The best and most useful thing about this new history page is the Index! The bottom of this page contains a linked index so that topics can be found in the page quickly. CLICK HERE to go to the Index. This is something I have wanted to do for a long long time because I need to use it.

I hope you like the new format. Feel free to let me know what you think.

John

Byron F. ("Barney") Everitt 1872 - 1940 Click on the picture to see the full size.

William E. Metzger 1868 - 1933 Click on the picture to see the full size.

Walter E. Flanders 1871 - 1923 Click on the picture to see the full size.

E. LeRoy Pelletier 1868 - 1938 Click on the picture to see the full size.

As a publicist he served as advance man for a circus. In 1902, he settled down in Buffalo, New York, to build a car called the Duquesne. Following its failure, he relocated to Detroit in 1905 to work for Henry Ford, first as consulting engineer and thereafter, when it became obvious he was considerably more adept with words than machines, as Ford's private secretary and advertising manager, though for the latter he apparently preferred the title "publicity engineer." That he was. A brilliant intellect matched with a vivid imagination, he could think even faster than he could talk, and his conversation was routinely described as "rapid-fire."

The Studebaker Brothers Pictured from top left, Peter and Jacob, and from bottom left, Clement Sr., Henry and John M. Click on the picture to see the full size.

We will meet others as we go along, but with these individuals, we have a starting point.

What was happening was the same idea-mass quantity manufacture-being contemplated in two different camps, with one significant difference. Henry Ford opted for the low-priced field and a primeval automobile. Flanders who was the driving force in the rival camp believed the motoring public more likely to accept a "well finished" car and opted for the middle price range. Survival in this field, he was convinced, demanded a capital investment of a couple of million dollars. Barney Everitt could come up with half of that right away, and simply a listing of his financial angels (William T. Barbour, J.B. Gunderson, Charles L. Palm, J. B. Book), so the press would say, "goes to show that the new company will have almost unlimited resources." It would also have the benefit of the best salesman in the business. William E. Metzger had "retired" as sales manager of the Cadillac Motor Car Company. M was about to join E and F.

For the banquet at the Cafe des Beaux Arts, it was reported that Everitt and Metzger personally transported the frogs' legs from Detroit, Flanders saw to it that sufficient libation was at hand, and Pelletier provided the after-dinner jokes. A novel departure from standard trade banquet practice was the invitation to reporters and guests to bring along their wives and sweethearts. All in all, it was a most unusual way to reveal the birth of a new automobile company. But then this was no ordinary new company.

Seeing to the details came next. In essence, the new Everitt-Metzger-Flanders Company represented a merger of the Wayne Automobile Company and the Northern Motor Car Company, in which William Metzger quickly and conveniently acquired a controlling interest. This provided E-M-F three ready-made plants, Wayne's and Northern's in Detroit, and the latter's second plant in Port Huron. To provide a ready-made dealership organization, E-M-F contacted the Studebaker brothers in Indiana. NOTE: For more information on the E-M-F Factories, see the E-M-F Factory Page in the Photo Archive.

But it was Frederick Fish, legal counsel to the Studebaker corporation and son-in-law to John M. Studebaker that proved to be the visionary who saw that the older Studebaker company must accept the innovation of the automobile, or die a slow death.

That same year Frederick met and married Grace Studebaker, John M.’s daughter. Three years later in 1891, at the “repeated insistence of John M. together with Clem and Peter”, the Fish’s moved to South Bend, Indiana and Frederick joined the Studebaker corporation as the company’s corporate counsel, with the primary task of assisting the Studebaker brothers in financial matters.

In the years that followed, Studebaker experimented with and produced several automobiles, finally introducing an electric car in 1902. Gasoline powered Studebakers came in 1904, produced by the Garford Company in Ohio, marketed under the name Studebaker-Garford.

