The Empire Motor Company was started by Indianapolis Motor Speedway founders Carl Fisher, James Allison, and Arthur Newby and mechanical engineer Robert Hassler to manufacture a low cost, four-cylinder, 20 horsepower car. It was 1909, the same year as the construction and opening of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Not only ...
Arthur Newby
Racing on July 4 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
In its 115-year history, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has hosted a race over the July 4 holiday weekend only once. After resurfacing the Speedway with brick, the owners planned four events for the 1910 racing season—races on Memorial Day, the 4th of July, and Labor Day weekends, and a 24-hour ...
The Miami 12 Engine
Carl Fisher, Jim Allison and Arthur Newby enjoyed racing their Purdy Boat Company cruisers on the Great Lakes and while wintering in Miami Beach. To get a competitive advantage, they wanted a very powerful engine. The solution was just down the street from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at Allison Engineering ...
The Cocobolo Cay Club
Carl Fisher was busy with the development of Miami Beach when he, Charles T. Kotcher, and James Snowden were cruising on the houseboat “Zigan” when they came across a small island. Eric Collin described Adams Key in a March 19, 1922, article in The Miami Herald. Its “golden sands stretched ...
The Zoline Caper
In the early summer of 1914, John Andrus, a Portuguese inventor, was working as a mechanic in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. He told Dr. W. B. Chambers, a prominent auto racing enthusiast living in McKeesport, about the compound he had developed which was not only cheaper than gasoline but also could make ...