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The Rickenbacker Motor Company was incorporated in July of 1921 when
Barney Everitt decided to start up another car company. He asked Eddie Rickenbacker
for the use of his name on the automobiles and named Eddie vice-president & director of sales for the company.
Everitt also asked long time friend and businessman Walter Flanders to help get
this car company off the ground. Everitt & Flanders worked together before with William Metzger at the EMF
car company from 1909-1912.
(For more information on EMF Auto check out the fine site)
A plant on Michigan Avenue in Detroit was purchased where 200 cars a day could be manufactured.
(Later a newer plant was built at 4815 Cabot Avenue) The general public had yet to see the Rickenbacker
prototype, but anything associated with Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was bound to be something extraordinary.
The emblem for the car was taken from Rickenbacker's flying squadron insignia the "Hat in the Ring."
In January of 1922 the first Rickenbacker touring cars, sedans, and coupes made their debut at the New York Auto show.
The engine was a three-main- bearing six cylinder, 218 cubic inches, 58 hp with a speed of 60 mph. The cars were
vibration less with two flywheels at either end of the crankshaft. This was an idea Rickenbacker had come up with
while flying over Germany. He had been amazed at the German planes maneuverability and on inspection of several engines,
found a flywheel at the end of the crankshaft. Also new on the Rickenbacker was an experimental chassis with
four-wheel brakes. Few people paid much attention to this feature.
By March of 1922, the factory was making 10 Rickenbackers a day. By May, the numbers had increased to 50.
Rickenbacker announced on June 27th , 1923 that all Rickenbackers built from now on would have four-wheel brakes.
Packard had made the same statement 16 days earlier, but only offered it on their eight-cylinder models.
The Rickenbacker was the first medium priced American car with four-wheel brakes. Duesenberg had been the first to offer
the option, but Duesenbergs were far from meduim-priced. Buick, Oakland, Cadillac, Marmon, Chalmers, Elgin, Paige and
Locomobile were next to jump on four-wheel brake bandwagon. Few people seemed to remember that Rickenbacker had been
making cars with four-wheel brakes since 1922, although few models came with the option in 1922.
Car makers who did not offer a four-wheel brake model claimed that four-wheel brakes were dangerous. This campaign hurt
Rickenbacker sales slightly, even though there was nothing unsafe about the design. Two companies leading these negative
ads were the Ford Motor Company & Studebaker. The main reason for these ads really had nothing to do with the safety of
the brakes. Ford & Studebaker had thousands of chassis in stock with two wheel brakes and nothing on the engineering
table to start building a car with four wheel brakes. The negative campaign was to slow down the selling of four wheel
braking auto's until their stock piles to two wheel chassis were used up.
For some reason, the Rickenbacker never quite got off the ground. In 1923, the death of Walter Flanders
(automobile accident) who had been instrumental in the design of the Rickenbacker, had a negative impact on the
company. By the end of 1923, production numbers were just under 6,000 models which was less than expected.
In 1924, Rickenbacker introduced the Vertical 8 Super-fine. This was indeed a fine automobile with a carbureted nine
bearing L-head 268 cubic inch engine, dual ignition, dual muffler and the dual flywheel system. The price started at
$2,195. Unfortunately, the Vertical 8 Super-fine was also costly to produce. By the end of 1924 the net profit for the
company was dropping.
Everett was still determined to keep the company going and beefed up the horsepower on the six and eight cylinder models
slightly. However, in July 1925, Everett made a costly mistake. He dropped the price tag on the Vertical 8. This startled
many dealers and stock holders in the company.
At the 1926 New York Auto Show the Rickenbacker Motor Company deputed it's new
Super Sport Boattail Coupe for $5000. They claimed it was the fastest production car to
carry 4 people at just under 100 mph. Duesenberg, Stutz, Packard, and the likes had cars that could go faster, BUT they
could only haul 2 people!! It's believed less than 20 of these cars were ever produced.
In September of 1926, Eddie Rickenbacker resigned from the company due to constant bickering and other problems. This would
prove to be the downfall of the car that bore his name. Hearing of Captain Eddie's departure, other influential people in
the company began to leave as well. Everett was now pretty much on his own.
Everitt made a last valiant attempt to keep the company going and announced that there would be 500 new cars available for
1927. In February, he was forced to give up. A total of 517 cars were made in 1927.
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