A massive fire in 1956 in Ardmore is what comes to the minds of nearly all of those Mainliners who are old enough to have any association at all with the word Autocar.
But there’s a lot more to the history of Autocar in Ardmore than the fire, which actually occurred while the plant was being torn down, and after the company had moved its manufacturing operations to Exton.
Autocar Today
Louis Semple Clark founded Autocar, in Pittsburgh, in 1897. Autocar is currently one of the companies owned by GVW Group. In 1899 moved to Ardmore and manufactured vehicles there until 1954.
Autocar was at the heart of an industrial revolution when it built the first motor truck commercially available in the United States in 1899. The Autocar delivery wagon boasted a payload capacity of 700 pounds and optional 5 or 8 horsepower motors. The “engine-under-the-seat” design maximized area for freight and was the precursor of Autocar’s Cab-Over-Engine design used on every Autocar today.
They made cars too.
Autocar manufactured and marketed cars for consumer use, starting in 1899 until 1911. Since then their entire focus has been on commercial truck vehicles.
The images below are from the Autocar 1908 catalog.
See the whole 24-page catalog at the Villanova University Digital Library.