The Garford company, initially organized as the Federal Manufacturing Company, had been set up as a joint venture between George Pope, the founder of the leading bicycle manufacturer and early pioneer in automobiles, and Arthur Garford who had made a fortune as a manufacturer of bicycle seats and other parts during the bicycle boom of the 1890’s. Garford broke ties with Pope in 1904 when Garford feared that Pope wanted to take complete control of the company. Garford acquired the options held by Pope and reorganized the company under his own name. Less than a month after Garford assumed control, talks were underway with the Studebakers.

The Production of Studebaker-Garford automobiles continued into 1908, when on February 13, nearly eight months after his first offer, Frederick Fish announced that Studebaker had gained a majority interest in Garford. In December of 1911, Studebaker sold their interests in Garford to Willys-Overland. The Studebaker-Garford arrangement, for all of the time it had consumed, produced little. In the end only 2481 Studebaker-Garfords were built in those seven years between 1904 and 1911.

For Studebaker, the arrangement had primarily been a learning experience. Even while Studebaker worked with Garford, Frederick Fish saw that the market was changing. He saw that the future was in medium to low priced gasoline cars - just exactly the kind of automobile that E-M-F was planning to produce.

The E-M-F proposition seemed a marvelous opportunity for a maximum effort with minimum risk. As Colonel George M. Studebaker said at the time, "We considered it more advantageous to us to form an alliance with a group of men ... possessing . . . factory facilities, experience and manufacturing ability of a rare order, as well as an intimate knowledge of the problems peculiar to the motorcar, than to establish a separate factory of our own." For E-M-F's part, the alliance brought 4000 dealers to the new company right away. General manager Walter Flanders was particularly pleased about that. Sales manager William Metzger was dubious, and perhaps a little chagrined that, super salesman that he was, his partners did not assume he could put together an effective dealer network himself. But Barney Everitt, who took the E-M-F presidency title, was persuaded by Flanders that time was of the essence-and thus South Bend was given a role in the E-M-F act. It was a co-starring one. Studebaker would handle all of the E-M-F export business (its contacts abroad were heady) and the United States was divided in half, with Studebaker manager Hayden Eames to see to E-M-F sales in the South and the West, the rest of the country to be in the direct charge of William Metzger. Studebaker was to take half of the E-M-F production, which was planned for 12,000 units the first year.

An interesting note: By the end of 1908 close to 172 E-M-F's had been produced, but unfortunately they used an inefficient cooling system (a thermo-syphon instead of a water pump), so all 172 units needed to be recalled.

The single float feed carburetor was adjustable from the driver's seat, there was a dual jump spark ignition system consisting of quadruple coil, commentator, battery and magneto built into the engine. This last was unusual for this period, the magneto frequently being considered an "accessory," but to E-M-F, "it is as much a part of the car as are the valves." Initially cooling was thermo-syphon, but after the first batch of cars was in the field, overheating problems were discovered, and William Kelly personally recalled the vehicles and installed water pumps on them, and all subsequent E-M-F's.

In 1910, the top five automobile manufactures and their production figures were:
1. Ford	32,053
2. Buick	30,525
3. Willys-Overland	15,598
4. Studebaker-E.M.F	15,020
5. Cadillac	10,039

The car's frame was a pressed steel U-section with semi-elliptic front springs, full elliptic rear, and double-acting brakes on the rear wheels. A three-speed sliding gear transmission was incorporated into the rear axle, steering was worm and sector, and the clutch was an expanding ring. This last, incidentally, was the only significant detail that would be altered for 1910. As LeRoy Pelletier explained it matter-of-factly, "some owners simply couldn't or wouldn't master the simple knack [of the expanding ring clutch]. So it has been changed. A cone clutch, simple and also better in some respects, has been substituted . . . " That, and a wheelbase increase of two inches (to 108), were the only refinements made after the first year's production.

