Metz Company

The Metz Company was a pioneer brass era automobile maker in Waltham, Massachusetts.^[1]

Claiming to be "winner of the Glidden Tour", the 1914 Model 22 was a two-seat roadster or torpedo. It had a 22½ hp (17 kW) four-cylinder water-cooled engine with Bosch magneto, full-elliptic springs front and rear. It ran on artillery wheels with Goodrich clincher tires, and featured a Prest-O-Lite-type acetylene generator for the headlights.^[1] It was billed as "gearless"^[1] and priced at $475; by contrast, the Success was an uncommonly low US$250,^[2] the Black started at $375,^[3] the Brush Runabout was US$485^[4] Western's Gale Model A was US$500,^[5] and even the high-volume Oldsmobile Runabout was US$650.^[2]

Although Metz was not the first to offer a kit car (Dyke and Sears predated Metz with do-it-your-self high-wheelers), Metz did offer the first known kit automobile on the installment plan, known as the Metz Plan. The buyer would buy 14 groups or packages of parts for $27.00 which would be put together with the plans and tools supplied, or a factory-assembled automobile could be bought for $600.00. This plan was in effect until 1911 when it became impractical to compete with a dealer-supplied model "T" Ford.^[6]

See also

• List of automobile manufacturers
• List of defunct automobile manufacturers

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Clymer, p. 145.
2. ^ ^{a b} Clymer, p. 32.
3. ^ Clymer, p. 61.
4. ^ Clymer, p. 104.
5. ^ Clymer, p. 51.
6. ^ Clark, Jess. "The First Do-It-Yourself Cars", in Car Classics (October 1978), pp. 20–22.

Source

• Clymer, Floyd. Treasury of Early American Automobiles, 1877-1925. New York: Bonanza Books, 1950.

External Links

• The Metz Company at the Waltham Museum