The Tincher was a brand of

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

produced from 1903–1908 in

Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

,John L. Tincher III
Danville's Tincher Automobile
' Reprinted from ''Winter'' 1981-82, page 10 and from 1908 to 1909 in

South Bend, Indiana South Bend is a city in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. It lies along the St. Joseph River (Lake Michigan), St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. It is the List of cities in ...

. The car was named after its developer, Thomas Luther Tincher, but built by the Chicago Coach and Carriage Company using components and body sections fabricated by the German

Krupp Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp (formerly Fried. Krupp AG and Friedrich Krupp GmbH), trade name, trading as Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century as well as Germany's premier weapons manufacturer dur ...

steelworks. The Tincher debuted at the 1903

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, where its air-braking system was the technical wonder of the event. Not only could the air-system stop the car, but it could be used to inflate flat tires and power the car's horn. The Tincher was also one of the costliest cars in production at the time, with a race version beginning at $12,000. Custom coach work on the touring cars and coach models could raise the price even higher. Small Tinchers, riding on a wheelbase, were priced in the $5,000 - $10,000 range. In 1907, Tincher moved himself and the newly incorporated Tincher Motor Car Company to

, where Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company maintained its production facilities. Tincher had hoped that being near the Studebaker brothers (who were majority stock holders in the venture) would help not only development of cars and custom bodies, but sales as well. However well built the cars were, the Tincher was discontinued in 1909 when Thomas Tincher and his company both declared bankruptcy. Tincher then moved to Los Angeles where he became West Coast distributor of the

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automobile.

References

Studebaker Motor vehicle manufacturers based in Illinois Motor vehicle manufacturers based in Indiana Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of the United States Defunct companies based in Indiana Luxury motor vehicle manufacturers {{Veteran-auto-stub