But was it necessary to change anything else? Motoring periodicals had been uniformly astounded by the quality and value of the E-M-F. "There is nothing in the appearance of the car that would suggest scrimping or cheapness," said Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal. It "is fitted with every device known to the art," allowed The Automobile. The Horseless Age was impressed by the "extensive use of pressed steel"; no malleable castings appeared anywhere on the car. Who would have believed four cylinders, thirty horsepower, five-passenger capacity, "selective type of transmission, quick detachable tires and double ignition system for such a price," cooed Motor Age. "Who can doubt that the promise was kept?" asked MoToR.

The E-M-F promise was, as Walter Flanders said at every available opportunity, that "a better automobile can be built and sold for $1250 than is possible at twice that price." The quality was possible because of superior production facilities and methods, the price because of the quantity production. Of course, the very same day the first E-M-F's rolled out of the factory on one side of town, on the other the first Model T's rolled out of Ford, and their price tag was $400 less. But the T provided only 177 cubic inches and 20 hp, a 100-inch wheelbase, featured a planetary transmission, thermo-syphon cooling (this proved the reverse of the E-M-F experience, original T's had centrifugal water pumps but early on Henry Ford decided on the more basal thermo-syphon)-and the T could certainly not be awarded that "new descriptive term," as The Automobile put it, "which has come into vogue in automobiling." Everyone called the E-M-F "classy."

In 1911, the top five automobile manufactures and their production figures were:
1. Ford	69,762
2. Studebaker-E.M.F	26,827
3. Willys-Overland	18,745
4. Maxwell	16,000
5. Buick	13,389

In 1911, when the T's price was lowered, to $780, the E-M-F's was too, to $1100. And LeRoy Pelletier who, the year before, had published a little booklet-"The Hyphen"-comprising a lengthy interview with the loquacious Flanders and containing the original slogan simply changed that quote to "a better automobile can be built and sold for $1100 than is possible at twice the price" and ran the rest of the interview again virtually verbatim. Except for the deletion of one significant sentence: "We propose being the largest builders of automobiles in the world."

The number of E-M-F cars produced to December 1909 totaled 8132-though the year following this would be raised to 15,300. (Model T production for the same period was a little more than double that.) There was the bright spot of the E-M-F providing the "path-finding" for the Glidden Tour of 1909, however-which provided Leroy Pelletier grand promotional possibilities, all of which he took advantage. Look at the pictures, he said when the trek from Detroit to Denver that April was over, "The car looks as if the stunt was nuts to her. Nothing about her, not even the varnish on the body, indicates that she has been through anything more than a pretty strenuous tour-such as you will want to make with the car you buy. There's nothing broken, not even a fender bent. We didn't resort to any of the clever (?) little tricks practiced by some publicity promoters, of shooting holes in the body, scratching up the paint, and breaking lamps and fenders just to make her look like a tramp. Nor did we leave mud on her till it caked four inches deep. It wasn't necessary to manufacture hardships on this trip, or to fake up injuries to prove she had had adventures. These there were in plenty, as all the world knows. The steering gear never failed, so she wasn't ditched. The brakes never failed to hold, so she always stopped when necessary and didn't bump lamps or radiator. The radiator is properly suspended, so it didn't spring a leak. Frame is extra heavy, so it didn't sag. Fenders are properly made and attached, so they are still in place as on the day she started out."

And the car was washed every night so it would always look "classy" like an E-M-F should. The AAA Contest Board's official "Pathfinder," Dai Lewis, said he had been skeptical about "starting on such a trip in a car that was new to the market," but afterwards told Pelletier that he was ashamed of his doubts: "You can quote me as saying the E-M-F '30' is a wonderful car." Pelletier did - as often as possible.

By now the jibes about the initials had begun - and most of them were heard first in the showrooms of the competition. Pelletier tried to write away the problem. "Competitors have said some very cutting things", he noted in one leaflet, "that is, they were intended to be cutting ... oh, they were awfully peevish.... We understood that and so laughed over their lame jokes more heartily than they did themselves. The intended victim can always laugh at a joke that misses the mark." Perhaps ... but LeRoy didn't sound very convincing.

