Cartercar History

The Cartercar Company was an early American automaker, based in Michigan USA.

History

The Cartercar Company was first based in Jackson (Michigan) in 1905, Detroit, Michigan in 1906, and Pontiac, Michigan, in 1907 to 1915.

The carter car was praised in the press, especially because of its friction disc gear. This friction disc transmission an indirect precursor of today's CVT gearbox; both offer stepless drive ratios. After about 6500 km, the paper pulleys, which were part of the gearbox, had to be replaced, which cost only US $ 5, which is half the price of a new grease filling in a conventional spur gearbox. 

From the first to the second full year of production sales doubled; In 1906 there were 101 sold, 1907 already 264 The following year, 325 cars were sold. 

After leaving the Jackson Automobile Company in 1905 due to a disagreement with his partners over the selection of gearboxes, Byron J. Carter created the Motorcar Company in Jackson. The new company relocated to Detroit at the end of the year, along with its financiers. Carter rebranded his company Cartercar Company in early 1907. After acquiring the Pontiac Spring and Wagon Works in Pontiac, which made leaf springs, carriages, waggons, and a high wheeler, the company relocated again in November 1908. Albert G. North and Harry G. Hamilton, the company's founders, purchased Rapid Motor Vehicle Company, a manufacturer of commercial vehicles and smaller buses.

On October 26, 1909 Cartercar was taken over by General Motors (GM). Thus, the company was one of the 25 companies that its founder, William C. Durant, had acquired in the year and a half since the founding of GM as a holding company; another was the aforementioned Rapid Motor Vehicle Company, which gradually organized General Motors as the group's commercial vehicle division and finally as GMC. 

Like most of Durant's purchases, this acquisition was speculative. Although he avoided technologies such as electric or steam drive, but covered his companies quite different price segments and sought technical unique selling points. At Elmore it was the two-stroke engine, Rapid and Reliance Motor Truck Company covered the commercial vehicle sector and at Cartercar it was the friction gear. Durant had read about it and thus issued a check on the future. That he was not covered, showed the technical development, which broke away quickly from the friction gear.

Asked why he bought Cartercar, Durant later replied, "you say I should not have bought Cartercar. Yeah, how could anyone know that Cartercar would not be right? They had the friction disc drive that no other car had. How should I know what these engineers would say next? "

Cartercar Model R Touring; Four-cylinder from 1912. The exhibiting museum exaggerates something; not the Cartercar, but the Metz built from 1909 to 1919 was the most successful car with friction gear.

The company started with a single-cylinder engine, later came two-cylinder boxer engines, which were used until 1909. From 1910 only four-cylinder engines were installed.  Two models, both with four-cylinder engine block, published in 1912; the model R had 4160 cc, while the model S had 5437 cc displacement. Both drove the rear wheels over a chain. There were other cars with friction discs, such as the Lambert, the Metz and the Petrel, but none of them was produced as long as the Cartercar. Because the friction disc was able to stop any translation and was not bound to fixed gears, the Cartercar was touted as the "car with a thousand gears". Another copy claimed: "It is difficult to improve a carter car".