The Car That Made Good In a Day

Between 1911 and 1935 a small company in Indianapolis, IN made some of the most prestigious and also best running cars the world had seen. Beginning life as the Ideal Motor Car Company, the firm's first car was a one-off that they entered in the Indianapolis 500. It finished 11th and inspired the slogan "The car that made good in a day."

But that finish also inspired Ideal's owner, Harry C. Stutz to start building cars for more than just one race. And he changed the named of the company to the Stutz Motor Company.
The Stutz cars were highly valued for both their luxury and their success on the race track. But because the quality of manufacturing them was so pricey, Harry had a difficult time making ends meet. He was forced to raise money through stockholders, eventually selling to the largest share holder, Allen Ryan, in 1919. Ryan subsequently went bankrupt.

By 1922 the company was floundering and three stockholders gained control, led by Charles M. Schwab. They brought in Frederick Ewan Moskowics, a highly respected automobile executive who had done wonders for such companies as Marmon and Franklin. The first thing Moskowics did was redirect the company into making "safety cars."
What Stutz offered was features such as safety glass, the "Noback" hill-holding transmission and a lower center of gravity which made for much better handling. This in particular helped the cars as they continued their impressive run on the race track.

In 1927 Stutz set averaged 68 miles per hour on a 24 hour run to set a new world speed endurance record. The next year a French owned Stutz finished second at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Also that year Stutz set another speed record of 106.53 miles per hour in Daytona, FL. Then, in 1929, another Stutz finished fifth at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Production ended in 1935 in the midst of the Depression. The company couldn't afford to maintain their factory with the economy, and their potential buyers, in fiscal trouble. In all, 35,000 cars were built. Two of them are pictured here.

One is a 1932 Stutz Bearcat. Perhaps the most famous of the Stutz cars, the Bearcat was the "street legal" version of the Stutz Indy car. First produced between 1914 and 1924 and then again from 1931 through 1933, it featured the eight cylinder DV 32 engine that made Stutz famous. With four valves per cylinder the DV 32 pumped out 156 horse power, a huge amount for the day. The later Bearcats of which this is an example, were all tested at the factory at 100 miles per hour before being delivered to buyers.

Also shown here is a 1930 Stutz Model M Lancefield Supercharged Coupe, so named because it was bodied by the coach builder Lancefield Coachworks of London. Of the five originally built this is the only one that still survives and it is one of only two supercharged Stutz cars to ever exist. This car raced in the 1929 24 Hour of Le Mans.

Stutz was a highly prized manufacturer that had remarkable success on the race track but, like so many other small firms, couldn't cope in a difficult economic environment. Though 1968 brought back the name in the form of Stutz Motor Car Company of America, it wasn't the same. The grandeur and racing spirit was gone and while these were fairly successful cars, they were based on existing Pontiac models and lacked the character and charm, and the raw rush that came with driving a Stutz.