thumb|upright|Alexander Winton

thumb|Winton plant (1903)

thumb|Winton Motor Carriage (1896).

thumb|Winton (1897)

thumb|Winton light delivery wagon (1900).

thumb|Winton heavy delivery wagon (1900).

thumb| [[Buffalo Bill Cody celebrates his 58th birthday (Feb. 26, 1904) in a Winton 20HP.]]

thumb|right|1907 Winton at Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum

The Winton Motor Carriage Company was a pioneer United States automobile manufacturer based in Cleveland, Ohio. Winton was one of the first American companies to sell a motor car. In 1912, Winton became one of the first American manufacturers of diesel engines.

History

1896–1903

In 1896, Scottish immigrant Alexander Winton, owner of the Winton Bicycle Company, turned from bicycle production to an experimental single-cylinder automobile before starting his car company. In the mid-1960s, the home was demolished, and an upscale high-rise condominium was constructed aptly named Winton Place.

The company was incorporated on March 15, 1897. Its first automobiles were built by hand. Each vehicle had painted sides, padded seats, a leather roof, and gas lamps. B.F. Goodrich made the tires.

By this time, Winton had already produced two fully operational prototype automobiles. In May of that year, the 10 hp (7.5 kW) model achieved the astonishing speed of on a test around a Cleveland horse track. However, the new invention was still subject to much skepticism , so to prove his automobile's durability and usefulness, Alexander Winton had his car undergo an endurance run from Cleveland to New York City. This is the same mistake that Enzo Ferrari would later make with Ferruccio Lamborghini.

Winton sold his first manufactured semi-truck in 1899. More than one hundred Winton vehicles were sold that year, making the company the largest manufacturer of gasoline-powered automobiles in the United States. This success led to the opening of the first automobile dealership by Mr. H. W. Koler in Reading, Pennsylvania. To deliver the vehicles, in 1899, Winton built the first automobile hauler in America. That year, Winton lost a race at Grosse Pointe to Henry Ford. Winton vowed a comeback and win. He produced the 1902 Winton Bullet, which set an unofficial land speed record of in Cleveland that year. The Bullet was defeated by another Ford by famed driver Barney Oldfield, but two more Bullet race cars were built.

In 1903, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson made the first successful automobile drive across the United States.) The two men often drove miles out of the way to find a passable road, repeatedly hoisted the Winton up and over rocky terrain and mud holes with a block and tackle, or were pulled out of soft sand by horse teams. In 1903, there were only 150 miles of paved road in the entire country, all inside city limits. There were no road signs or maps. They once paid the exorbitant price of $5 for five gallons of gasoline (equal to $ today). Jackson and Crocker followed rivers and streams, transcontinental railroad tracks, sheep trails, and dirt back roads. The car is now part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History after Jackson himself donated the vehicle to the museum where it can still be seen on display.

<gallery widths="200px" heights="190px">

File:Winton auto ad car-1898.jpg|1898 Winton Motor Carriage Company's first automobile ad

1899Winton.jpg|1899 Winton Stanhope

1899 Winton.jpg|1899 Winton at Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum

1903 Gordon Bennett Trophy. Athy, Ireland. Alexander Winton in the Winton Bullet 2.jpg|1903 Gordon Bennett Trophy, Athy, Ireland; Alexander Winton in the Winton Bullet 2

HoratioJacksonNelson.jpg|1903 Horatio Nelson Jackson in his two-seat Winton tourer, "The Vermont", drives across America

</gallery>

1904–1924

The 1904 Winton was a five-passenger tonneau-equipped tourer which sold for US$2,500. By contrast, the Enger 40 was US$2,000,

::Models (1904)

::{|class="wikitable"

|-

! Type !! Engine !! HP !! Wheelbase !! Transmission

|-

|Touring-5p. ||Two-cylinder ||20 ||94.5" ||2-speed sliding-gear

|-

|Touring-5p. ||Four-cylinder ||24 ||104" ||2-speed sliding-gear

|}

Winton's flat-mounted water-cooled straight-twin engine, situated amidships of the car, produced . The channel and angle steel-framed car weighed .

::Models (1914) The Winton Motor Carriage Company ceased automobile production on February 11, 1924.

::Models (1922)

Image:1910Winton.jpg|1910 Winton Six

File:111-SC-18384 - NARA - 55196832 (cropped).jpg|1918 Winton Six Model 33 Limousine

File:Winton at Cleveland Classic Cars (34719672554).jpg|1922 Winton Six Model 40 seven-passenger touring

File:Winton plant (1903).jpg|Winton plant (1903)

</gallery>

Winton Engine Company

In 1912, Winton started producing diesel engines for stationary and marine use, and gasoline engines for heavy vehicles, independent of Winton's automobile production. The subsidiary Winton Engine Company remained successful while Winton's automotive sales went into decline, and would outlive the Winton Motor Carriage Company. Winton became the main supplier of engines for internal combustion-electric powered railcars in the 1920s.

