1907 Northern Model C

The Northern Manufacturing Company got a fairly early start at the game in 1902.  Born in Detroit Michigan, it also had a leg up as Detroit was a veritable hotbed of up and coming automotive “wunderkind”.   Among these was JD Maxwell.  A whiz kid of mechanical genius, he had his start with Oldsmobile where he contributed much to the success of that make.  His tenure at Northern was short lived as he went on to start another company that bore his name, Maxwell, in 1904. 

Northern’s initial offering was a virtual clone of the single cylinder Oldsmobile (go figure).  In 1904 Northern added a two-cylinder model whose motor was under the hood and incorporated a shaft drive to the rear end.  At this time, they set up production down the road in Port Huron MI to construct the two-cylinder vehicles.  I must note here that the first Maxwell cars were also of the two-cylinder, engine under the hood, shaft drive design. (Is anybody surprised?)

The Northern was an averagely priced machine @ around $1700 and its claim to fame was it was both powerful (18-20HP) and “silent” though that may have been a bit of hyperbole.  Production numbers were modest and the company never really prospered.  In 1908 it merged with the Wayne automobile company and soon after that was gobbled up by another group to make the EMF automobile.

The early days of automobile manufacture in this country saw a large number of start-up companies that would come and go as the too few engineering leaders jockeyed around to pursue their own interests.  Northern is a great example of the growing pains of the fledgling industry.