Word: crosley
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Even though he made his millions from refrigerators, radios, scalp exercisers, bed coolers and sundry other gadgets, Powel Crosley Jr.'s first love was always the automobile. Seven years ago, the 6 ft. 4 in. Cincinnati millionaire decided to satisfy his passion. For $19 million he sold all his other interests to Aviation Corp. (now Avco), concentrated on making midget Crosley autos. His goal was to produce 150,000 cars a year, eventually bring the price down to $500. But Crosley fell far short of the mark...
Caught by rising costs, he could never bring the price below $800, and even then his profit margin was slim. Crosley production hit a high of 28,000 a year, then skidded. In the last three years, Crosley Motors, Inc. has lost $1 million a year; Powel Crosley has had to pour $3 million of his own money into the company to keep it going...
Last week, with his auto plant shut down, 65-year-old Powel Crosley finally threw in the towel. In a stock swap, he turned over 317,077 shares (58% control) to Akron's General Tire & Rubber Co. for the equivalent of $63,400, or 20? a share. (Crosley stock, traded on the Curb, promptly fell nearly a point to 1½.) In partial payment of his $3 million loan, Crosley will keep $1.5 million worth of plant real estate, which he will lease back to the rubber company; the balance of the loan will be paid off with stock...
Holy Cross to Broadway. What might a tire company want with Crosley? The answer lay in the amazing changes wrought in General Tire over the past few years by its president and founder, William Francis O'Neil, 66. A rough & ready graduate of Holy Cross, Bill O'Neil left his father's New England textile mill in 1907, got a Firestone tire dealership in Kansas City, Mo. A friend suggested that he make tires and plug his "home talent" products in the vicinity. "I didn't go for that home talent stuff," O'Neil recalls...
With his new buy, O'Neil does not plan to make the same mistake that Powel Crosley made. He will not try to buck the auto market; instead, he will use the plant space for his booming defense business. And for all the diversification, O'Neil plans to keep General Tire in the business it knows best. Of its $171 million sales in 1951 (and $7 million net), 85% came from rubber...