Continental Motors Company was a major American manufacturer of internal combustion engines, best known as an independent supplier of engines for automobiles, tractors, and trucks, as well as for use with stationary equipment such as pumps, generators, and industrial machinery drives. The company produced engines in the United States from 1905 through the 1960s. At its peak in the 1910s and 1920s, the company supplied engines to nearly 100 different automobile marques and powered an estimated three million cars.
Continental Motors also produced automobiles in 1932 and 1933 under the name Continental Automobile Company.
The Continental Aircraft Engine Company was formed in 1929 to develop and produce its aircraft engines; it became the core business of the successor company, Continental Motors, Inc..
The company was founded by engineer Ross W. Judson and his brother-in-law, businessman Arthur W. Tobin, in Chicago in 1902. Judson designed Continental's first commercial engine, an L-head four-cylinder, which debuted at the 1903 Chicago Automobile Show. Originally incorporated in September 1902, the company was named Autocar Equipment Co. In 1904, as the business rapidly grew, Judson and Tobin decided to focus on building engines instead of vehicles. This was then shortly renamed Continental Motor and Manufacturing Co. in February 1905 to avoid confusion with another automaker and to capitalize on the prestige associated with European engineering.
Starting in the auto industry
Continental first built a major plant in Muskegon, Michigan, in 1905, and later expanded to Detroit. Early customers included many "assembled car" manufacturers (i.e. independent automakers which purchased major components from suppliers rather than producing them in-house).
Continental became the dominant supplier of engines to independent and assembled carmakers, outproducing its chief rival, Lycoming, by more than two to one during its peak years. Customers included well-known marques such as Stutz, Hudson, Auburn, Peerless, Durant, and Kaiser-Frazer, among others. By the mid-1920s, Continental could produce up to 250,000 automotive engines annually.
Continental Automobile Company
A Continental engine in a 1948 Divco delivery truck
Durant Motors extensively used the engines in its Star, Durant, Flint, and Rugby model lines. Following the 1931 collapse of Durant, a group having interest in Durant Motors began assembling its own cars, the De Vaux-Hall Motors Company, using the Durant body dies, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Oakland, California, and under the De Vaux brand name. When De Vaux-Hall collapsed in 1932, unable to pay creditors, Continental Motors assumed automobile assembly and marketed the vehicles under the Continental-De Vaux brand name for the balance of the 1932 model year.
Continental Motors introduced a completely new line of Continental-branded automobiles for 1933. These cars were not based upon the 1931 De Vaux, a product of the De Vaux-Hall, which had been using body dies left over from the former Durant produced by Durant Motors until 1930.
The 1933 Continentals were marketed in three model ranges: The largest and most expensive was the six-cylinder Ace; next was a smaller six-cylinder called the Flyer; the third was the low-priced, four-cylinder Beacon. The 1933 Beacon roadster was the lowest priced, full-sized car offered for sale in the United States in the 1930s, costing only US$335. None of these met with success in the Depression-era economy. At this same time, Dominion Motors Ltd. of Canada was building the same Flyer and Beacon cars under arrangement with Continental for sale in the Canadian market and importing the larger Ace models. Dominion then converted to building Reo brand trucks. The Ace and Flyer models were discontinued at the close of the 1933 model year. Finding that its cars were unprofitable, Continental stopped assembling even Beacon automobiles in 1934.
Aircraft and tank industries
In August 1929, the Continental Motors Company formed the Continental Aircraft Engine Company as a subsidiary to develop and produce its aircraft engines.
Continental was a major manufacturer of horizontally opposed "flat four" airplane engines and supplied a similar engine for Sherman tanks during World War II. Apparently, the United States government contracts continued during the Korean War. As the jet engine began to replace piston engine-powered airplanes, Continental began losing military contracts. The jet engine technology thus led to an understandable end to Continental's military prosperity. When the Korean War ended, Kaiser Corporation, which used Continental engines in all their vehicles, was able to gain ownership of a Continental engine factory.[self-published source?] During that time of downsizing Continental's operations, many Continental employees dispersed to find jobs elsewhere in the industry; those engineers found new jobs at other companies, such as the newly formed American Motors, and even Chevrolet.
Kaiser, working with a Continental-designed engine, introduced the USA's first mass-produced overhead camshaft (OHC), inline six-cylinder engine. It debuted in Kaiser-owned Jeep Corporation vehicles in the mid-1960s. However, Stutz built both single- and dual-overhead cam inline six-cylinder engines in, respectively, the late 1920s and early 1930s (SOHC) and the early 1930s (DOHC). Moreover, these were fitted in Stutz production cars, though their numbers were comparatively small.[citation needed]
Particular models of John Deere tractor engines have been supplied by Continental since the ownership transfer to Korea, as stated on the tractor engine identification plates.[citation needed]
Engines
Types
Continental built many engines for the US military, some by license, and many of unusual type.
Inline: Several conventional gasoline I6s were built for trucks, the COA331 (licensed from REO), 6602, 22R, and AO895 (also used in some armored vehicles). Later, the M-A-N-licensed multifuel LDS427, LD465, and turbocharged LDT465 were developed, also for use in trucks.
Radial: In the late 1930s, seven- and nine-cylinder, air-cooled radial aircraft engines were adapted for use in armored vehicles. The W670 and R975 were considered very reliable by the British in North Africa, but were not developed further.
Opposed: Just after WWII, an air-cooled O6 was developed for armored vehicles. AOS models were supercharged, while the AO-895-4 powering the M75 armored personnel carrier was not. The -3 and -4 models had carburetors, while -5 models had fuel injection with no increase in power, but better fuel mileage.
V type: In the early 1950s, an air-cooled V12 engine was introduced for armored vehicles. Later, the AVSI-1790 was developed into the AVDS-1790 diesel version, which was often retrofitted to earlier vehicles.
Use
Automobiles
These automobile companies used Continental engines:
1234Naul, G. Marshall; Norbye, Jan P. (January 1977). "A Brief History of the Continental Engine Company". Special Interest Autos. 1977 (Jan–Feb): 29–33.
12Hodges, David (1994). The Guinness Book of Car Facts and Feats. England: Guinness Publishing. p.256. ISBN0851127681.
Leyes II, Richard A.; William A. Fleming (1999). The History of North American Small Gas Turbine Aircraft Engines. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN1-56347-332-1.