It was essentially an E-M-F, it was even called a "30," but there was one departure of note. As Len Shaw would write in the Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal, "The four cylinders are cast together, but in this instance the en bloc principle has been carried to an extreme that gives the powerplant a distinctiveness while the most grueling tests have demonstrated the correctness of the theory and its application." The main casting included the cylinders, the upper half of the crankcase, intake and exhaust manifolds, the inner half of the gear housing, the upper half of the bearing beds-and for 1911 the magneto and pump supports would be added as well. In addition, the stroke was a quarter of an inch longer, the wheelbase was set at 110 inches, its price was tagged a hundred dollars more-but other than that one could read the E-M-F 30 specs and learn everything there was to know about the Everitt 30.

"The Car for You" and "A Car with a Rich and Rare Heritage," the ads ballyhooed - obviously Everitt and Metzger could have used the services of LeRoy Pelletier - and in a calculated dig at the motorcar which still bore their initials, it was noted that the "Everitt '30' motor contains 150 fewer parts than its closest competitor! Think of it-150 less parts!" Advertising also backdated William Kelly's maiden horseless carriage venture to 1891 and described it as "one of the first practical cars ever built." Pelletier would never have allowed such nonsense.

For 1912 the Everitt home market looked far more promising, and all attention was focused on it. Presented now were three models: the returning 4-30, dropped in price to $1250; the newish 4-36 on a 115-inch wheelbase at $1500; and the brand-new Six-48 on a 127-inch wheelbase which was a whopping lot of car for $1850. The Everitt fours and the six all shared the 4 by 4.75 bore and stroke dimension with which the marque had been born, and each was simply a bigger or smaller clone of the other. The "All- Chrome-Nickel Steel Car" was one tagline, the "Self-Starting Everitt" was another. (Like Chalmers and Winton and others, Everitt had a fling with a compressed air device which Cadillac would soon render obsolete.) The press was uniformly impressed, and indeed provided catchier phrases of commendation than the Metzger publicity department could come up with. "Idealized the real, and then realized the ideal" was offered by Motor Age. Overall, Barney Everitt and William Metzger were rather pleased with the way things appeared to be moving along.

Secondly, Frederick Fish had moved to reorganize E-M-F. He had proposed to merge the two companies, but Flanders resisted. Instead, Flanders became president of the company, but Studebaker men were placed in all of the leading administrative positions, sparking obvious resentment of many of the E-M-F people.

Because William Kelly had left the company with his erstwhile partners, Flanders had been forced to come up with a new chief engineer. He settled upon James Heaslet, a self-taught mechanic who had previously bounced around among various small assembled car manufacturers in the field. Heaslet had one good idea and one bad one. The good idea was the multiple uses to which the underframe was put; the engine, magneto, radiator, pump, carburetor, steering gear and dash were all carried on this subframe which consisted of two parallel steel tubes which in turn were supported on cross members secured by four bolts. This simplified manufacture and allowed the low price, and the removal of those four bolts made for a quick and easy lifting of the entire unit from the chassis. This commended itself admirably to commercial application; replacing a unit, which took five minutes at most, meant that any single car in a fleet could be kept in service at all times. This may have been considered, but the E-M-F idea was even more ambitious than that. As Pelletier wrote, "We expect this feature to revolutionize present garage practice which necessitates laying up the car for days at a time while some minor repair is being made. In case of any repair or replacement in a Flanders '20,' however serious or simple, the easiest way is to replace the entire unit, send the owner away rejoicing with his car and then, when time best suits and with parts most accessible, make the necessary repair at a minimum of time and expense. The original unit may later be replaced in the car-or if the condition, as to wear, of the two units are about the same the change need not be made-the owner simply charged for time and material in making his unit good." A very interesting notion.

