Financial History Issue 114 (Summer 2015) | Page 37
offering more affordable vehicles, but it
never went very well.”
In 1931 Peerless management made the
triage decision to abandon automobiles
entirely and shift to something completely
different: beer. At that point it was evident
to all that Prohibition had been an utter
disaster, and repeal was close at hand. Peerless contracted with the Carling Brewing
Company of Canada. When the states ratified the 21st Amendment in 1933, what had
been Peerless Motor Car Company became
the Brewing Company of America. Its first
foray, Red Cap ale in 1934, was a flop, but
the next offering was Carling’s Black Label,
a big seller then that still exists.
In 1954 the company changed its name
to the Carling Brewing Co. and eventually
using the momentum of the car to turn
the generator and charge the battery.
The drag that produced slows the vehicle.
That is an essential part of hybrids today
and is also used in some locomotives.
The Owen Magnetic could almost be
steampunk, but steam is the one technology it does not use. There are other
preserved samples, including an operating model owned by renowned car collector Jay Leno; appropriately enough his
is electric blue.
Western Reserve Historical Society
to maintain, heavy and one of the most
expensive vehicles made in the United
States. During WWI the Baker R&L Company turned to war production and
stopped making the Owen Magnetic; it
virtually ceased auto production after the
war.
The Owen Magnetic lives on in the
hearts and minds of engineers and car
collectors with its before-its-time innovation. It even had regenerative braking,
where the flow of power was reversed,
bought or built six other breweries around
the country. Carling ceased operations
at the Cleveland brewery in 1971, but the
old plant soldiered on for C. Schmidt &
Sons of Philadelphia until 1984. Through
the late ’80s and ’90s the idle complex was
demolished in stages. Today it is the site
of the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Justice
Center, a fitting use for a site that saw
more than a century of driving and drinking, though never at the same time.
There is one further irony to the Peerless story. In 1930 and ’31, in a last effort
to recapture the innovation that built the
company, Peerless engineers designed and
built a prototype of an all-aluminum touring sedan, from the engines to the frames,
axles, wheels and body panels. When
Owen Magnetic, 1916.
Peerless ceased car making at the end of
1931, one complete vehicle was assembled,
the unique 1932 Peerless, that now sits
gleaming in the atrium of the WRHS.
Flash forward 83 years to early 2015.
Ford Motor Company, of Detroit, introduced its latest innovation in lightness,
strength and durability: the all-aluminum
F-150 pick-up truck.
Gregory DL Morris is an independent
business journalist, principal of Enterprise & Industry Historic Research (www
.enterpriseandindustry.com) and an active
member of the Museum’s editorial board.
Leno and his Owen Magnetic were
profiled in a 2012 issue of Popular Mechanics. The article states that only 700 vehicles were produced. “The ads called it the
car of a thousand speeds. But as is sometimes the case, being better isn’t always
enough. The car had to be competitively
priced. A 1917 Fo ɐ