Kenosha’s auto making past: A decade by decade look back

Kenosha ended a 108-year history of automobile-related production when Chrysler closed the Kenosha Engine Plant in 2010.

Here is a decade-by-decade look -- from Thomas Jeffery’s one-cylinder, 12-horsepower horseless carriage in 1902 to 3.5-liter engines for Chrysler -- at changes to Kenosha's auto products, innovations, its dedicated workforce and car building trends, decade by decade:

1900 to 1909

Car production in Kenosha began after Thomas Jeffery, 57, sold his first vehicle for $750 in March 1902 and renamed his production site here the “Rambler factory.” The factory had been the site of the Sterling bicycle company. It measured 600 by 100 feet and was close to railroads and lake shipping.

Sterling’s owner had sold out to a bicycle conglomerate, and Jeffery thought the location would suit his car-building needs. Jeffery set up shop here in December 1900, moving from Chicago. He had started experimenting with automobiles three years earlier. The building cost him $65,000.

Jeffery borrowed the name “Rambler’ from a bicycle line he helped establish years before.

The brick factory in Kenosha produced about 1,500 cars in 1902, estimated to be 17 percent of car production for the country. Jeffery produced the Model C — the second mass-produced vehicle in the United States — a year before Ford. His workforce grew from 60 to several hundred.

The public appeared to be ready to accept the “gas buggy,” and sales of the Kenosha-built cars rose. A Jeffery car won a race in the Twin Cities in 1902, and fared well in a Buffalo-to-Pittsburgh competition. Publicity from both certainly helped sales.

Expansion followed. Jeffery bought space next to the original factory and ordered a test track set up.

The company built as many as 3,800 vehicles per year during its first 10 years.

Jeffery set the pace for conveniences on his cars. His company was the first to have removable, interchangeable wheels. It offered a spare tire in 1905.

Other changes were notable: two-cylinder production in 1904; convertible top; a windshield, and picnic baskets attached to each side. But the move to a four-cylinder model is generally thought to be the catalyst to booming sales.

1910 to 1919

Trucks were a new venture for the Thomas B. Jeffery Co. in 1912, when it introduced several models, including a 1.5-ton vehicle. They were labeled as Jeffery vehicles, a name that would replace the Rambler moniker for all the company’s products within two years. More than 3,500 Jeffery trucks were built that year.

A major product for the Kenosha manufacturer was the four-wheel-drive truck, the Quad, first on the road in 1914. The vehicle was aimed at the mining industry. However, the U.S. Army bought up some of the vehicles and used them to push Pancho Villa back into Mexico in 1915. That activity attracted attention and purchases from overseas.

The U.S. government continued its interest in Jeffery vehicles when it entered World War I in 1917.

In Detroit, Charles Nash, then-General Motors president, took notice of the Jeffery Co.’s successes. He had been itching to head up his own car business, so in July 1916 he bought the company from Jeffery’s son for $5 million. He quit his job in Detroit and moved to Kenosha to head up the endeavor. Now called Nash Motors, to prove he wanted the business to stand on its own and not be a subsidiary of GM.

Nash designed the first automobile model to leave the factory under his name. The model was called the Nash Model 681 and featured a six-cylinder, valve-in-head engine. It hit the road in 1917.

1920 to 1929

Charles Nash had to carefully navigate the obstacles of car production in the early 1920s. The number of auto makes, calculated by one account to be 1,775 when the auto industry began to flourish, was quickly declining as producers ran out of financial gas.

Nash kept his business fully fueled by buying into various businesses. One such business was Seaman Body Co., which at one time produced cabinets and telephone booths but later switched to car bodies. Nash decided to expand production at Seaman in Milwaukee by adding several facilities.

During a 60th birthday celebration, Nash told friends he had bought the Mitchell car company factory in Racine. Nash brought equipment of the Milwaukee-based Lafayette Motors, which also had been owned by the Kenosha businessman, to the Racine factory. Lafayette had been purchased by Ajax Motors Co., a Nash subsidiary. Ajax produced The Ajax in 1925, but it withered.

Other cars that Nash introduced that decade included the Nash Model 41 in 1920 as a four-cylinder addition to its offering of six-cylinder cars. The Model 697 in 1924 broke ground by allowing buyers to add an optional electric clock in the dashboard.

During the 1920s, Nash vehicle sales rose. The company produced about 8,000 vehicles when he bought the company. By the middle of the decade, the company built 70,000 annually on average. The figure rose to 138,000 in 1928.

