Flanders Automobile Company

It was the brainchild of Walter E. Flanders (1871–1923), who formerly held a position as General Factory Manager at the Ford Motor Company's Piquette avenue plant.

In this situation, Flanders convinced the Studebaker brothers, who held substantial stock in E-M-F and were its sole distributor in the USA, to buy the defunct factory of the DeLux Motor Company in Detroit, and to build there a new challenger to Ford.

This little car had a 4-cylinder engine with 20 hp (15 kW), a 100-inch (2,500 mm) wheelbase[1] and was focused on a price of $750 in 1909 - then lower than Ford's "T".

Prices were lower now, as they were over at Ford's: the model "20" runabout now cost $700, and the "suburban" that replaced the touring was set at $725.

Only a handful of these 130 inch-wheelbase-cars might have been built as, shortly after introduction, Walter Flanders was asked by Benjamin Briscoe to help save the United States Motor Company which was in severe trouble.

In the end, of the about 12 makes involved, including his own Flanders, he closed all but one: The Maxwell, ancestor of the later Chrysler Corporation.

Kimes, Beverly R. (editor), Clark, Henry A.: The Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805–1945, Krause Publications (1985), ISBN 0-87341-045-9