Christian manz
Since 1905, Rauch & Lang of Cleveland, Ohio, was one of the largest producers of electric vehicles. And, in time, it would be one of the few manufacturers that, in the XNUMXs, still managed to sell its products.
The German Jacob Rauch emigrated to the United States in 1849, like so many other Europeans, to seek his fortune on the new continent. He began with the manufacture of carriages in 1853. A decade later he died in battle, and the company was left in the hands of his son Charles. He joined Charles EJ Lang in 1884, and together they became Cleveland's leading carriage manufacturers.
His contact with the New York brand Buffalo, a producer of electric vehicles, culminated in the purchase in 1903 of its dealer in Cleveland. This contact introduced Rauch & Lang into the business, and two years later it would offer its own range of electric cars. Its boom would be enormous. In 1905 the first 50 vehicles were finished, equipped with Hertner brand propellant. Two years later, they bought this engine factory, keeping its former owner, John Hertner, as technical director.
In 1908 they managed to sell more than 500 units of the entire range, which ranged from a small two-seater to large sedans with up to six seats. However, they were still unable to respond to the high demand, mainly due to insufficient production capacity. With the more than twenty sales agents operating in large American cities, Rauch & Lang could have sold many more units and, aware of this, those responsible searched feverishly for solutions to improve.
The company offered a wide variety of models, with small bodies, from Runabout, Stanhope and Victoria; and luxury, from Surrey, Brougham and Landaulette. From the beginning they took maximum care of the quality of their products, emphasizing in their advertising the exclusive use of the best materials, in order to guarantee a very long useful life for their vehicles.
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Top quality artisan production
56 years of experience in the production of carriages served to offer something durable, comfortable and very elegant. Each bodywork was the product of the work of a single craftsman, who would stamp the finished car with his signature. This person took care of all the details of the bodywork, the elegant satin interiors, the colors, the comfortable seats, etc. Obviously, such perfection cost its own: the Rauch & Lang were considered the best, but also the most expensive electric vehicles of their time.
The company created its own cold-pressed steel frame, the system of which allowed the customer to change bodywork and thus save on having to buy another car. That is, you could mount an open body for the summer, and another closed for the winter, both on the same frame. The axles were made of reinforced nickel-plated steel and Timken roller bearings were used for the wheels for their proven strength. Two strong side chains transmitted the power to the rear axle.
Since the purchase of the Hertner engine factory, the company began to develop its own multi-pole thrusters. The Exide brand batteries, the most modern of their time, were located distributed on the axles, being connected in series and balancing the weight of the vehicle. The company spoke of a range of up to 110 kilometers (!). The batteries could be recharged through a direct current household socket, but also through an alternating current rectifier, available in specialized garages.
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In their 1909 catalog, Rauch & Lang emphasized that operating their vehicles was very simple: while the right hand controlled the steering with one lever (which folded when entering and exiting), the left hand pushed another lever. small forward to accelerate, and sharply backward if you wanted to brake. With his thumb he pressed a button that warned pedestrians by a bell of the arrival of an electric vehicle. As for the larger models, they were driven with a steering wheel.
In 1915 the company merged with another of the great electrical producers, Baker, to form Baker Rauch & Lang. Together they faced new challenges, as the sale of electric cars had suffered a great decline in the face of the increasing acceptance of cars with combustion engines. But even so, in 1919 the consortium managed to sell more than 700 units.
Regarding the postwar models, they were also very careful in their completion, with many artisan details in their interiors and painted in attractive colors. In short, as the advertising said, they were ideal cars for, for example, mothers, thanks to their safety, their silence and their easy handling. While the men, who called themselves sportsmen, They preferred combustion cars, more complicated, noisier and above all faster, women bet on electric ones.
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Not everything is electricity
Rauch & Lang was not solely dedicated to the manufacture of electric vehicles. The consortium purchased RM Owen & Co. in 1916 in order to manufacture the unique Owen Magnetic. It was a car that used a patented transmission with an electro-magnetic clutch that, due to its very fine regulation, allowed the engine to always be kept in the most favorable regime. Thanks to this, it gave the feeling of having a thousand speeds. All Owen Magnetic cars received a body from Rauch & Lang.
World War I (1914-1918) forced the company to produce electric tractors and trucks for the army, as well as material to handle bombs.
In 1920, the electric vehicle department of Baker Rauch & Lang was sold to the Stevens-Duryea brand (this one completely restructured after the financial problems suffered in previous years), which then wanted to dedicate itself to producing electrics at its own plant in Chicopee Falls. The new range of products, then called Raulang, included a taxi version, in this case leaving the customer to choose between an electric motor or a combustion engine.
In the mid-XNUMXs, with only one model on offer, the company took another turn by offering a hybrid car that combined a Willys Knight gasoline powered drive with an electric transmission from General Electric. It attracted a lot of attention, since it combined the advantages of both concepts, but did not obtain the desired success.
The last three units were developed in 1929 on the basis of a Stearns-Knight, produced expressly for Colonel EHR Green, a billionaire who had invested in the company for that purpose. But the Wall Street crash of 1929 shattered the idea.
Baker Rauch & Lang maintained its factory in Cleveland, where it began assembling bodies for Dodge and Lincoln cars; while in Chicopee Falls he dedicated himself to repairing all types of industrial vehicles, also subletting a part of the plant to the Moth Aircraft company, producer of a small plane called Gypsy.
For its part, its division Truck it continued to produce small truck-mounted cranes powered by electric motors, and even larger, complete cranes. Later, different body styles, common and special, were produced for different Ford models and, in the late XNUMXs, the company began to produce a number of Woodie, ranch-type models with bodies partially made of wood.
During the XNUMXs the company returned to the manufacture of trucks, both with electric and gasoline engines, and of military vehicles, also with both types of propellants. Subsequently, it expanded the range with electric forklifts.
Finally, in 1975 Baker-Raulang was sold to the Linde company (multinational of German origin), one of the largest manufacturers of forklifts, which continued to use the Cleveland plant to produce them.
