By the end of the nineteenth century inventors in Europe and the United States were experimenting with automobiles. Many of these inventors came out of transportation backgrounds, particularly in bicycles and wagons. In 1878, Thomas Jeffery and Phillip Gomully founded a bicycle company in Chicago. They marketed their bicycles under the Rambler brand. Thomas Jeffery, however, became enamored with the idea of the automobile and its potential. In 1897, he built his first prototype.
The Rambler bicycle is shown above.
The first Rambler prototype is shown above. The vehicle got favorable reviews at the 1899 Chicago International Exhibition & Tournament and at the National Automobile Show in New York City. This positive feedback encouraged Thomas Jeffery to get into the automobile business.
In order to finance his fascination with the automobile, he sold his interest in Gormully & Jeffery to the American Bicycle Company in 1901 and established the Thomas B. Jeffery Company as an automobile manufacturer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He bought the defunct Sterling Bicycle factory to produce his line of automobiles.
In 1901, Thomas’ son Charles T. Jeffery developed two prototypes which used radical innovations for the time. While other automobiles of this era were using steering tillers, Charles’ prototype used a steering wheel. In another radical move, Charles moved the engine to the front. By the time the vehicles were ready for production in 1902, Thomas had convinced him to stick with the tiller and the engine under the seat. The first production Ramblers were the Model C open runabout which sold for $750 and the Model D (a Model C with a folding top) which sold for $850.
In 1902, the Jeffery automobiles began rolling off the assembly line: Jeffery was the second automobile manufacturer to adopt the assembly line method (Ransom Olds was the first). The cars were sold under the brand name Rambler and in 1903, 1,350 were sold. At this time, Jeffery was the second-largest automobile manufacturer in the U.S. (Oldsmobile was first).
By 1904, Charles went back to the steering wheel and by 1905 sales had doubled. By 1907 Jeffery offered several different body styles and sizes. The five-passenger Rambler sold for $2,500 and was powered by a 40-horsepower engine.
An ad for the 1908 Rambler is shown above.
In 1910, Thomas B. Jeffery died in Pompeii, Italy and Charles T. Jeffery became president and general manager of the company. Under his guidance, Jeffery began producing a number of heavy-duty trucks. One of these trucks was the Jeffery Quad, a four-wheel, chain-truck vehicle which would later become the workhorse of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War I. The Quad, which was developed for the U.S. Army during 1913-1914, featured four-wheel-steering.
In addition to the Quad, Jeffery also produced a 1 ½ ton double chain drive truck and a smaller 1,500-pound truck that was “suited for the quick delivery of merchandise.”
A 1913 Rambler 5-passenger touring car is shown above.
In 1914, Charles Jeffery dropped the Rambler brand name and marketed the cars under the Jeffery name.
In 1915, Charles Jeffery was on board the RMS Lusitania when it was torpedoed by a German submarine. While he survived, he re-evaluated his life’s priorities. As a result, he decided that he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing more enjoyable things than running an automobile company. In 1916, the company was sold to Charles W. Nash, the former president of General Motors and the following year the company was renamed Nash Motors.