The bad idea Heaslet had was the two-speed transmission; the rear axle just could not bear its strain-the limitations of a two-speed layout of that day are recognized with horror today by antique car buffs-and frequently snapped axles were the result. Consequently the unit was replaced for 1911 by the E-M-F three-speed, and Pelletier insisted that the company admit its mistake and offer to exchange two-speed for three-speed on all the cars in the field. Thereafter he sent the new Flanders on numerous endurance runs - pathfinding for the 1911 Glidden tour on the East Coast, doing the same on the West Coast for the Pacific Highway Association, and sending a roadster over four-thousand-plus miles from Canada to Mexico-to demonstrate that everything was all right now.

Still, the Flanders should have been a lively competitor for the T. The rear axle problem obviously had upset production initially, but it was quickly seen to. Backstage, however, the goings-on were most unpleasant. Walter Flanders was discovering that his friends Barney and Bill had perhaps been right all along about the Studebakers.

At the factory Flanders now had things well in hand, with his friends general superintendent Wollering and factory manager Walbum competently in charge. He had set a thousand-car-a-month production schedule and offered a bonus for every car produced over that number to his workforce "clear down to the office boys and stenographers." When the 1909 World Series was played between the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox, he declared that if output reached fifty cars a day, half holidays would prevail for everyone so the baseball fans on his team could attend the four games in Detroit. Production records were routinely broken at E-M-F. Sales records were not. This made for a problem. As The Motor World explained it, "the E- M-F factory was going full blast and its product was piling up; in due course Mr. Flanders called the Studebakers' attention to the fact."

On December 9th, 1909, Walter Flanders posted a letter to South Bend and at the same time sent it to Detroit daily newspapers and all trade publications to be published as an advertisement. It was a bombshell. In it he declared the alliance with Studebaker as "rescinded and annulled" for a number of reasons, among them the failure of the South Bend people to accept and pay for contracted cars; their unfair discounting of the cars; their advertising which misled readers into believing Studebaker owned a controlling interest in E-M-F, which it did not. Thus was begun what was called the "bitterest legal battle" (The Automobile) and the "most engrossing litigation" (Motor Age) in the history of the industry thus far.

Noting that no "formal contract signed by both parties" existed indicating it was obliged to take one much less a thousand cars a month-astoundingly, all agreements had been either a handshake or legally non-binding correspondence-Studebaker sought a restraining order and permanent injunction against E-M-F in the U.S. district court in Detroit. This failed, but the company finally managed a temporary injunction from the U.S. circuit court in Cincinnati. In the interim Flanders pushed up production to sixty cars a day and got out a map of the United States. He advertised for dealers, scores of them came rushing to Detroit, Pelletier said he hadn't seen such a stampede since his Klondike days. Circles and squares were made on the map, territories divided up-but this wasn't Flanders' or Pelletier's area of specialty at all. William Metzger's talents were sorely missed.

In March it was announced that J.P. Morgan on behalf of Studebaker had purchased sixty-four percent of the stock- in E-M-F which, combined with the thirty-six percent acquired in the earlier buying out of Everitt and Metzger, gave South Bend complete control of the company. Particularly emphasized was the fact that Morgan had been acting as broker only and, as The Horseless Age noted, "the wild reports that the Napoleon of finance was commencing to form a gigantic $300,000,000 'automobile trust' were quite unfounded ... thus far Wall Street has not secured a monopoly in the automobile business." A lot of automobile people in Detroit began sleeping easier nights.

Walter Flanders was among them. The entire episode had rattled him, and he saw capitulation in his best interests. Rather like his decision to leave Ford earlier, he believed now that his future with E-M-F was cloudy, he had been upset for some time by the Studebaker practice of having its name typeset larger than his in advertising; it seemed to him that with E-M-F he could never really run his own show.

For his holdings LeRoy Pelletier received $175,000, in addition to a contract to continue as Studebaker advertising manager at a princely salary of $20,000 a year. James Heaslet formally resigned as E-M-F engineer but was immediately picked up by Studebaker and was soon that company's vice-president of engineering. He and the Studebaker staff refined the cars-beefing up the rear axle still further; this was admittedly the car's weakest point, though it was no more serious a failing than most of its contemporaries suffered in other areas of design- and they were marketed under the E-M-F or Flanders names for 1912, though the type size of the Studebaker logo was now bigger than ever. In 1913 they all became Studebakers.

