Entering Manufacturing

Entering Manufacturing

Six months after they were reported to have been seeking royalties for selling their ideas, the brothers appear to have changed their course, and were unveiling a car of their own making in the December 1908 issue of the magazine Motor Age (below). It is presumed that much of the car was in fact built by coachbuilders in Racine, with The Racine Manufacturing Company (which grew out of Racine Novelty Company, a maker of ironing boards), as the Piggins's probable partner, since Racine Manufacturing had ventured in this period into bodybuilding on behalf of vehicle manufacturers and later took over the Piggins's car business.

The carmaking episode is a mystery, as the Piggins Brothers' own capital was limited and their machine shop and its workforce of four were in no way equipped to build complete automobiles. This is clear from the following comparison of Racine automotive company workforces, based on data from biennial inspections by the Wisconsin Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics (BLIS) in the first decade of the 20th century:

We can only conjecture about the meaning of this, but the form of the December 1908 announcement, using the formula, "This is the motor... This is the car...", suggests a possible explanation: that the engine was a Piggins production, whereas everything else in the car was conceived, designed and built separately, perhaps by another company. Racine Manufacturing Company (RMC), with capital, a big plant and a large workforce of 400, might have needed a "front company" and a separate brand to enter the car business so as not alienate its own automobile company customers. It is conceivable that RMC's owner, George W. Jagers, was eager to catch up with the rapidly expanding Mitchell company, soon to become five times RMC's size.

If the reference books are correct, the full-fledged Piggins Brothers' six-cylinder car arrived on the market in 1909. The Automobile Blue Book of Wisconsin (1909-1910, ed. KUEHL, George W.) lists Piggins Bros. as one of seven automobile manufacturers in the state (the others were J.L. Clark Carriage Co., Johnson Service Co., Thos. B Jeffrey Co., Kissel Motor Car Co., Mitchell Motor Car Co. and Frank Toepfer's Sons) and contains an advertisement stating: "The Piggins Bros. motors have these combined qualities: simplicity, neatness, handy to get at, few parts as possible, everything in plain sight. We manufacture motors for automobiles and motor boats. Engine Repairing."

It was a large and stylish car, but its market history was to be short. Whether the problem was the price of the car, engineering issues, or the opposition of local or national competitors, the Piggins Brothers car does not appear to have found many buyers. The character of the car is discussed in more detail below.

In the summer of 1909, the Piggins car venture and the Racine Manufacturing Company were "consolidated" into a single unit, according to Kimes and a contemporary report in the The Horseless Age. The project may have suffered its terminal blow several months later when the RMC factory was ruined in a December 1909 fire (see STONE, Fanny S. (ed); Racine, Belle City of the Lakes, vol II; Chicago, S.J. Clarke, 1916). It is even possible that the fire, with its opportunity for RMC to start all over again with an insurance pay-out, was a welcome solution to the business difficulties that the car created, though this is only speculation.