1930 to 1939

The decade of the Great Depression brought several changes to the Kenosha carmaker. The stock market crash in 1929 set the stage for tough times here as well as across the nation. Nash, however, had built reserves enough to weather the economy for a while.

The company dropped its truck line in 1930 because of poor sales. New models helped Nash report $4.8 million in earnings for 1931 and a $2 million profit in 1932. That was six times what was earned by General Motors, one of two U.S. automakers that made money that year.

The good news dwindled in 1933 when Nash sales fell to a 14,973 dribble. Nash laid off more than 1,000 workers and severely cut wages. An employee might work no more than 18 hours weekly because of reduced production.

Workers’ frustration with that treatment was translated into activity when President Roosevelt in 1933 signed the National Industrial Recovery Act, giving employees the right to organize and bargain as a union. A Kenosha group formed AFL Local 19008.

About 100 workers in the final assembly Department 833 decided to sit down and stop production on Nov. 9, 1933, after Nash cut pay further. He responded by kicking out every employee and locking the doors. By evening, 1,500 people had signed union membership cards while attending a labor rally at the Italian American Club. Two years later, it was chartered as United Auto Workers Local 72, replacing Local 19008.

Nash kept the plant closed for a week until the federal government encouraged a settlement. Nash eventually recognized the union. Bargaining with the company won workers benefits during the next few years, but Nash management changed course in 1939 in an attempt to gain an upper hand by reclassifying jobs, thus cutting pay, and taking other actions. Local 72 went on strike. Nash relented four weeks later. Both sides then put together a contract that was described by the union as the best in the auto industry.

Meanwhile, the company’s one millionth vehicle came off the line in 1934.

In 1936, Nash bought Kelvinator Corp., a Detroit refrigerator manufacturer, forming Nash-Kelvinator Co. Nash then bought Seaman Body Co. outright and merged it into Nash-Kelvinator.

1940 to 1949

Nash-Kelvinator was hoping to create a new line of cars that would be more economical for buyers in the 1940s. But the company also began supplying the U.S. Army with military cargo trailers in July 1940 as the country saw the possibilities that America could be drawn into the war in Europe.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese set the course for the automaker for the next several years: It set aside car production and moved into military production. In May 1942, for example, the government chose Kelvinator to build aircraft engines in Kenosha, leading to laid-off workers being recalled.

About half of the car company’s 2,700 staff had been laid off, with 600 of them gone “permanently,” a week after the Pearl Harbor attack. The layoffs were in response to the federal government ordering Nash-Kelvinator to make no more than 4,675 cars in January and February 1942. The restriction was ordered as a way to shift steel, rubber and other materials to military use. Building cars was suspended by February 1942.

The car company began producing items for the military, but none in Kenosha. Local 72 officials contacted President Roosevelt about high unemployment here and the lost chance to improve military production if the Kenosha plant were in full swing. In May 1942, the U.S. Navy agreed to spend $300 million on Nash-Kelvinator to build R-2800 Pratt and Whitney 2,100-horsepower aircraft engines — in Kenosha.

Employees on the company’s payroll more than tripled between 1941 and 1944 because of an influx of people seeking work and local women entering the workforce for the first time.

The first engine out of the local plant was shipped Dec. 25, 1942. Workers here and in Milwaukee produced 16,987 of the engines by the end of the war.

By October 1945, the company returned to building cars again. It opened a proving ground near Burlington that year, signed off on plans to build an assembly plant in Mexico and, in 1946, bought and remodeled a former Ford plant in Toronto, Canada. The company also expanded work to California and sent Kenosha-built parts overseas for assembly.

Payroll for 1949 broke a record — $86.4 million, an 11 percent jump from the previous record, set a year earlier. The company built 139,521 vehicles in 1949, up 16 percent from 1948 and twice the average production seen the five years before the war, 1937-1941. Net sales for 1949 set a record by surpassing $364 million, up 20 percent from the record reached the previous year.

1950 to 1959

In 1952, as the company celebrated 50 years of auto building in Kenosha, executives were optimistic. They plowed ahead after World War II with new models and expansions, bringing employment to more than 24,000 in its plants in Kenosha, Milwaukee, Detroit, California and Canada.

Rambler was resurrected as a Nash product in 1950 and touted as an efficient compact car. On April 18, 1950, Kenosha workers displayed the two millionth automobile built here — a gray two-tone Rambler Ambassador sedan.

