1915-1922 Stutz Bearcat

In some ways , the 1915 - 1922 Stutz Bearcat was a working class of love . By the clock time Harry C. Stutz got around to the Bearcat , the cable car for which he is best remembered , he had been designing and building automobiles for at least six years .

In 1906 he had been associate with American Motors of Indianapolis , where he designed a modest but pricey 35 - 40 HP four - cylinder touring car . It was not , unyielding legend and write reports to the opposite , the underslung model for which American would later on become famous . Rather , Harry ’s chassis was alone ceremonious . But it was a relatively fast automobile for its clip .

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Leaving American Motors in 1907 , Stutz signed on as primary railroad engineer of the Marion Motor Car Company , another Indianapolis business firm , best known at the time as builder of the Marion Flyer , but remember now principally for its sporty 1913 Bobcat .

Then in 1910 , with the backing of a financier name Campbell , Stutz organized the Stutz Auto Parts Company for the role of manufacturing a transaxle of Harry ’s own design . The business manifestly prospered , but Harry Stutz require to build a elevator car of his own – and he achieved that destination in 1911 with a racing machine , the very first Stutz railcar . power by a four - cylinder Wisconsin engine , driving through one of Harry ’s own transaxles , the racer bore no small resemblance to the later Bearcat .

Evidently Harry love a thing or two about redact his name before the public , for he readily announced that his elevator car would go instantly , without trial runs or prior testing of any variety , to " the Brickyard , " to take part in the first 500 - mile wash at the new Indianapolis Speedway .

Presumably he have intercourse his car could n’t win , since a identification number of its contender gasconade much bigger , more brawny engine than the Stutz ’s 389 - cubic - inch thyroxine - point . But he had as his driver Gil Anderson , a big , tough Swede who had vie successfully as a phallus of the Marion racing team . So Harry expected that his car would at least place within the first 10 .

It did n’t . Anderson came in just out of the money , in llth seat . Now when you recall about it , that ’s not a bad record for a brand young , untried machine . Many a objector failed to finish that grueling run at all . And the Stutz ’s time was creditable enough : 500 miles in 442 minutes , with , in Harry Stutz ’s Word of God , " not a single mechanical adaptation . " Flat tires did n’t count , of course , and the Stutz had several of those , each one causing a holdup while Anderson steer for the endocarp .

study about the creation of the 1915 Stutz Bearcat on the next Thomas Nelson Page .

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1915 Stutz Bearcat

If Harry Stutz ’s spirits were dampen by his elevator car ’s bankruptcy to win any money for its backers , that fact was n’t noticeable . He immediately bill his machine " The Car that Made Good in a Day . " And soon he started to pave the style for the 1915 Stutz Bearcat . With the backing of Henry Campbell , his understood partner , he organized the Ideal Motor Car Company and commenced planning for a series - built Stutz to be offer to the general public .

The production Stutz , like the racing prototype , was powered by a Wisconsin engine that zigzag out an advertised 50 horsepower . A powerplant of Harry ’s own design would have to wait . Five organic structure styles were offer , include the Bearcat , a competition to the highly consider Mercer Raceabout .

Like the latter , it was a nude - bones sporting vehicle consisting chiefly of frame , engine , steering bike , bucketful seats , and fuel tank . All of the former Stutzes shared a 120 - in wheelbase . Then in later 1912 , a 60 - H.P. , 468 - cid six - cylinder serial publication riding a 124 - column inch chassis was added to the line . This one , too , was uncommitted as a Bearcat .

In May 1913 , Stutz Auto Parts and the Ideal Motor Car Company meld to form the Stutz Motor Car Company . Business was right though its volume – like that of most higher - priced make in those solar day – was small . Between mid-1911 and the stopping point of 1913 some 2,000 cars were sold , yield a profit of more than $ 400,000 - big money in those days before ostentation and before the income tax !

The car was revised somewhat for 1914 , with a brutal , leather - faced cone clutch replace the earlier multiple - disc case in what appear , in retrospect , to have been a backward step . But on the other helping hand , galvanising start and firing were supply as stock equipment that year . The Bearcat fare in a choice of several vivid color , an unusual practice for the time . Overall Stutz sale fell slightly , however , to 649 , down from 759 the previous season .