Still, his heart was not in all this. Neither was Walter Flanders': With part of his million dollars, the latter bought 1200 acres of farm land surrounding two lakes near Pontiac with the view of transforming it into a plantation, and he created a petty cash fund for taking a number of people out to dinner to talk business.

It was Pelletier, too, who talked Walter into the Flanders Electric. It was announced that summer, priced at $1775, and differed from conventional cars of its type with its adoption of worm drive, cradle spring suspension, a coupe body twelve inches lower than the average ("therefore, less wind resistance"), and anti-friction bearings throughout, combined with a less weighty chassis, to make for easier running, in- creased mileage on one charge of the battery and better hill climbing. The aim was to "infuse red blood" into the electric field and belie the notion that "parlor prattle and pretty pictures" were the only way to sell an electric carriage, and a refined lady the only customer who would buy one. "Wise and Foolish Statements About Electrics" was the title of the little booklet written by an unnamed "advertising man" and published about this new Flanders. No one in the industry reading it would have had any doubts about its authorship. Doubtless a copy was not sent to South Bend.

Matters quickly became sticky anyway. The manufacture of an electric car and a motorcycle by the Flanders organization did not on the face of it represent a conflict of interest between Flanders himself and his position at Studebaker. But Brownson, after an argument with Flanders, resigned the presidency of Flanders Manufacturing, and at the board of directors meeting that December-not attended, significantly, by Clement Studebaker - who was elected the new president? None other than Walter Flanders. This did not sit well in South Bend. Flanders already had a fulltime job at Studebaker. Subsequently, that company created a new position called corporate general manager - Flanders' title being general manager of the "Studebaker Corporation 'automobile interest' " - and filled it with James Newton Gunn (whose older brother was in England, incidentally, building the Lagonda).

Rumors followed that the Metzger and Flanders companies would be merged, and recapitalized at $3 million, and the press brought LeRoy Pelletier out of the closet by suggesting he would serve as advertising manager of the new concern.

E and M without F had been rather like pasta without Parmesan, something was missing. Everitt knew how to capitalize, Metzger knew how to sell, but neither of them could produce like Flanders. The Metzger Motor Car Company had never really been set up properly. Everitt and Metzger were delighted to have Flanders back- and were amenable to the company name change, realizing Flanders' ego was easily the equal of theirs combined. Flanders stole Fred Hawes away from Cadillac's engineering department-he had been with that company since its inception, Metzger remembered and recommended him. He was not, however, given a whole lot to do. The new Flanders would be the old Everitt, with the addition of Gray & Davis electric lighting and starting, and minor refinements to make production easier.

Sixes only would be marketed, the 127-inch wheelbase 50-Six, and a smaller companion car, the 40-Six on a 115-inch wheelbase. And LeRoy Pelletier got to work. The day of the four was over, he decided, "If You Are Paying More Than $1200 for a Car, You Are Entitled to a Six." Of course, he couldn't promise "to give you a Six at exactly the figure mentioned" - he was writing before Flanders finalized production costs-but he did promise "a price so little above that figure it will be within your reach if you can afford a car of more than 35 horsepower at all." As it happened, the 40-Six came in at $1550-the 50-Six was over two thousand-so Pelletier tried another tack. "Four and Two Do Not Make Six" was the name of the booklet, and it advanced the notion, in Pelletier's inimitable style, that the rush now to the six- cylinder bandwagon by four-cylinder manufacturers was much too hasty: "The obvious way to make a six is to add to the four you already have. . . . But it simply can't be did! ... The designing of a six is a problem entirely separate from that of designing a four." The new Flanders was introduced, three months later, at the New York Automobile Show, January 1913.

