Curtiss Motor Car Company

Automotive manufacturer of Hammondsport , New York , USA from 1920 to 1922

Curtiss Motor Car Company was an American manufacturer in Buffalo, New York, a builder of Biplanes since 1909 and automobiles in the 1920s . The brand name was Curtiss . 

History

Glenn Curtiss had already manufactured a flying car in Garden City , New York in 1917 . The engine came from his Curtiss Airplane and Motor Company . The vehicle was exhibited at the New York Pan American Aeronautic Exposition in February 1917 . the Curtiss Autoplane was known that it was ready to go. But it is doubtful if it could fly any distance unlike its flying boats.

In 1920 Curtiss founded a separate company for automobile production,Although not directly involved with the building of the cars. (Curtiss had produced over 10,000 aircraft during the first word war). This was in Hammondsport NY. There production of automobiles had began with body work by Brunn & Company and largely assembled by hand.

Miles Carpenter was the designer of the vehicles. He used a chassis from the Phianna Motors Company , which he then revised, however along the same lines an aircraft engine of the type Curtiss OX-5 powered the vehicles. Charlie Kirkham adapted the V8 engine with 100 hp power for road use. A construction as a two-seater roadster with emergency seat. These cars as came to be known as Carpenter-Curtiss cars .

1922 ended production. Overall, only a few vehicles built.