The assembled-elsewhere boundary: sold here, built there

ROW 6 · BOUNDARY WHOLE

Built-here and sold-here blur in every telling of this county's cars, and this article keeps them apart, car by car: E-M-F (1908–1912). The Everitt-Metzger-Flanders Company of Detroit — incorporated 4 August 1908 — built moderately priced cars in Detroit in volume ($21 million of cars sold and $3 million profit in its first two years, in the register's figures). Studebaker's September 1908 agreement won it the exclusive right to sell the cars, as Studebaker-E-M-F, through its wagon-dealer network; it acquired substantial stock, then complete ownership in 1910, and folded E-M-F into the new Studebaker Corporation on 14 February 1911. The cars South Bend sold to the world in those years were Detroit-built, every one; the Flanders line that split from E-M-F's quarreling partners ran the same course on the same terms. The buying public renamed the initials as the quality troubles mounted — E-M-F's unreliability is part of its record — but the geography never moved: manufacture, Detroit; distribution, South Bend.

Erskine (1926–1930). The pattern repeated a generation later, now inside one corporation. Albert Russel Erskine's "Little Aristocrat" — a small, European-style six, styled by Ray Dietrich, bodies by Budd, its 146-cubic-inch engine bought from Continental — was assembled not in South Bend but at Studebaker's Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit (the 1904 Ford plant Studebaker had taken with E-M-F), debuted at the Paris show in October 1926 and in New York in January 1927 at $995 — several hundred dollars above the Chevrolet and the coming Model A it was meant to fight. Just under 25,000 sold in America in 1927; the car grew (114-inch wheelbase and a Studebaker-based engine by the 1930 Model 53), lost its reason to exist, and was absorbed into Studebaker in May 1930, its final run rebadged as the Studebaker Six. Roughly 100,000 Erskines were built in all — in Detroit. Studebaker-Garford (Row 4) is the third instance, chassis from Elyria. The boundary rule this article exists to state: in this county's record, a Studebaker nameplate is evidence of South Bend sale and management, and of South Bend manufacture only where a car's own record says so. For Granger the rule doubles: its residents bought these cars from the dealer rows of the two cities (the business leg's tested negative — no dealership ever seated in the CDP — stands undisturbed), and not one of the assembled-elsewhere cars was assembled, sold new, or badged on this ground.

Sources:

1. Erskine, History of the Studebaker Corporation (archive.org) — E-M-F's incorporation (4 August 1908), the September 1908 exclusive-sales agreement, the 1910 complete acquisition, the 1911 corporation.
2. Hemmings, "The Erskine Error" and "Studebaker Goes Small" (2023–2024) — the Erskine as an assembled car: Continental engines, Budd bodies, final assembly at Piquette Avenue, Detroit; the 1926 Paris and 1927 New York debuts; $995; absorption May 1930.
3. Mac's Motor City Garage, "Studebaker's Little Aristocrat: The 1927–1930 Erskine" — assembly expressly "not in South Bend but at the company's Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit."