At first I thought Mountain Region member Allen R was going on about the hunt for some absurd rodent on his property – something not uncommon out in his part of the world.
But he wasn’t talking about a “Marmot“ (seen above) – which undoubtedly you’ve heard more about than the long forgotten automobile manufacturer: Marmon. It turns out the brand “Marmon” is quite special in the Classic Motorsports world. Marmon Motor Company founded by Howard C. Marmon based out of Indianapolis, Indiana was a leading manufacturer that took on the likes of luxury brands like: Packard, Cadillac, Lincoln and Pierce-Arrow from 1903-1933.
Marmon was unlike other brands at the time because they weren’t following the same heavy-weight lux-o-boat formula as their competitors, but rather, building aluminum engined + aluminum-alloy bodied sedans and… race cars. Unique to the Marmon platform was a smaller, lighter but powerful inline 6-cylinder engine, whereas other brands used inline-8 cylinder and V12s engines.
Where Marmon excelled in engineering, they were quite stodgy and unimaginative in their naming convention. Back then you didn’t have cool names like Scirocco, Countach, Testarossa… Marmon named their models in most cases by the amount of horsepower they produced, ie: the Marmon 34 made a whopping 34-hp (although bench tests showed they could produce up to 75-hp with proper tuning). And because the Marmon weighed nearly “half a ton” less (that’s 1000# for those not doing the math) than other vehicles in its class, it was “quick” and also touted fuel efficiency numbers of 14 MPG! Marmon owners often joked that they had the perfect getaway vehicle for bootlegging (during prohibition) because they were very difficult to catch.
Not only were the Marmon’s quick, but they handled better than most of their rivals because on an innovative chassis design, whereby the overall ride height was lowered to just shy of 21″ and with a molded floor pan welded over the frame which required less structural pieces to create rigidity. Some newspaper articles reviewing the Marmon (when they were new) made a point to show off the “lowness” of the vehicles. One could say Marmon’s were America’s first “low-rider.”
“So, what was Allen on about? ” – you ask.
It so happens earlier this year, at the Hershey Historic Swap Meet an annual AACA event (now in its 62nd year), he and fellow classic car enthusiasts had an opportunity to bid on a 1921 Marmon restored as a replica of the 1921 Indy 500 Pace Car (celebrating the 10th anniversary of the race) – See the listing on RM Sotherby’s website for details.
This particular Marmon up for auction would have been a chance for Allen to add a historic “race car” to his growing collection.
And just like Bill Murray’s character trying to catch the gopher in “Caddy Shack“, it looks like this whascally-marmon slipped through his fingers yet again. #betterlucknexttime.
Did you know…
- Marmon was one of the first brands to experiment with V6 and V8 engine designs.
- In 1911, a Marmon (known as “the Wasp”, above) won the first ever Indianapolis 500!
- In the early 1920’s a Marmon held the title “fastest production car in North America”
- In 1934 a Marmon set the “cannonball run” record CA to NY in 5 days 18.5 hrs?
- Henry Ford drove a Marmon to work before acquiring Lincoln to FoMoCo
- Marmon’s most power and most expensive model was “the 16” a 200-hp V16 sedan clocking in at $5000 in the early 1930s.
- Marmon produced nearly 110,000 cars in their 30 year production run.
- and there is a dedicated national Marmon Club of America
…of course you didn’t. Neither did I! #knowingishalfthebattle #neverstoplearning.
