Francisco Carrion
Illinois, located in the Midwest of the United States, is a typically American state. Due to its "central" location, it is an important transportation hub and its most populated city, Chicago, is a well-known business center; although it should not be confused with the capital, which is Springfield. Currently, with more than 15 million inhabitants, it is the most populous state in the Midwest, and the fifth most populous in the country.
Once in a situation, it should also be noted that in Illinois there is a curious mixture of factories and farms, since they live there mainly from the countryside and from industries that produce for it. For example, the famous John Deere tractor factory is based there, specifically in a town called Moline.
In this same town, very prosperous in the years after the American Civil War (1861-1865), many companies dedicated to tools for the field arose. One of the most successful was the company "Moline Plow Co.", dedicated to manufacturing plows.
The business was doing so well that soon this company absorbed several other companies in the area, mainly several dedicated to the manufacture of "buggies", which at the time was the term used for light four-wheeled and two-seater horse-drawn carriages. , which we have seen so many times in the old western movies.
This business was very fruitful throughout the nineteenth century, but at the beginning of the twentieth its days were doomed, mainly due to the appearance of the first automobiles. For example, in the city of Moline itself, as early as 1908 the Velie company began to produce automobiles, linked to the - already large - John Deere group, and in the first year of production it managed to sell around 1.000 units.
Against this background, the Moline Plow Co. decided in 1916 enter the motor vehicle market. Given its experience in the production of agricultural implements, it first presented a light tractor, the "Moline Universal", which among other curious features had front-wheel drive. These remained in production until 1923, and began a long and successful career in the tractor sector. In 1929 the brand was merged with another very important one in the agricultural sector, thus creating the “Minneapolis-Moline”, a highly successful company that was in operation until the mid-1970s.
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From tractors to cars
Long before, specifically a year after entering the tractor market, Moline Plow had also decided to start car manufacturing. The name chosen for these was "Stephens", in honor of George W. Stephens, former president of the company… and we can assume that also because his own son, GA Stephens, was appointed president of the automobile division of Moline Plow, whose factory was built in the nearby town of Freeport.
For the development of these new vehicles, introduced in 1916, ET Birdsall was contracted, which had previously created the Selden automobiles, of repute in their day. The first model produced mounted a 4-cylinder in-line engine, but the 6 in-line that would be characteristic of the brand soon arrived. At first the famous Continental brand engines were used, specifically the 7W model, but very soon an agreement was reached with the local company Rooy Vandercoort Engineering Co, located in East Moline.
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This company manufactured an engine with quite unusual characteristics for what was popular on that side of the Atlantic; Instead of "pulling" the flat cylinder head, side valves or separate blocks, this engine was a "modern" monoblock with overhead valves that even had the rods that sent them inside the block, unlike the mechanics they mounted Buicks of that era, also an inline 6 with overhead valves, but with exposed rods and rocker arms.
Some authors have pointed out that these Vandercoort Engineering engines were inspired by the Buick 40 and 50 series, manufactured from 1914 to 1923, and the truth is that they have many aspects of their design in common.
Be that as it may, these thrusters they proved reliable and relatively fast. They cubed 3,7 liters -with a diameter x stroke of 82,55 × 114,30 mm- and delivered a power of 57 hp at 2.700 rpm, a power that increased from 1921 to 59 hp. Of course, these engines had a very high torque that allowed direct driving from very low revs, so that the "horsepower" is not a figure that must be taken into account to get an idea of the true performance of the vehicle.
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David vs. Goliath
By 1920, 80% of Vandercoort Engineering's sales volume was destined for Stephens automobiles, so the leaders of Moline Plow decided to acquire this engine manufacturer as well.
By then, much of Moline Plow's stock had been bought by auto magnate John North Willys, founder of the Willys-Overland brand, which for many years would be the third largest car producer in the US, although today it is only known for the famous Jeep Willys.
From the beginning, the Moline Plow was kept as an independent group from Willys-Overland, but even so, the production of Stephens cars only continued until 1924, when the American “generalist” brands that were already selling on a world scale were an insurmountable competition .
Starting at $ 1.835 and going up to $ 3.000 for the latest 6-cylinder models, an estimated 20.000 total units were built from 1916 to 1924, with 1920 being the year of greatest production, with 7.000 units.
Few specimens are currently preserved, and even Stephens is a very little known brand in the US They arrived in Europe "by dropper", although it is known that several were imported to Sweden, where a restored copy is still preserved.
The protagonist of the photographs has lived in our country for about 15 years, and we must assume that there is no other unit of this brand in the entire Iberian Peninsula ...
