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Jordan Motor Car Company

Jordan Motor Car Company
Industry Automotive
Founded 1916
Founder Edward S. Jordan
Headquarters Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Number of locations
1 plant (1916), 0 currently
Key people
Dylan Farmer
Products Automobiles
Owner Dylan Farmer
Website www.jordanmotorcarco.com

The Jordan Motor Car Company was founded in 1916 in Cleveland, Ohio by Edward S. "Ned" Jordan, a former advertising executive from Thomas B. Jeffery Company of Kenosha, Wisconsin. The factory produced what were known as "assembled cars" until 1931, using components from other manufacturers. Jordan cars were noted more for attractive styling than for advanced engineering, although they did bring their share of innovations to the marketplace. Not surprisingly, the company's advertising was often more original than the cars themselves. Said Jordan, “Cars are too dull and drab.” He reasoned that since people dressed smartly, they were willing to drive “smart looking cars” as well.

Jordan Motor Car established its plant east of downtown Cleveland at 1070 East 152nd Street along the Nickel Plate Railroad tracks. This not only provided an ideal location for shipping the finished cars, but also provided Jordan with ready access to out of area suppliers. The plant was built in two stages; the first 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m2) building was begun on April 5, 1916 and finished some seven weeks later, while the second addition was completed within months of the first structure. In their first year of production (1916), Jordan sold over one thousand vehicles.

Jordan parts were obtained from outside vendors. The cars were powered by Continental engines, used Timken axles, Bijur starters, and Bosch ignitions. According to Ned Jordan's biographer, James Lackey, the source of early Jordan bodies was somewhat a mystery. While Jordan had the capacity to paint the automobile bodies and attach them to the chassis and outfit the passenger compartment, the facility was unable to fabricate the bodies themselves. Later production bodies were shipped from a variety of manufacturers in Ohio and Massachusetts. They were fabricated from aluminum.

While most automobile producers limited themselves to a single color combination, and Ford relied exclusively on the fast-drying Japan Black lacquer which cured in a matter of hours, Jordan automobiles were available in no less than three colors of red - "Apache Red", "Mercedes Red", and "Savage Red"- as well as "Ocean Sand Gray", "Venetian Green", "Briarcliff Green", "Egyptian Bronze", "Liberty Blue", and "Chinese Blue". Black was also available. The most flamboyant of color schemes was on the four-passenger Sport model which could be ordered in "Submarine Gray", with khaki top and orange wheels.


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