Background
Hupp was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the son of Charles Jasper Hupp, an assistant general freight agent for the Michigan Central Railroad, and Anne M. Klinger.
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Louis Gorham Hupp
Edit ProfileEducation
Hupp attended public school in Kalamazoo and high school in Detroit. He then entered the University of Michigan and graduated in 1895 from its school of engineering.
Career
His first job was as a commercial agent for the Michigan Central Railroad in Grand Rapids. After a time Hupp left the railroad and formed the Hupp-Turner Machine Company in Detroit. In 1908 Hupp's younger brother, Robert Craig Hupp, started the Hupp Motor Car Company; the two firms were merged later that year. The first Hupp automobile exhibition model was demonstrated at the Detroit Automobile Show in 1908. The 1909 Hupmobile, described as the "smallest and best little car ever marketed in America at anything like the money, " was a four-cylinder, twenty-horsepower vehicle that sold for $750.
In 1912 the Hupp brothers began producing the RCH automobile (named after the younger Hupp) by a separate company, the RCH Corporation. In 1915 the Hupp Motor Car Company was reincorporated in Virginia as the Hupp Motor Car Corporation, but manufacturing continued in Michigan. In 1916 Hupp started the Tribune Motor Car Company but, with American intervention in World War I looming, closed shop after only three cars were produced.
An extremely popular car in the boom years of the 1920's, the Hupmobile had a distinctive "Hupmobile blue" body with black fenders and running board. While not known for speed, the car was durable, simply constructed, and innovative in design. It was easily identified by the uncommonly tall filler necks on the radiator and by the unusual fan-shaped tail lamps. In 1923, some 38, 000 new Hupmobiles were produced and more than 117, 000 were in service. The latter figure is an indication of the durability of the vehicle, which typically lasted longer than the six-year average life span of other American automobiles.
The Hupp Motor Car Corporation thrived and by 1924 occupied more than four million square feet of floor space, including a factory for gear and machine work in Jackson, Mich. ; a body-building plant in Racine, Wis. ; a shipping plant in Windsor, Ontario; and the Detroit Auto Specialties Company, a stamping concern. In 1925 the Hupp company produced 129, 000 cars, which placed it among the top ten American automobile producers. In the early 1920's Hupp also became involved in residential real estate development. He formed the Hupp Farms Corporation and the West Maple Road Corporation and developed Bloomfield Village, west of Birmingham, Mich.
Like all other automobile-manufacturing concerns, the Hupp firm had difficulty maintaining production and sales levels during the Great Depression. In a futile attempt to reverse the sales decline, Hupp produced a series of radically designed "aerodynamic" models in 1934 and 1935. These cars featured windshields that were divided into three parts and headlights that were built into the side of the hood. In August 1938 Hupp acquired from the Auburn Automobile Company dies, tools, and patterns that enabled him to imitate the design of the 1937 Cord. But sales continued to slump, and the last Hupmobile was built in 1941.
Hupp volunteered for government service at the outbreak of World War II and was appointed an examiner with the Office of Defense Transportation at Detroit in 1942, where he served for the duration of the war. After the war he continued to invest in real estate development. Hupp died in Detroit.
Achievements
Connections
In Grand Rapids he met and married Lillian K. Hazlewood on October 28, 1905. They had two sons.
References
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Born
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Died
February 10, 1961 (aged 89) -
Nationality
American