Nash-Kelvinator again was chosen to produce aircraft engines, this time for the U.S. Air Force. The company in 1952 constructed two buildings to handle that work.

That year also saw completion of a porcelain-clad bridge spanning 52nd Street to connect an assembly facility on one side with post-assembly finishing on the other. The passage between the facilities was what most Kenoshans had viewed as the symbol of car production here.

The auto industry is cyclical — it has its ups and downs, like everyone — and Nash was entering one of the down periods. Profits and market share began slipping. In response, the company merged with Hudson Car Co., and American Motors Corp. was born on Jan. 14, 1954.

George W. Romney became company president and board chairman. He dropped the Nash and Hudson nameplates. The last Nash produced in Kenosha was in late 1957.

AMC employment in Kenosha rose from 6,800 to 8,750, but the business lost money its first four years.

The resurrected Rambler line, however, helped AMC pull in profits late in the 1950s. The economical, compact vehicle apparently was what Americans wanted at that time, offering 30 mpg.

1960 to 1969

AMC continued its explosive sales into the early 1960s. The company employed 15,000 workers during two shifts to produce more than 458,000 cars during 1960. The company was Wisconsin’s largest private employer and No. 1 in the state in sales. The year ending Sept. 30, 1960, included a record $1 billion in sales of cars and Kelvinator appliances.

AMC sank $300 million into projects to expand its car production during the decade. The company in 1961 moved into the former Simmons mattress factory on the Kenosha lakefront. The five-story factory on 60th Street was redone as an engineering headquarters. Workers produced the two millionth Rambler at the lakefront facility in February 1961.

Romney quit AMC to run for Michigan governor in 1962. He was replaced by Roy C. Abernathy, who insisted that, despite opinions that the market for the company’s compacts was crumbling, the carmaker’s models were continuing to find their way into America’s garages. Motor Trend magazine even selected Rambler as the 1963 Car of the Year.

AMC dealers had been pushing for a better selection to offer the public than just the Rambler. In 1967, the company started to offer a wider selection with bigger, more powerful — and more expensive — cars. A model made to satisfy the public’s interest in sportier cars was introduced as the AMX two-seater in 1968.

The company had some difficulties, too. By 1967, it was in debt by $75 million. Contract negotiations between the company and union broke down in 1969, and workers in Kenosha and other sites went on strike for 37 days starting Oct. 16.

On June 30, 1969, the last Rambler came off the production line. The company had built 4.2 million of the vehicles during the 1950s and 60s.

1970 to 1979

AMC decided it wanted to appeal to younger drivers. Among its first youth-oriented products was the Gremlin, introduced in 1970 to counter the previous decade’s fascination with large, gas-sucking vehicles. The Gremlin — a chancy title, given its references to an imaginary, disruptive imp — enchanted more than a half-million buyers in eight years.

Another oddity, the Pacer, reached showrooms in 1975. Some said it appeared to be built for “lunar exploration” while others saw it as an upside down fish bowl given its wide body and overwhelming amount of glass. AMC produced 145,000 of them in 1975, but the number dwindled to some 20,000 by 1978. The company also produced the Javelin and Hornet to appeal to younger drivers.

The company rolled out an innovative Buyer’s Protection Plan in 1972. The plan promised free repairs for any factory defect in material or workmanship for 12 months or 12,000 miles.

Despite the guarantee and car changes, AMC lost money in 1975 and 1976. The purchase of Jeep in 1969, however, would help the company survive the decade. AMC also was helped financially by AM General, established in 1971 to build government and military vehicles.

By 1979, the company made a small gain on the books with help from its new car, the Eagle. That same year, on Jan. 10, AMC agreed to a $250 million merger with French automaker Renault to boost its ability to compete globally. The move wasn’t a surprise, as foreign cars were increasing in popularity in the United States.

The deal allowed AMC to import Renault vehicles, while the French business could distribute Jeeps around the world. Renault was given a 5 percent stake in American Motors. The percentage would grow to almost half in exchange for Renault cash. The agreement also meant new models would be built in Kenosha.

1980 to 1989

Money from Renault — the top automaker in Europe — was used to retool AMC’s Kenosha Lakefront and Main factories to assemble new vehicles called the Renault Alliance and the Encore in 1982. The combination effort seemed to be the answer.

However, there were hidden pitfalls in the French automaker’s finances. It apparently wasn’t as strong as one might have expected for being the No. 1 car producer on the continent.

