Byron Carter

Background

Byron J. Carter was born on August 17, 1863 in Jackson County, Michigan to Squire B. Carter and Martha Crum. In 1894, with his father, he started a bicycle and sunrise store in Jackson on the corner of Courtland Jackson streets.

Career

In 1885, Byron Carter established the Steam Job Printing and Rubber Stamp Manufacturing business in at 167 Main Saint, Jackson. Two years later, they returned to the printing business by starting the United States Tag Company During his years of working at Steam Job Printing, Carter gained experience with steam engines, which gained him a patent for the three-cylinder engine, his first engine for the 1902 Jaxon steam car.

He was also granted a patent for a friction transmission, a feature of the Carter was its first vice president

In 1905 he left to form the Motorcar Company in Jackson, featuring his friction drive car and naming it “” The new variable speed transmission used friction discs, not gears, and also allowed the car to brake by reversing the lever. Carter developed his friction-drive system with parts from a corn sheller.

Responding to the problem of other friction-drive cars failing in wet conditions, he developed an aluminum friction disc with a cardboard traverse wheel lining. In 1905, Carter found financial backing from Detroit for the and relocated the company to Pontiac, Michigan.

Durant liked the car’s friction drive, and thought would have a great future, and so General Motors bought the company on October 26, 1909.

But by 1910, Durant was ousted from General Motors. When the failed to meet Durant’s sales predictions, General Motors limited production and discontinued the after the 1916 model. General Motors converted the factory to production of Oaklands and the name was automotive history. Carter died April 6, 1908, in Detroit, after developing pneumonia as a result of injuries he sustained when he tried to hand crank start a car stranded on the Belle Isle bridge near Detroit.

At the time of his death, he was vice president and general superintendent of the Motorcar Company of Detroit.

Carter’s death was the impetus for Charles Kettering and Henry M. Leland to develop the electric self-starter.

Achievements

• He was a founding partner of the, and founder of the Company. The Company attracted the attention of William C. Durant, co-founder of General Motors.

Connections

Partner:

George A. Matthews