Great Lakes Motors: The Rise of a Company (1900-)

[mungojerry311]

BACKGROUND

Theodore James Brewer, known as Ted to his closest friends and associates, was born on a farm near present day Oak Park, Illinois on August 6, 1858. As a child, he divided his time between working on his father's sprawling farm and experimenting with machinery. A favorite hobby of his was taking apart his father's old pocket watch, which his father barely used, and putting it back together again. He got so good at it that the other local farmers who came to help during harvest season would ask Ted to fix their watches. Because of this, his father encouraged him to tinker with anything he could find around the farm. Many say it was this that planted the seed in his mind for what he would do a few decades later. Although he was a reliable helper on the farm, he was inwardly bored with farm life.

After graduating from school, with his parent's blessing, he went to seek his fortune in Chicago. Evidence shows that Ted landed a job at the Chicago Marine Machine Works in the summer of 1877. After a few years, he worked his way up to become a shift manager. In the meantime, in 1883, he married Elaine Hodge, whom he'd met at a company sponsored dance. Ted's absence during the day took an early toll on their marriage. However, the events of the next decade would help turn things around.

After German inventor Karl Benz invented what is now known as the automobile in 1886, many small automakers began popping up around the country in an effort to capitalize on this new technology. Seeing an opportunity for both him and his family (his son Robert had been born in 1885, and his daughter Margaret later in 1890), Ted quit his job as shift manager at the machine shop and became a "horseless-carriage" salesman working in the Chicago area. Ted made enough over the next several years, that he was eventually able to move his family from the somewhat cramped 7th-story apartment they were living in, and into an affluent neighborhood on the north side of Chicago.

Although he enjoyed this line of work, his real interest was in starting his very own company. In 1896, he and a group of other car salesmen, whose identities remain a mystery, formed the Brewer Motor Company. This company seems to have lasted for only two years and produced only one automobile, the Overtowner, which was patterned after Henry Ford's Quadricycle and sold abysmally. Records show that in the 10 months the Overtowner was on the market, it sold only 56 units. Today, it is highly sought after by car collectors. Needless to say, this drove the Brewer Motor Company right into the ground and the company declared bankruptcy in the fall of 1898.

Not one to be easily discouraged, in the summer of 1899, he brought together another group of car salesmen together to form another company. In order to distance themselves from the failure that Brewer Motor Company was, and for the fact Chicago was located on Lake Michigan, they named this new company Great Lakes Motor Company. By the fall of 1899 they had bought a former textile factory downtown to serve as the company's first factory. Corporate offices would also be housed there.

The company's first factory as it appeared in 1919

In late December of 1899, the state legislature of Illinois granted the Great Lakes Motor Company a license to begin operations on January 1, 1900.

INTRODUCTION AND GOALS

Hello folks, and welcome to my first ever GearCity AAR! I've always had a slight interest in cars. In fact, for many years I collected die cast models of various cars. I discovered this game just recently, and I am quite impressed with it as it is. I feel this game has lots of potential to be something great.

I'll make this AAR a history book/narrative style, because that is my favorite style of AAR anywhere. It helps the creative juices flow, so to speak.

My goals for the Great Lakes Motor Company (referred to in-game as Great Lakes Motors) are to make it the biggest car company in North America and possibly the world. I also want to make it all the way to 2020.

In addition, I want this to be a learning experience both for me and others in the GearCity community. Any advice you can give me would be extremely welcome.

Lastly, I'll play this game on Normal difficulty with no additional advanced options selected. Of course I'll be starting in 1900.

I probably won't be able to start playing until tomorrow or so. Until then I leave you with 2 questions:

1) Which vehicle should I build first, and
2) How do I make money while my first chassis, engine, gearbox, and eventually vehicle are being developed?

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy the ride!

[WolveNZ]

1. Luxury Sedan
2. Cut costs on material quality, safety and performance and focus on component quality and fuel economy.

[Waffles]

I've been doing pickup trucks in North America, is there more demand for luxury vehicles?

[Shepherd]

I would be doing phaeteons, they can be built with small frames and smallish engines. They are also easily sold across the pond. And you can make them cheap and achieve higher sales.

The same frame and engine can also be used for other small sized cars.

Concentrate on citys with high population 500 000+. When you get rolling, expand into citys with 300 000+.

Make sure you build branches with max dealership resources slider, this helps you get more dealerships faster and will help your sales pick up. (I generally put both sliders to max)

And make sure you can keep up with production. Redesign factory, build a new one or buy a competing brand. Your sales will rise sharply so you need to be ahead in production capasity.

You should be able to dominate the field within 2 years on normal difficulty.

