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Howard Carpenter Marmon

Howard Carpenter Marmon was an automotive engineer, airplane engine
designer and mining entrepreneur. Born into the great Nordyke and
Marmon Company in 1876 he became chief engineer at aged 23 and
during his career was responsible for a number of pioneering innovations.
He was a very successful man who is particularly remembered for the
creation and invention of the Marmon Automobiles. Perhaps his most
celebrated achievement was the Marmon Wasp which won famously the
first Indianapolis 500 race in 1911. In later life, he purchased a substantial
estate, Hemlock Hedges, in Pineola, North Carolina.

www.hemmings.com

Howard Carpenter Marmon, of French descent "Marmont," was the intellect
behind the cars' development. Born in 1876 in Richmond, Indiana, he
obtained an engineering degree from Berkeley and joined the family
business, the Nordyke and Marmon Company, which was founded in 1851 to
produce flour and grain mills. His brother, Walter, also an engineer, became
the company's CEO. In hindsight, we know that Howard Marmon's attention
was drawn toward transportation engineering by watching steam
locomotives churn through Richmond, on the Ohio border, from his earliest
years.

Although Marmon, as a manufacturer of cars, spanned only slightly more
than 30 years, its products are famed for outstanding quality and innovation.
That reputation literally preceded the product. It started in 1901, when Figure 115: Howard C. Marmon
Howard Marmon personally designed a prototype car, the parts for which
were crafted under the direction of Nordyke and Marmon master machinist R.E. Roberts.

The new Marmon all but bubbled with revolutionary features, the most enduring of which was its cast-
aluminum tonneau body with hinged doors on either side and an integrated rear trunk, which became a
blueprint for the layout of passenger car bodies henceforth. Its engine resided beneath a metal hood at the
front of the car, another atypical arrangement for the day. The first engine was an air-cooled V-twin with an

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