Flanders Manufacturing had been an E-M-F-Every Morning Frustration. But the biggest problem apparently was the plant in Chelsea, "a large, imposing structure, originally built on an idealized scale with the funds of the taxpayers of Michigan by a defaulting state official." It included a library, a theatre, a gymnasium, a swimming pool "and other things designed to make the workmen happy" . . . but not the facilities to make them productive. All previous owners hadn't been able to make the factory work; doubtless Flanders, with his experience in such matters, thought he could. He made a mistake. It was a very costly one. Now he found himself, among other debts, unable to pay the contractor who had installed $250,000 worth of improvements to the plantation he had bought with the sellout to Studebaker. Walter Flanders needed cash-badly.

No one ever accused him of not being resourceful. He outdid himself this time. He exchanged one company in receivership for another company in receivership. He broke off ties with Flanders Manufacturing and took on a fiasco someone else had created which was even bigger than his own- Benjamin Briscoe's United States Motor Corporation . In exchange for his services, he required U.S. Motor to purchase the Metzger-Motor Car-Company-cum-Everitt-Motor-Car-Company-cum- Flanders-Motor -Company. The price was the $3.75 million at which it had only recently been capitalized-a million of that in cash, the rest in stock in the new company to be organized. This made for a nifty profit for investors Everitt and Metzger who merrily went their separate ways, Everitt back to his body-building business which had remained prosperous throughout this saga, Metzger on to affiliations in a number of automotive-related companies including Columbia of Detroit, builders of an assembled car which was among the most respected in this country.

Meanwhile Walter Flanders took the remains of U.S. Motor, and having learned a hard lesson, decided retrenchment was sometimes preferable to gambling. At the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York, on two sheets of notepaper, he drafted out the reorganization. He scrapped every sick company in the U.S. Motor colossus, and concentrated on the one healthy organization and the one good name that was left. One month after its introduction at the New York Automobile Show, the Flanders Six became the Maxwell.

And soon thereafter the Flanders Electric became the Tiffany. That was LeRoy Pelletier's doing-and his baby. He would take care of advertising Maxwells for Flanders, both for reasons of friendship and sustenance. But he couldn't get the idea out of his head that there remained a large market for the electric car, if only the right one could be produced. So he teamed up with former Flanders Manufacturing general manager Don McCord, bought what was left of the Flanders Electric business, reintroducing its product as the Tiffany in DeLuxe and Mignon (the latter French of course for tiny or delicate, as in filet). The new name made for catchy phrases - "Of all things She'd like, She'd like a Tiffany best" - but what Pelletier really wanted was a Tiffany with a Woolworth price tag, and this was announced in December 1913: a $750 electric which set an unprecedentedly low price in the electric field ... but which met the same fate as his $100 motorcycle. He struggled for a while, decided that since a million dollars had been spent promoting the Flanders Electric, its name was perhaps better than one associated only with jewelry, and asked his friend Walter if he'd mind if he switched back. Walter readily agreed, his ego hankering for a car called the Flanders, even though he knew he could pay off his plantation renovations only by producing the Maxwell.

Alas, the Tiffany didn't sell any better as a Flanders this time than it had the first-and ultimately Pelletier concluded he was better off advertising cars other people knew better how to build, like Walter Flanders' Maxwell. Or John Perrin's Lozier or Ransom Olds' Reo. In November of 1914 he established an advertising agency in Detroit. His reputation by now was firmly fixed. In succeeding years he would promote the aeroplane as well-campaigning to make Detroit the air center of the world-and he lent his talents to such "huge amusement enterprises" as Luna Park, Coney Island and Madison Square Garden. He would be generally credited with introduction of the "Midway" concept into expositions and world fairs.

The Rickenbacker automobile, (For more information on the Rickenbacker automobile, please see the "Rickenbacker Motors Webpage at http://rickenbackermotors.com/) unfortunately, like the E-M-F, suffered callously unfair jibes from its competitors (these because of its early introduction of four-wheel brakes). It lived only a half decade, a year longer than the E-M-F. It was the last automotive venture for Everitt, Metzger and Flanders.

