The Scintilla Magneto Company was an American manufacturer of aircraft and automobile magnetos.

History

The origins of the company lie in the development of a magneto by Swiss engineers. The rights to the design was purchased by an American and brought to the United States in 1921. The company was originally located in New York City, but was convinced by a local businessman named Winfield Sherwood to move to the site of the recently-bankrupt

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in Sidney, New York in the mid-1920s. In 1925, it was purchased by an American subsidiary of the Swiss Brown, Boveri & Company. The company was later purchased by

Bendix Corporation Bendix Corporation is an American manufacturing and engineering company which, during various times in its existence, made automotive brake shoes and systems, vacuum tubes, aircraft brakes, aeronautical hydraulics and electric power systems, av ...

in 1929 and became the Scintilla Magneto Division. The acquisition of the Hurley Townsend Corporation in 1935 led to an expansion of the plant and a housing project was begun to accommodate all of the new workers. During

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, the company was a key manufacturer of magnetos used on American aircraft engines such as the

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. Its name was changed to the Electrical Components Division in 1966. The Bendix Engine Products Division was split off in 1980 and moved to

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...

a few years later. By 1985, the portion remaining in Sidney had been renamed Bendix Connector Operations. The Amphenol Products Division was bought from

AlliedSignal AlliedSignal was an American aerospace, automotive and engineering company created through the 1985 merger of Allied Corp. and Signal Companies. It subsequently purchased Honeywell for $14.8 billion in 1999, and thereafter adopted the Honeywell n ...

by LPL Investment Group in 1987. The former Scintilla factory was occupied by the Amphenol Aerospace Corporation until 2011 when, after being flooded in 2006, restored at great expense, and flooded again in 2011, the main factory was demolished. The plating annex still operates on the site but the majority of the site is now a solar farm. The Amphenol Aerospace offices and manufacturing were moved to a nearby location in Sidney NY, on higher ground.

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Bibliography

* * * {{Refend Aircraft component manufacturers of the United States Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York (state) Bendix Corporation