Hupmobile
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The Hupp Motor Car Company was founded by Robert Craig Hupp, a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, on November 8, 1908 in Detroit, Michigan, USA, and began manufacturing its first automobiles soon thereafter.
The company introduced its first car, the Model 20 Runabout, in 1909. Successful from the start, the company expanded to Canada in 1911, building an assembly plant across the river in Windsor, Ontario. Production was discontinued in Canada after a few years but started up again during the Great Depression of the 1930s when tariffs encourage local production by rating duties in inverse proportion to Canadian content. And Canadian content included the labour to assemble the cars.
Similar to Henry Ford's concept, Hupp’s philosophy was to build a car that the average working man could afford. The company’s vehicle met with much success in its early years, gaining a reputation for reliability and endurance. Each Hupmobile had the words "Guaranteed for Life," engraved on the vehicle's nameplate. In addition, it came with a number of standard features that were only available as an option on many of its competitor’s products.
Within a few years, the company was able to expand its manufacturing facilities and to increase the number and variety of models produced. In December of 1928, Hupp acquired the Chandler Motor Car Co. manufacturing assets in Cleveland, Ohio and produced some of its automobiles there for the next eight years. At the 1932 Indianapolis 500 automobile race, a Hupmobile finished in 5th place, further enhancing its reputation for durability.
To deal with the Great Depression, Hupp used some of the designs by the freelance industrial designer Raymond Loewy. His 1932 design was only slightly advanced, though it won awards for beauty. But it was his 1934 design which introduced streamlining, along with the competitors Chrysler Airflow and Lincoln Zephyr. The 1934 Hupmobile Aerodynamic had headlights which were part of the body, rather than being bolted on in pods, and the lines were subtly altered from being either vertical or horizontal.
But internally, a proxy fight for control of the Hupp Motor Car Corporation was intensifying, initiated by a majority stockholder named Archie M. Andrews, who had been involved in similar schemes with other automobile firms. Hupmobile's efforts in addressing this new situation distracted it from its main purpose, and meanwhile the public was taking notice of the resulting negative publicity. The courts would finally rule that Andrews was guilty of wilful fraud, but Hupp now faced high legal defense bills, a diminished credit rating, cautious suppliers and customers, and severely weakened finances.
Unable to meet payroll, Hupp halted production in mid-1936. Several plants were sold to raise cash, including the Canadian facilities, a re-organization plan was formulated, and after over a year of planning the new 1938 Hupmobile 822E Sixes and 825H Eights were introduced in September, 1937. Among the 1938 innovations was the Evanair-Conditioner heater which was, along with the contemporary Nash Weather Eye, the industry's first fresh-air heater.
Hupmobile's 1938 break-even point was 15,000 cars, but coincidentally a sudden national economic downturn was beginning and this, combined with Hupp's weakened public image, held 1938 Hupmobile Six and Eight production down to only 1,752 models.
Looking for a new direction, Hupp gained control of the tooling for the recently-discontinued Cord automobile and produced a striking new model, the Hupp Skylark late in 1939, in addition to its current line. The wheelbase of the Cord was reduced from 125" to 115", all in the hood. The car was converted from front wheel drive to rear wheel drive with the floor modified to accept a driveshaft.
The Skylark was an instant success, and thousands of orders were placed. But Hupp was finding to its dismay that the Cord tooling had been designed for high-priced, low-quantity handbuilt production levels and that Hupp could not produce the popular Skylarks in quantity or at the target price. The roof, alone, consisted of seven separate stampings that had to be welded together, joints leaded and smoothed. Hupp did not have the cash to tool a one-piece roof, either.
An agreement was forged at a meeting one Sunday afternoon with Graham-Paige to produce the Skylark for Hupp and a similar model for Graham to be called the Graham Hollywood. This caused further delays in production and a continued erosion of public confidence in both companies. Only about 380 of the difficult-to-build 1940 Hupp Skylarks had been produced when the exhausted Hupp Motor Car Company called an end to production on July 1, 1940. Graham Hollywood production ended that September with a total of about 1,400 Hollywood sedans and a couple of convertibles. A few leftover 1940 Skylarks (and Hollywoods) were titled and sold as 1941 models. The Hupp plant on Grand Avenue in Detroit was demolished in 1956.
But Hupp survived, doing defense work during World War II and building tank transmissions during the Korean War. As Hupp Corporation, it built Gibson refrigerators and other home appliances, and became Hupp, Inc. in 1967 as a subsidiary of White Consolidated Industries, finally disbanding in about 2000 while under the name "H Industries".
(Bibliography: "The Hupmobile Story From Beginning to End" by Bill Cuthbert, 2004 - M.T. Publishing Company, Inc. - ISBN: 1-932439-13-7)
External links
- Hupmobile Club
- Hupp World
- Rapid Bay Hupmobile
- vonMackensen Hupmobile
- Hupmobile
- The Hupmobile Aerodynamics
- The Hupmobile Skylark