One is left with the nagging suspicion that, from the beginning, things might have been different had these people just been able to stay together long enough.

On April 1lth, 1933, William E. Metzger died, age sixty-four, at his home in Detroit. It was a blessing, the press said, he had been incapacitated for four years, "critically ill for the past year, and in recent months had suffered a weakening of the mind." A heart attack released him. His wife had died in 1907, his daughter survived him.

On September 5th, 1938, heart disease claimed LeRoy Pelletier at the age of seventy. For years, in memory of his friend Elbert Hubbard who liked them, he had worn only Windsor ties, though he had to go to children's departments to buy them. He had asked his wife to bring one along when he checked into Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Two sons, a daughter, a brother and eight grandchildren also survived him.

On October 5th, 1940, in Harper Hospital in Detroit, with his wife, his brother and sister at his bedside, Barney Everitt died at age sixty-seven. He had been in failing health for more than a year.

The American Car since 1775 - Copyright 1971 by Automobile Quarterly Inc.

Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal - March 1909

Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal - April 1909

Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal - December 1909

Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal - March 1910

Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal - September 1910

1912 E-M-F Preliminary catalogue - The E-M-F Corporation, 1912.

Horseless Carriage Gazette - Volume 49 No. 6, November - December 1987 page 45 - 47. Article on the E-M-F By William Cuthbert.

Motor Age - December 31, 1908

Motor Age - January 5, 1911

Studebaker: The Life and Death of an American Corporation. By Donald T. Critchlow. Published 1996 by Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN. ISBN 0-253-33065-3

Index
Atlanta Speedway Briggs, Walter O. Briscoe, Benjamin Brownson, Robert M. DeLuxe Motor Company Eames, Hayden E-M-F Automobile    Chief Engineer    Specifications    Production 1909    Production 1910    Production 1911    Production 1912 E-M-F Corporation     Birth     Start of Production E-M-F Financial backers    Barbour, William T.    Book, J. B.    Gunderson, J. B.    Palm, Charles L. Everitt “30” Automobile Everitt, Barney F.    Background    Death    Photo Factories    Piquette Street    Port Huron, MI    Walkerville, Ont Canada Federal Manufacturing Company Fish, Frederick Fisher, Fred J. Flanders “4” Flanders “20” automobile    Chief Engineer    Description Flanders Bi-Mobile Flanders Electric Flanders Motor Company Flanders Motorcycle	Flanders, Walter E.    Background    Death    Photo Ford, Henry    Announces Model T    Bodies from Everitt    Crankshafts from Flanders    Lowers Model T Price    Lowers Model T Price Again    Out sells Flanders    Pelletier Worked for    Thermo-syphon    Wanted Low Priced Car    Worried about Flanders Ford Model T    Announcement of    First to roll out    Flanders priced less than    Henry lowers price    Production, 1909 Garford, Arthur Garford Company Glidden Tour Pathfinding    E-M-F “30”    Flanders “20”    Lewis, Dai Grant & Wood Manufacturing Gunn, James Newton Hawes, Fred Heaslet, James Hewitt, Edward R. Hewitt Motor Company Kelly, William E. Lewis, Dai Maxwell Automobile Maxwell Briscoe McCord, Don	Metzger Motor Company Metzger, William E.    Background    Death    Photo Morgan, J.P. Northern Automobile Old Bullet Pelletier, E. LeRoy    Background    Death    Photo Pontiac Drop Forge Company Pontiac Foundry Company Pontiac Motorcycle Company Pope, George Rickenbacker Automobile Rickenbacker, Eddie Studebaker, Clement Jr. Studebaker, Clement Sr. Studebaker, Colonel George M. Studebaker, Grace Studebaker, John M. Studebaker, Peter Studebaker Corporation Tiedeman Trophy race Tiffany Electric Car Tudhope Motor Company United States Motor Corporation Vulcan Gear Works Walburn, Thomas Wills-Sainte-Claire Willys Overland Wollering, Max Wayne Automobile Company Wayne Automobile Factory

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