Northway Motor (Detroit, Michigan)

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Northway was once the engine manufacturing division of General Motors. This GM built engine, which was source from GM's Inter Company Parts Division, originated at the Detroit headquartered Northway Motor and Manufacturing Division. It was well known in the trade that Northway had been the sole supplier of engines for a number of years to Oakland, Oldsmobile, and GMC Truck.

In 1901 and 1902 Ralph Northway was associated with Russell Wheel & Foundry Co., Detroit, working with engineering phases of gas production and their relation to combustion in hydro-carbon engines. Then, in 1902, he entered directly into the automobile industry as chief engineer for Dodge Brothers, who were developing and arranging for productions for Henry Ford. It is said that Dodge built everything from the early Model A Ford cars but the wheels. Thus, Mr. Northway's work contributed directly to the early success of the Ford Motor Co. He designed and worked out tooling and special equipment making possible the low price at which Ford cars were marketed.

With Dodge Brothers, Mr. Northway was intimately associated with Mr. Ford. Late in 1903 Mr. Northway left Dodge Bros., and with the financial assistance of Henry Ford, founded his own enterprise, naming it Eureka Mfg. Co. The immediate object was to manufacture parts for Ford cars. Expansion was rapid, and a line of engines, transmissions and axles was offered to the trade. In 1904 the name was changed to Northway Motor & Mfg. Co. and an engine of unit power plant type was added, the first of its kind offered commercially. Response at first was slow, but manufacturers were shown the advantages inherent in a design wherein engine, clutch, and transmission were built in permanent alignment, with three-point suspension to the chassis frame, and eventually a big trade was built up. A new factory was built in 1905 on Maybury Grand Avenue and the G.T.R.R..

Among the motor car manufactures supplied by Northway Motor & Mfg. Co. may be listed the following: Jackson, engines and transmissions Buick, engines Auburn, engines and transmissions Firestone-Columbus, engines & transmissions Cole, engines, clutches and transmissions Oakland, unit power plats Cartercar, engines Regal, transmissions and rear axles, Northern, engine, clutches and transmissions E.M.F., engines, clutches and transmissions Imperial, engines. The company's payroll grew from 8 to 800.


The Northway company was purchased by WC Durant for the growing General Motors Company in 1909. A few years later, it was reported for the year 1912, that Northway was making 11,000 engines a year. Oakland was then the largest single customer with buying 5000 engines, with the rest of Northway's production spread among twelve other car and truck assemblers. By the early Twenties, because of growth volume and a lack of design control, both Oakland and Oldsmobile moved away from outsourcing their engines, and begun to build their own engines in house in Pontiac and Lansing. In the end, the Northway engine was known only as a truck engine, with GMC Truck becoming its only customer.

In mid 1925, the once proud Northway Motor and Manufacturing Division was transferred out from under the Inter Company Parts Group to direct operation and control under the GM Truck Division. But this was short lived, because after Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company purchased and acquired the GM Truck Division in September 1925, the Northway division was quietly disbanded and discontinued.

By March 1926, the Northway property in Detroit, which was by then called GM truck Plant No. 7, was purchased by Chevrolet Motor Division for the manufacture of front and rear axles and parts for past model Chevrolets. The following year the Detroit branch of GM owned Frigidaire Corporation was transferred to the Northway plant.

In March of 1987, the plant was destroyed by a fire that took the lives of three firefighters. The building was last occupied by Motor City Wiping Cloth in 1983 and contained piles of rags and clothes. The cause of the fire was determined to be arson.