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Chase Motor Truck Company

Chase Motor Truck Company
Truck Manufacturing
Industry Automotive
Genre Delivery trucks, farm tractors
Fate Bankruptcy
Founded 1907
Founder Aurin M. Chase
Defunct 1919
Headquarters Syracuse, New York, United States
Area served
United States, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Great Britain
Products Vehicles
Automotive parts

Chase Motor Truck Company (1907-1919), founded by Aurin M. Chase, was a manufacturer of trucks in Syracuse, New York. The vehicles were known for their air-cooled engines and simplicity of design.

The company also produced a utility wagon in the form of an automobile, which could be converted for use in business or pleasure. With a few minor changes the car could also be utilized as a commercial wagon.

Chase Motor Truck Company had its roots in the manufacture of farm implements. Company founder, Aurin M. Chase, former vice president of the Syracuse Chilled Plow Company, a company that had been in business since 1804, started production of a one-ton truck with an air-cooled, three-cylinder, two-cycle engine. Chase was backed by Paul Bellinger of the Solvay Process Company, Roy Grant of Grant's Hardware and other Syracuse business figures.

That same year, Aurin Chase negotiated sale of the Syracuse Chilled Plow Company to Deere & Company.

Chase had what seemed like a solid idea in the early days of automobile manufacturing, a gasoline-fueled "high wheeler" that could be transformed into either a truck or passenger car.

The company motto in 1912 advertisements was "The emblem of efficiency." According to the company, "Chase trucks are not pleasure cars. They are service vehicles. That increasing numbers of leading business houses everywhere are sending in repeat orders is due to the fact that after an intimate study of motor truck efficiency they are satisfied that the Chase truck is the simplest and most efficient light delivery truck on the market to-day."

In the beginning, the company manufactured all parts except the wheels. The local plant at 332 South West Street in Syracuse employed 200 men who were busy building and assembling frames, transmissions, bodies, engines and gears.

By 1909, the company was producing a two-cylinder, air-cooled engine with 129 cubic inches and 12-horsepower, which was built in-house. The truck had a Bosch magneto and retrofit Holley carburetor, linked to a two-speed planetary transmission. It also had a hand-crank starter.

Throughout the years, Chase built one-cylinder, three-cylinder and four-cylinder engines; all were two-strokes. Aurin Chase designed his trucks for a smooth conversion to a car and back to truck as needed; "being high wheelers, they looked perhaps a little strange when configured as cars, but when wearing truck bodies as “expresses” or “runabouts,” they looked much like early Brockways."

Chase was apparently involved with early Brockway production in 1910 and later supplied components to the Cortland, New York, firm.


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