The 1922 Washington Automobile

The plant was completed in July, 1920.

As soon as the plant was finished, the directors began to manufacture the company’s first product, the Touring Model. Their goal was to oversee the hand assembly of well-built, quality automobiles in the low-price range. The Washington Standard Touring car sold for $1,185.00.

The first Touring Model rolled off the assembly line in August, 1920. By February of 1921, the engineers completed road testing the model and fine-tuning their innovative assembly techniques. The car and factory were now ready for full production. On President Washington’s birthday, the 22nd of February, 1921, the Touring car was displayed to 200 invited guests of stockholders and friends at an exciting grand opening held at the factory.

While the employees at Washington Motor Car Company were hard at work, national competition began to heat up causing competitors such as Ford and Chevrolet to perfect a new technique by which machines, not men, drove the assembly-line production. The direct result of this new technique was that the directors of the Washington Motor Car Company found it increasingly difficult to make a profit on their high-quality, hand-assembled Touring Model. The Washington Motor Car Company could simply not compete head to head with the mass-produced, low-priced Fords and Chevrolets. In the fall of 1921, in an attempt to make profitable their labor-intensive methods, the Washington Motor Car Company added medium-priced and high-priced models to their production line. These automobiles became part of the luxury car market of the “roaring twenties”. Washingtons were of high quality and had state-of-the-art gadgetry.

The public embraced the new models, and when orders started rolling in, happy days were in Eaton again!

The Washington Motor Car Company’s Deluxe Model was the company’s high-end model, loaded with all the options and sold for $1,785.00. Relative to today’s prices, if the car were still being

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"There's an Exciting Past in Your Future"

Preble County Historical Society
7693 Swartsel Road
Eaton, OH 45320
937-787-4256 Voice and Fax

preblecohistsoc@brecnet.com