Flanders Automobile Company
The Flanders Automobile Company was a short-lived US-American automobile manufacturer which operated in Detroit, Michigan, from 1910 to 1913. Its only product was sold through Studebaker dealerships.
| Company type | Automobile Manufacturing |
|---|---|
| Industry | Automotive |
| Founded | 1910 |
| Founder | Walter E. Flanders |
| Defunct | 1913 |
| Fate | Merged into the United States Motor Company, although some of their assets were bought by Studebaker |
| Successor | United States Motor Company Studebaker |
| Headquarters | Detroit, Michigan, United States |
It was the brainchild of Walter E. Flanders (1871–1923), who formerly held a position as General Factory Manager at the Ford Motor Company's Piquette avenue plant. There he co-invented the ingenious manufacturing methods which made the Model T Ford so famous.
In 1908, Flanders left the Ford Motor Company and co-founded, together with Bernard F. Everitt and William Metzger, the E-M-F Automobile Company in Detroit. This car, based on Flander's experience with the Model T Ford was the first mass-produced Flanders car. At the beginning, there were two offerings, model "30" and model "20". The "30", although prone to many faults, became a huge success but failed to outsell the Model T Ford. Although second in its best year, it was beaten by the Model T with a wide margin.
In this situation, Flanders convinced the Studebaker brothers, who held substantial stock in E-M-F and were its sole distributor in the USA, to buy the defunct factory of the DeLux Motor Company in Detroit, and to build there a new challenger to Ford. So, E-M-F dropped the "20", concentrating on their model "30". The new Flanders, appropriately named model "20", was patterned after this smaller E-M-F.