Alfred V. Verville and a group of local businessmen — the Detroit Board of Commerce's Aviation Committee — supported Stinson's plans to establish the Stinson Aircraft Syndicate in 1925, and provided $25,000 to design and build a prototype, an enclosed cockpit, 4-place biplane, powered by a Wright Whirlwind J-4 air-cooled radial engine test flighted at Packard Field in Roseville, Michigan, a northeast suburb of Detroit.

The plane not only had a rare (for the period) enclosed cabin, it also had heat (which was a big plus given the cold Michigan winter), upholstered seats and side panels, and even an electric cigar lighter.

It became an overnight success, and flights were offered in February to 70 riders thus enabling Stinson to raise $150,000 in public stock capital to go into production.

building in Northville, Michigan, just across the pond from the locally famous Ford Valve Plant, and the first production model SB-1 rolled out just three months later in August 1926.

[2] By this time, the Stinson Corp. had erected their own concrete-floored steel hangar at the airfield, where they could complete the aircraft assembly process of attaching the wings.

The finished superstructure fuselages were simply pulled through the center of town to the airfield behind Ford Model TT trucks, while the wings were put on trailers.