   

[Shepherd]

As for question 2.

You really can not make money before you have anything to sell.

So your only options is to reduce your expenditure and minimize development time.

Lay off people in your starting branch. This wil save you a few bucks.

When designing parts. All sliders that affect development time should be minimized. Your parts ought to be finished in 3-4 months whithout costing a fortune.

So by April/May, you can start design your car(s). this should be designed in the same way, cheap and fast development time.

What I generally do, is to have dual development. Some fast parts and some more quality parts with longer development time. That way I can start making money, yet still start early on more quality cars.

And at the same time I start looking for potential competitors to buy up (aided by loans and sales of stock), to help with expansion (if you play with max competitors, opportunitys for an early buyout increases).

In the picture in my last post I have used a number of the game's weaknesses to kickstart my campaign.

[mungojerry311]

Thanks for all the advice guys! I think I'll start playing this soon. I have one more question I forgot to ask:

3) How can I determine the price of my vehicles?

Thanks!

[Shepherd]

The default price the game suggests work well enough.

It is better to manipulate the price when designing parts and vehicles.

Design them decent and cheap.

[mungojerry311]

Starting Out 1900 - 1902

At the beginning of 1900, Great Lakes Motor Company was anything but a big company. At their first meeting in January, the board of directors found they had a meager budget, starting out with only 750,000 dollars worth of spending money. Their factory had room for only 5 production lines, and they had only one distribution center near the factory. Plus, only one dealership had signed on to sell their automobiles Still, they weren't about to let this company go down the tubes as the Brewer Motor Company had. Since they were undecided as to what vehicle to produce first, they decided on developing their own components to put in their automobiles while they decided.

The company hired a few mechanical engineers, some of which had worked at the previous company, to develop a chassis, an engine, and a gearbox. The engineering team decided on a simple naming system for the three components. All chassis's would be represented by the letter C, engines with E, and gearboxes with G. The engineers immediately began work on C-1, E-1, and G-1. These weren't the best as they had to cut back on many things to cut costs [1]. These components were all completed by the late spring of 1900.

Specs of the C-1, E-1, and G-1

Meanwhile, the board of directors finally decided on a vehicle to put out on the market. Since most people who were buying cars at that time were wealthy, they decided to make a luxury sedan [2]. Since there wasn't much communication between the board and the engineering team, the board was unaware of the shortcomings the starting components had.

One of the directors, who was a skilled draftsman, submitted a design for it. The board of directors unanimously approved it. It was decided that the model would be named the Regent. Company engineers began work on it in June of 1900. As with the components, they had to make many necessary cutbacks [1]. It was ready to begin production by the spring of 1901.

Regent with specs and sales history as of January 1, 1903

At the factory, 3 production lines were assigned to manufacture the Regent, with the other two left empty for future use. An emphasis was put on quantity, but with a focus on quality. It was reported that with those parameters, they would be able to make 70 Regents per month. A retail price of $1600 (about $45,000 in today's money) was set on it. With that, the Regent officially went into production.

According to company records, in it's first month of production, the Regent sold 38 units. The following month it sold 47 units. Sales dropped off slightly in late spring. By that time 82 Regents were sitting at the distribution center unsold. In response to this, production was reduced to two lines. At that rate they would make 46 cars per month.

By late summer, they had begun to sell most of the Regents that came off the assembly line. In the meantime, the board decided to develop a more affordable automobile. A phaeton was the obvious choice. They would use the same components they had used in the Regent. This resulted in their next model; the Cub:

Cub with specs and sales history as of January 1, 1903

This model entered production in April of 1902.

Meanwhile, the Regent won Vehicle of the Year in North America in 1901. In that year the Regent sold 305 units with 178 unsold units.

The Cub was produced on 3 lines with an emphasis on quantity, resulting in a production rate of 75 Cubs per month. The Cub sold for half the price of the Regent at $800 (about $21,500 in today's money). In it's first month on the market, every Cub that came off the assembly line sold, with no units going unsold. It immediately became apparent that the Cub was the Great Lakes Motor Company's biggest success so far. In September, one of the production lines that was being used to manufacture the Regent was reassigned to the Cub. By this time, the amount of unsold Regents had grown to 298.

The Cub won the industry award for best phaeton for 1902. Although the company had only two models on the market, one a flop and the other a goldmine, it was already apparent: Great Lakes Motors had arrived on the scene.

[1] Thanks Shepherd!

[2] Thanks WolveNZ!

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Alright, that's enough for tonight. I hope you enjoyed this exciting first chapter in the saga of Great Lakes Motors. As always, if you have any advice to give me, please do so.

Thanks for reading!