In the early 1920s a financial panic occurred that affected farmers quite a bit. When things don’t look well on the farm front, naturally the farmers will not be buying a new tractor or machinery very readily. It is not known just how deeply this affected Cletrac. President, Rollin H. White was always a forward thinker and sought means to carefully diversify his company.
Rollin was recognized as one of the foremost automotive pioneers with his achievements and inventions while building the White Steamer from 1900 to 1911. Getting into auto production again was a natural thing to do.
Rollin was convinced that it was possible to build a four-cylinder car of high quality, similar to those he had seen in Europe and sell it for around $1000.
According to a press release in the June 1922 issue of Chilton Tractor Journal, Rollin enlisted the assistance of E.E. Allyne, a Cleveland industrialist and plans were set in motion to reorganize the Cleveland Tractor Company to produce a car that would to be known as the Allyne-Zeder. The six-cylinder high compression engine was to be designed by Fred M. Zeder, formerly chief engineer for the Willys Corporation and Studebaker Corporation. The new company was to be named the Allyne-Zeder Motors Company. Five million dollars were to be added to the present capital of the Cleveland Tractor Company, resulting in a corporation with $10 million of preferred stock and 200,000 shares of common stock of no par value. It was also planned to manufacture the new one-ton truck designed by Rollin. Production of all three lines will be in the Cleveland Tractor Company plant. It was planned to make the plant expansions at the cost of $1,250,000 to provide enough capacity for all three lines. Several prominent figures formerly from the Studebaker Corporation were listed including Clement Studebaker, Jr. and Col. George M. Studebaker, sons of Clement Studebaker, Sr., founder of the Studebaker industry. Others were R.T. Hodgins, A.F. Knobloch, F.M. Zeder, C.D. Fleming, E.B. Wilson, O.R. Skelton, and Carl Breer. Some very ambitious projections were made for both the auto division and the crawler tractor division, which included building 50 tractors and 50 cars per day with a total production of 12,000 of each by 1923. In late summer 1922, before any cars were even built, plans were abandoned and the Allyne-Zeder Motors Company was no more. After this, Zeder, Skelton, and Breer collaborated and designed a six-cylinder engine that became a success for Chrysler.
Read the entire story in Oliver Heritage Issue #30!
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