Stutz

The Ideal Motor Car Company was organized in June 1911 by Harry C. Stutz with his friend, Henry F Campbell, and began building Stutz cars in Indianapolis in 1911. They set this business up after a car built by Stutz in under five weeks and entered in the name of his Stutz Auto Parts Co. placed 11th in the Inaugural Indianapolis 500 earning it the slogan "the car that made good in a day". Ideal built what amounted to copies of the racecar with added fenders and lights and sold them with the model name Stutz Bearcat, Bear Cat being the name of the actual racecar.

The Bearcat featured a 389 cu in Wisconsin brawny four-cylinder T-head engine with four valves per cylinder, one of the earliest multi-valve engines, matched with one of Harry Stutz's transaxles. Stutz Motor 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 national championships before withdrawing from racing in October 1915

In June 1913 Ideal Motor Car Company changed its name to Stutz Motor Car Company (of Indiana) and Stutz Auto Parts Company (it manufactured Stutz's transaxle) was merged into it. To find new investment capital for expansion Stutz Motor Car Company (of Indiana) was sold in 1916 to Stutz Motor Car Company of America under an agreement with a consortium to list the specially organized holding company's stock on the New York Stock Exchange. As a part of the listing process, the number of cars produced and sold since 1912 was reported to potential investors: 1913, 759; 1914, 649; 1915, 1,079; 1916 (first six months) 874. Stutz, Campbell, Allan A. Ryan, and four others were directors. Stutz was president and Allan A. Ryan vice-president.

Harry Stutz left Stutz Motor on July 1, 1919, and together with Henry Campbell established the H. C. S. Motor Car Company and Stutz Fire Apparatus Company.

Allan Aloysius Ryan (1880–1940), father of Allan A. Ryan Jr., was left in control of Stutz Motor. Ryan Sr., and friends attempted stock manipulation which in April 1920 proved disastrous. Stutz Motor was delisted. The Stutz Motor corner was the last publicly detected intentional corner on the New York Stock Exchange. Ryan Sr., was bankrupt in August 1922 as well as disinherited by his father, Thomas Fortune Ryan. Meanwhile, two friends of Thomas Fortune Ryan found themselves with large parcels of Stutz stock, Charles Michael Schwab and Eugene Van Rensselaer Thayer Jr. (1881–1937), president of Chase National Bank. 

Stutz’s line up of 4 and 6 cylinder cars was aging at this point, particularly that in the very competitive Indianapolis Auto World, the Duesenberg Brothers were producing a Straight 8 Chassis, and National had a V12, right down the street. A new direction was needed, and 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". This car The Safety Stutz” was really a close duplication of the Duesenberg 8- Overhead Cam In line 8 Cylinder engine( the Vertical 8), Hydraulic brakes, and the addition of a Worm Drive Rear, which allowed the car to sit considerably lower than its contemporaries.  The car was very well received. This spawned a law suit from James Scripps Booth who had proposed a similar concept to Stutz management prior to Moskowics coming on board. This lawsuit would haunt the company until its final days-not being settled until 1934, just as Stutz production ceased as the market for expensive Luxury cars was disappearing.

In the meantime the Vertical 8 was a wonderful engine with Dual Ignition, encouraging Stutz to return to its racing roots. A 300 Cu in Stutz (entered and owned by wealthy French pilot and inventor Charles Weymann[) in the hands of by Robert Bloch and Edouard Brisson finished second at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (losing to the 4.5-liter Bentley of Rubin and Barnato, despite losing top gear 90 minutes from the flag), the best result for an American car until 1966. That same year, development engineer and racing driver Frank Lockhart used a pair of supercharged 91-cubic-inch  DOHC engines in his Stutz Black Hawk Special streamliner land speed record car, while Stutz set another speed record at Daytona Beach, reaching 106.53 mph driven by Gil Andersen making it the fastest production car in America. Also in 1927, Stutz won the AAA Championship winning every race and every Stutz vehicle entered finished. In 1929, three Stutzes, with bodies designed by Gordon Buehrig, built by Weymann's U.S. subsidiary, and powered by a 155 hp, 322 cu in  supercharged, straight 8 ran at Le Mans, driven by Edouard Brisson, George Eyston (of land speed racing fame), and co-drivers Philippe de Rothschild and Guy Bouriat; de Rothschild and Bouriat placed fifth after the other two cars fell out with split fuel tanks.

Heading into the heady days of the late 20’s and early 30’s Stutz Chassis were clothed in a wide variety of Custom Coachwork by the finest Coachbuilders, both domestically and abroad.  Some of the most striking, rakish, and exciting cars were Stutz Models.  The Stutz had established itself as a world class performance and luxury marque.  A separate lower priced car called the BlackHawk was developed in 1929, just in time for the Great Depression to occur. It lasted a couple of years with few cars produced.  They were very high quality cars, still hand built to the same standards, so were likely not very profitable.   Stutz was still really a boutique operation that could not afford to participate in the Multi Cylinder wars of the early 30’s. The Vertical 8 proved to be a great platform for the addition of a Dual Overhead Cam, 4 valve per cylinder Head, which came close to duplicating the Duesenberg J engine, at least in concept. The 1931 DOHC 32-valve in-line 8 was called the "DV32" (DV for 'dual valve'), and Stutz renamed the Vertical 8 the SV-16, so at least the names sounded as powerful as the 12’s and 16’s offered by Marmon, Packard, Lincoln, Cadillac, and Pierce Arrow.  Stutz did continue its performance heritage with the dual overhead cam, in-line 8 engine design. Brochures boasted the cars were capable of top speeds of more than 100 mph.

The following year, Stutz Motor acquired the manufacturing rights for the Pak-Age-Car, a light delivery vehicle that they had been distributing since 1927. A total of 15 new Stutz models were introduced at the 1932 New York Motor Show by Charles Schwab including the Pak-Age-Car. The delivery vehicle was put into production by Stutz's Package Car Division in March 1933 and the production of automobiles stopped. When production ended in 1935 35,000 cars had been manufactured. Stutz Motor was charged by stock manipulation again in 1935, but without the excesses that occurred in 1920.

Stutz Motor filed for bankruptcy in April 1937, though its assets exceeded its liabilities. Creditors were unable to agree on a plan for revival and in April 1939, the bankruptcy court ordered its liquidation.[

The former Indianapolis factory is today known as the Stutz Business Center and is home to more than eighty artists, sculptors, photographers, designers, architects, and craftsmen. This building was saved by Turner Woodard, and is currently being renovated into more of a mixed use class A office and residential campus.  A Museum has been established and houses many of Turner’s Stutz Automobiles.