Stutz Motor Company

The Stutz Motor Company was an American producer of luxury cars based in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. Production began in 1911 and continued until 1935. The brand reappeared in 1968 under the aegis of Stutz Motor Car of America, Inc., and with a newly defined modern retro-look. Although the company is still active today, actual sales of factory produced vehicles ceased in 1995. Throughout its history, Stutz was known as a producer of fast cars (America's first sports car) and luxury cars for the rich and famous.

The company was founded as the Ideal Motor Car Company in Indianapolis in 1911. Ideal entered a car in the Indianapolis 500 that year and placed 11th, earning it the slogan, "the car that made good in a day". The next year, the founder, Harry C. Stutz, renamed the company Stutz Motor Company and began selling high-performance roadsters like the famous Stutz Bearcat. The Bearcat featured a brawny four-cylinder T-head engine with four valves per cylinder, one of the earliest multi-valve engines. Stutz has also been credited with the development of "the underslung chassis", an invention that greatly enhanced the safety and cornering of motor vehicles and one that is still in use today. Stutz "White Squadron" race team won the 1913 and 1915 championships.

Stutz was forced to raise money to fund his automobile production, eventually selling the company in 1919 after a falling out with the company's major stockholders, Allan A. Ryan, who then went bankrupt. In 1922, three Stutz investors, one of whom was Charles M. Schwab, gained control of the company. The new owners brought in Frederick Ewan Moskowics, formerly of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft, Marmon, and Franklin, in 1923. Moskowics quickly refocused the company as a developer of safety cars, a recurring theme in the auto industry. In the case of Stutz, the car featured safety glass, a low center of gravity for better handling, and a hill-holding transmission called "Noback". One notable advance was the 1931 DOHC 32-valve in-line 8 called the "DV32" (DV for 'dual valve'). This was during the so-called "cylinders race" of the early 1930s, when makers of some expensive cars were rushing to produce multi-cylinder engines. Stutz did not go to the V12 and V16 engines, but instead stayed true to its performance heritage with the dual overhead cam 8 design as used on the sporting cars of the era such as Bugatti, Alfa, Duesenberg and Miller. Brochures boasted 100 mph+.

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