In 1984, the French company lost $1.35 billion, which was 10 times its loss in 1983. Its sales, including the Alliance and Encore, plummeted, and it moved to trim 20 percent of costs. Renault lost another $770 million in 1985. Company officials said AMC would need some $100 million to survive. Renault didn’t want to send more cash across the Atlantic, however.

Enter Chrysler. The U.S. car company was facing bankruptcy in the late 1970s when chairman Lee Iacocca asked and received $1.5 billion in loan guarantees from Congress. Chrysler paid back the loan by making a $2.4 billion profit by 1984.

Iacocca was looking to expand by then. He worked out an arrangement in 1986 with Renault to build 50,000 cars in Kenosha. The production brought 3,000 laid off workers back into the plant. But before that would happen, UAW Local 72 had to agree to concessions. The union agreed so it could bring more of its members back to work.

Iacocca in March 1987 announced that it was buying controlling interest in AMC for $1.1 billion and assuming that company’s $700 million debt. That meant Renault would pull up stakes here. It produced the first Chrysler M-body vehicles in Kenosha on Sept. 8, 1987. The workforce tripled to about 6,100. 

On Jan. 27, 1988, the Kenosha community and its autoworkers heard arguably the worst automotive news in its 86-year history: Iacocca announced Kenosha car production would stop by the end of the year.

Public backlash included threatened lawsuits and angry rallies. One of the rallies brought presidential hopeful Rev. Jesse Jackson to Kenosha to deliver an uplifting speech with Chrysler’s 52nd Street overpass as a back drop. National news media helped bring attention to the situation, leading Iaccoca in February 1988 to announce a fund, eventually reaching $220 million, to help affected employees.

The last car produced in Kenosha was a maroon Dodge Omni on Dec. 23, 1988, capping production of some 11 million vehicles. Engine production remained here, but 5,863 jobs disappeared.

1990 to 1999

The Lakefront plant’s 250-foot smokestack was brought down on June 29, 1990, ending the months-long removal of the factory. In May 1990, the last of the Engineering building at 60th Street and 24th Avenue was removed. The downtown office building was torn down in January of that year.

The closing of the plant bumped Kenosha’s unemployment rate to 12 percent, although it dropped to 6.5 percent by August 1992. Autoworkers apparently were finding jobs at the expanding LakeView Corporate Park in Pleasant Prairie, among other work sites.

By July 1995, Chrysler started work on a $350 million expansion for a new, 2.7-liter aluminum engine. Another $624 million, the company said in 1999, would be spent for a new, 3.5-liter aluminum block engine aimed at supplying power for cars in the 21st century. In 1996, more than 500 laid-off workers returned to the plant.

Another foreign car company played a part in Kenosha auto building during the decade. Daimler-Benz, a German carmaker that produced Mercedes-Benz, announced in May 1998 that it would merge with Chrysler. The $48 billion agreement led to a new company titled DaimlerChrysler AG. The outlook seemed good by the end of the 1990s, when the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce Association gave Chrysler its Manufacturer of the Year Grand Award for 1999.

2000 to 2009

After the formation of Daimler-Chrysler, the merged company introduced the Chrysler 300 in 2004 with a base price of $22,900. The company said sales climbed thanks to that car and the popular Town & Country minivan. The Chrysler 300 was named Motor Trend magazine’s Car of the Year for 2005.

The next year, however, wasn’t so wonderful, as the automaker lost $1.5 billion in 2006. DaimlerChrysler had been considering building a $500 million factory in Somers, but those plans were dropped in 2007.

In another musical chairs move, Daimler and Chrysler decided to divorce, and private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management became the American business’ new spouse.

Chrysler, like the other domestic car manufacturers, began to run into serious financial problems. The situation was so bad that the federal government had to step in and approve low-interest loans of $13.4 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program for Chrysler and General Motors in December 2008.

And yet another foreign carmaker — this time Italian Fiat — and Chrysler as early as January 2009 began talks for, and eventually approved, a joint agreement.

Chrysler then filed for bankruptcy on April 30, 2009. Court papers revealed plans to close the Kenosha facilities and other factories by the end of 2010. Local and state officials and groups opposed the closing, and city hall worked on plans for how the car company’s buildings here might be used.

An early October closing date for the Kenosha plant had been discussed, but union officials in September 2010 said the date had been extended to Oct. 22, when it -- and Kenosha's more than a century-long history of automaking -- came to an end.