Sale to General Motors

On June 20, 1930, Winton Engine Company was sold to General Motors and on June 30 was reorganized as the Winton Engine Corporation subsidiary of General Motors. It produced the first practical two-stroke diesel engines in the 400-to-1,200&nbsp;hp (300 to 900&nbsp;kW) range, which powered the early diesel locomotives of Electro-Motive Corporation (another General Motors subsidiary), as well as United States Navy submarines. In 1934, a Winton eight-cylinder, 8-201-A diesel engine powered the revolutionary streamlined passenger train the Burlington Zephyr, the first American diesel-powered mainline train. The Winton Engine Corporation provided 201 Series engines for rail use until late 1938, when it was reorganized as the General Motors Cleveland Diesel Engine Division, which produced the GM 567 series locomotive engines, and other large diesels for marine and stationary use. In 1941, locomotive engine production became part of General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD). In 1962, Cleveland Diesel was absorbed by Electro-Motive Division, which remains in business today as a subsidiary of Progress Rail.

Marine engines

Winton and Cleveland engines were used widely by the U.S. Navy in World War II, powering submarines, destroyer escorts, and numerous auxiliaries. The Winton engines were systematically replaced with the more reliable Cleveland Diesel engines during refittings during the war.

Overview of production figures

thumb|right|240px|Winton Motor Carriage (1897-1899)

thumb|right|240px|Winton Model 20 HP (1903-1904)

thumb|right|240px|Winton Model A (1905)

thumb|right|240px|Winton Model B (1905)

thumb|right|240px|Winton Model C (1905)

thumb|right|240px|Winton Model XIV (1907)

thumb|right|240px|Winton Model M (1907)

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|-

! Year !! Production !! Model

|-

| 1896 || align="right"|2 || Winton Motor Carriage

|-

| 1897 || align="right"|6|| Winton Motor Carriage

|-

| 1898 || align="right"|22 || Winton Motor Carriage

|-

| 1899 || align="right"|106|| Winton Motor Carriage

|-

| 1900 || align="right"|218

|-

| 1901 || align="right"|686

|-

| 1902 || align="right"|633 ||15 HP

|-

| 1903 || align="right"|850 || 20 HP

|-

| 1904 || align="right"|900 || 20 HP

|-

| 1905 || align="right"|1,000 || Model A, Model B, Model C

|-

| 1906 || align="right"|1,000 || Model K

|-

| 1907 || align="right"|1,100 || Model XIV, Model M

|-

| 1908 || align="right"|1,148|| Six-Teen-Six

|-

| 1909 || align="right"|1,218|| Model 17; Model 18

|-

| 1910 || align="right"|1,329|| Model 17; Model 18

|-

| 1911 || align="right"|1,413|| Model 17 B

|-

| 1912 || align="right"|1,518|| Model 17-C

|-

| 1913 || align="right"|1,612|| Model 17-D

|-

| 1914 || align="right"|1,518

|-

| 1915 || align="right"|1,816

|-

| 1916 || align="right"|2,458 || Six-33

|-

| 1917 || align="right"|1,818

|-

| 1918 || align="right"|1,623

|-

| 1919 || align="right"|1,319

|-

| 1920 || align="right"|1,160

|-

| 1921 || align="right"|956

|-

| 1922 || align="right"|561

|-

| 1923 || align="right"|373

|-

| 1924 || align="right"|129

|-

| Sum || align="right"|28,492

|}

  • A purpose-built "Winton Flyer" features prominently in William Faulkner's Pulitzer Prize–winning 1962 novel The Reivers. In fact, the 1969 film version of the novel starring Steve McQueen was known as The Yellow Winton Flyer in the UK.
  • The 1962 episode of Dennis the Menace entitled "Horseless Carriage Club" (S03•E26), prominently features a then 50-year-old, near-perfect, 1912 Winton Six 48HP Tourer.

See also

  • List of defunct United States automobile manufacturers

Notes

References

  • Winton sales literature for models A, B, C and Limousine—The description at the site explains the format: "Designed to be folded in various combinations so that the text can be displayed under the corresponding image. In this digital edition each photo is displayed with the corresponding text folded to appear under the photo. The two sides of the complete, unfolded strip are also included as an application/pdf file as the final image."
  • A collection of Winton magazine advertisements (1902–1917)
  • A collection of sales literature for the Winton Six 1911, 1912, 1913, and 33
  • Secondhandgarage.com: History of the Winton Motor Carriage Company