful (how many Parry's have you ever seen?) And, so Powel moved
on to the National Motor Vehicle Company and from there went to still
another auto manufacturer in Muncie, Indiana. All of this moving
around was done in the two years between 1908 and 1910! Evidentally
Powel didn't like his job as manager or maybe he missed Cincinnati,
so in 1910 he moved back to his old hometown and worked for several
advertising firms.
Crosley again attempted to set up his own company in 1912 and
again met with failure. He tried to get into the short lived
cycle-car craze of 1913 and failed for yet a third time. If three
strikes weren't enough, Crosley tried still again in 1914, this time
with a six cylinder car and met his fourth failure. Failure number
four ended Crosley's automotive career for twenty years.
Understandably so, four failures in seven years was a very dismal
situation.
So Powel shifted his attention from building automobiles to
supplying accessories for them. In 1916 he went to work for the
American Automobile Accessory Company. Within a year he owned the
company and within two years it was a million dollar concern.
Crosley's two secrets of success were his ability to invent useful
gadgets and the business sense of his brother Lewis.
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1924 Pup Radio & Bonzo the dog
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With a good growing business in auto accessories, Powel was
now a success. Then several chance factors came together to move Powel
out of the auto business and into the even newer field of radio. The
first chance factor was that Powel's son wanted a radio. Upon
discovering that a radio of 1919-1920 cost several hundred dollars,
Crosley decided that this would be a good field to try his hand at. The
second chance factor was that the "National Label Company" shared a
building with Crosley's auto accessory company and Crosley has just
purchased it. The National Label Company made phonographs. Initially
Crosley just made some radio parts, such as a porcelain tube socket (to
withstand wear and high voltages) a tap switch and a variable
condensor. The manufacture and sale of these items quickly gave Crosley
a reputation of producing high quality radio components at very low
prices.
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The next step was to build the whole radio and at this point Powel
Crosley essentially invented modern mass communications. It is hard
to believe that in 1920 the only people who could listen to a radio
were either people who had several hundred dollars (more than the
price of a Model T!) or build it themselves. But such was the case
when Powel Crosley assigned two young engineering students from the
University of Cincinnati (where else!?) to design a cheap radio. The
project was realized in 1921 when Crosley was able to market the
Harko Junior crystal set for an unbelievable twenty dollars. For the
first time it was possible for virtually anyone in the U.S. to own a
radio. Needless to say, Crosley became a name of importance in the
radio field. He followed his success with a radio that incorporated
one of the basic aspects of all modern radios and televisions, a
radio frequency amplifier. Without going into details, this produced
a stronger, clear signal which in turn produced better sound.
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Because of the poor reception of radios in those days, very
powerful transmitters had to be used. Powel wanted to make extra sure
that people who bought his radios had something to listen to, so in
1922 he opened station WLW in Cincinnati. This station eventually grew
to be the strongest transmitting station in the country with a 500,000
watt transmitter. This was used for Voice of America broadcasts to
Europe during World War II. By comparison, a powerful modern radio
station transmits about 50,000 watts - one-tenth of WLW.
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In the 1930's Crosley expanded in the electrical field to
refrigerators and other electrical appliances. In the process he
produced the "Shelvadore" refrigerator which introduced to the world
the idea of using the door of the refrigerator to hold food. This idea
is incorporated in virtually all modern refrigerators. Crosley products
justly earned the reputation of high quality at low prices.
Now in contrast to his early failures. Powel Crosley had two
major successes; auto accessories and electrical appliances. His
ability as an inventor was proven as excellent as his ability as a
salesman. He recognized that there would always be a market for quality
products at reasonable prices. He had effectively started a radio
industry in the U.S. and now was ready to try the automobile industry
again.
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