There was a new , small-scale Stutz for 1915 , evidently intended for the motorist who could n’t afford a Bearcat . know as the Model H.C.S. ( for Harry ’s initials ) , it was a 23 - HP roadster priced at $ 1,475 . Production bod are not available , but the fact that the little Stutz lasted only one time of year presumably tell us all we need to know about its salability . This railcar , by the way , is not to be confound with the H.C.S. automobile , an entirely separate marque , manufactured by Harry Stutz between 1920 - 1925 , after he left the Stutz Motor Car Company .

Harry Stutz entered three of his railroad car in the 1915 Indianapolis 500 race . As part of his strategy he made certain that the first two qualified at just under 97 miles an hr . Then the third car came along , characterize for the celestial pole position at 98.9 mph .

Unfortunately , the spark advance Stutz fall in a valve fountain , so the first back - up machine advanced to take the wind . But in the final stage , abnormal tyre article of clothing caused the two stay cars to make restate pit stops , which in all likelihood cost Stutz the race .

Ralph DePalma , drive a Mercedes , deal the checkered flag , while the two surviving Stutz racer place second and third . At the close of the 1915 season Stutz bed from racing , perhaps because Harry ’s transaxle , though a strong unit and a great performer , abused the back tires unmercifully , forcing number one wood to make to a fault frequent visit to the pit .

gross sales , however , look well than ever , with 1,079 Stutz cars finding buyers that twelvemonth , follow by 1,535 sales during 1916 and 2,207 for 1917 . The future looked bright .

To see more about the future of the Stutz Bearcat , see the next varlet .

1917-1922 Stutz Bearcat

To power his 1917 Stutz Bearcat models , Harry Stutz at last trotted out an locomotive engine of his own pattern and manufacture . Featuring four valves per piston chamber , standardized to some of the good machine of the nineties , it developed a whopping ( for 1917 ) 80 horse - power . This revised T - head four would stay in production as recently as 1924 , replacing both the early four - banger and the six - cylinder line .

This raw , four - cylinder Stutz borrowed the 130 - inch chassis of the tardy , presumably unlamented Six . This represented a gain of 10 inches over the old Four . Because the longer chassis was considered inappropriate for a car of sporting pretension , the Bearcat alone retain to utilise the 120 - inch wheelbase .

But despite the expert news on the sales front , trouble was brewing . Allen Ryan , describe as " a untested Wall Street card sharper , " purchase restraint of the company . Speculation in Stutz Motor Car Company stock was rife , drive the price up , at one point , to over $ 700 a share . Harry Stutz sell out and moved to another part of township , where he get production of the H.C.S. , a lineal rival for the original automobile that bore his name .

By 1921 , a depression class , the Stutz Bearcat sold for $ 3,900 , up from $ 2,300 in 1917 . Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it scarcely sold at all . The trace season was no better , despite a $ 650 price cutting off . Ryan departed , becoming regard in the promotion of the Frontenac gondola , but his bloodline market manipulations soon pick up up with him , and in a few light months he found himself broke .

For three years commencing in 1923 , Stutz declare oneself a line ( finally two lines ) of six - cylinder machine design by the house ’s newfangled chief engineer , Charles S. Crawford , formerly of the Cole Motor Company . Sales started off briskly , but soon point off sharply . The expectant overhead - camshaft Vertical Eight followed in 1926 . Sales that twelvemonth spurt to more than 5,000 machine , but after that it was destined to be downhill all the way .

In the other thirties Stutz marketed a model telephone the Super Bearcat , a bobtailed speedster power by the 32 - valve , 156 - horsepower DV-32 straight - eight motor . It – along with the other DV-32s – was a superb automobile , but the grip of the Depression meant that it came too late to facilitate Stutz . By 1934 , product had skidded to just six cars , and the following year Stutz was bankrupt . But Stutz result behind a bequest of swell automobiles – notably the Bearcat .

On the next pageboy , you will retrieve the specification for the 1915 - 1922 Stutz Bearcat .