page_title: Welch Motor Car Company
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Welch Motor Car Company / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Welch 1911 Chassis
context_page_description: The Welch Motor Company was an American automobile company headquartered in Chelsea, Michigan. It started in 1901 and continued production of high end vehicles until 1911 when it merged with General Motors.
context_section_description: A.R. Welch started working at a stove factory in Chelsea before resigning in 1895 to take charge of a metal-working factory. A.R. and his younger brother Fred started building and testing water-cooled engines in 1898, and by April 1901, the brothers had completed construction and successfully ran their first motor wagon, powered by their two-cylinder, 20-horsepower engine. A. R. Welch and Fred Welch started out as bicycle manufacturers.
  With limited financial support from J.D. Watson, their Chelsea Manufacturing Company (which they had initially established to produce small metal components) began assembling vehicles. In January 1903, they shipped their first production automobile to Chicago for an exhibition.
  The company went through a number of name changes and locations. It was called The Chelsea Mfg. Co. based in Chelsea, Michigan, from 1903 to 1904. Then it became The Welch Motor Car Co. based in Pontiac, Michigan, from 1904 to 1911. Finally it was renamed The Welch Motor Car Co. moved to Detroit from 1909 to 1911.
  The first car, Welch Tourist, had some innovations. The steering column telescoped for the driver, and an unusual two-speed transmission with all gears always in mesh was incorporated. Multiple-disc clutches within the transmission were used to select that gear that was to give the power to stop the grinding of the gears on shifting. The Welch two-cylinder vertical engine may probably be the first to use a spherical combustion chamber.
  Welch thought that this shape would produce the most rapid and efficient combustion. Unfortunately, the concave shape of the piston top collected cylinder lubrication, so a flat top piston was substituted, changing the combustion chamber to hemispherical.
  The Welch Motor Car Company was the first American car company to introduce an overhead cam shaft. It used the overhead cam to operate both the intake and exhaust valves per cylinder.
  Shaft drive coupled power to the rear wheels, and a honeycomb radiator was used for engine cooling. Dry cells and coil provided the jump-spark ignition.
  Inadequate financing soon forced the company into bankruptcy. Early in 1904, with financial assistance from Arthur Pack and George Hidges, the Chelsea firm was reorganized as the Welch Motor Car Company. Its first factory was established in Pontiac, and a second plant soon after in another part of Detroit. The Tourist name was dropped, and these Pontiac cars were named Welch, and the Detroit cars were called either Welch or Welch Detroit.
  The Welch did not take the usual approach of putting their cars into races to win sales. They believed that the market would want reliable, well-built, and luxuriously- appointed vehicles of high quality, which would provide assured, comfortable and steady performance overall road conditions. So their cars were priced at $3,500.
  Rear- and side-entrance tonneau bodies were produced in 1904, carrying capacity as large as seven passengers. Engine size was increased to four cylinders. The company extended the wheelbase of the chassis. The cars had three oil lamps, but gas lamps and acetylene tanks could be provided as an option, as were top and windshield.
caption: Welch 1911 Chassis
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