Scottish immigrant, Alexander Winton founded the Winton Motor Carriage Company of Cleveland, Ohio


Monday 15th March 1897

Scottish immigrant, Alexander Winton founded the Winton Motor Carriage Company of Cleveland, Ohio. Winton was the first American company to sell a motor car. Their first automobiles, called “horseless carriages,” were built by hand and assembled piece by piece. Each vehicle had fancy painted sides, padded seats, a leather roof, and gas lamps. After 12 years in the bicycle manufacturing business, Winton began producing cars with his name on them in 1896. A fiery Scotsman, Winton took the challenge to build the world’s fastest automobile personally. Like Ransom Olds, he raced his own cars. Racing at Daytona Beach is said to have begun with a match race between Winton and Olds in 1902, which the two men declared a draw. A year later, Winton won a multi-car race at Daytona, driving his Winton Bullet to an average speed of 68 mph and becoming the first person to break the mile-per-minute barrier. Alexander Winton’s personal rivalries did not stop with Ransom Olds. In 1901, Henry Ford, after being passed over for a mechanic’s job with Winton’s company, defeated Winton in his first and last car race. Ford’s future notoriety would depend heavily on the publicity won in his encounter with his one-time potential employer. James Ward Packard also maintained a personal rivalry with Winton. After having purchased a Winton, Packard complained about the car’s reliability. Winton reportedly politely urged Packard to build his own car. Packard responded by starting his own company. In the first decade of American car racing Wintons and Packards, driven by Barney Oldfield and Ralph DePalma, respectively, would fuel the sport’s greatest rivalry. In 1903, Winton drove his car from San Francisco to New York to prove the reliability of his vehicles. It was the automotive industry’s most dramatic achievement up to that point. A popular anecdote sums up Winton’s involvement in the early automotive industry. Faced with mechanical problems in an early Winton, a Cleveland area resident reportedly towed his Winton through the streets of Cleveland with a team of mules exhibiting a sign reading, “This is the only way you can drive a Winton.” In response, Winton hired a farm wagon carrying a jackass to follow his detractor, exhibiting a sign that read, “This is the only animal unable to drive a Winton.”


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