Coachbult.com - Karl H. Martin



Karl H. Martin - 1888-1954

Karl H. Martin

Karl Hamlen Martin, builder of the Bennington Vermont’s famous Wasp luxury car also designed bodies for other American manufacturers. Martin had a small body shop in New York City in the mid teens and his beautiful creations gathered the attention of many of the local car dealers and distributors.

Manufacturer Albert C. Barley (formerly of Rutenber, and Streator Manufacturing, Haladay and Nyberg) and the New York City distributor for Rauch & Lang electrics, Cloyd Y. Kenworthy called upon Martin to design their new Roamer automobile in 1915. Martin was paid $50 a dayfor his services and production moved from Streator, Illinois to the former Michigan Buggy plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan during 1916.

For 1917 Roamer had Martin design them a beautiful roadster called the Cornina. Leon Rubay in Cleveland, Ohio built the elegant Roamer Town Car during the same time period. Kenworthy left the firm in 1920 and established the Kenworthy Car in Mishawaka, Indiana which was also designed by Martin. Martin then went on to design and manufacture his masterpiece, the Wasp from 1920-1924 in Bennington, Vermont.

18 Wasps produced from 1919-1924 by Wasp-Martin Corp. Martin also designed the Deering-Magnetic, Kenworthy, 1916 Roamer, and 1921 Meteor Town Car.

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The Martin-Wasp automobile was designed and built by Karl H. Martin in Bennington Vermont between 1920 and 1925. Spectacular in appearance, and constructed of the finest materials, the Wasp in the Bennington Museum is one of fewer than twenty ever produced, and is the only one in existence.

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Karl H. Martin - WASP - Bennington, Vermont - (1919-1924) - His first work had been in the oil fields of the Melrose and North Lima districts of Ohio, where he drilled a couple of wells and found the experience not at all aesthetically satisfying. Next he moved to New York where he entered the coach building trade, specializing in artful bodies on European chassis, a task much more to his liking. By 1919, when he settled in Bennington to establish his Martin Wasp Corporation, Karl H. Martin had already designed the Roamer and Deering Magnetic and was working on the Kenworthy. He was ready for a car of his own. He was just 32 years old. The Wasp was introduced in the lobby of the Hotel Commodore during New York Automobile Show in January 1920. Its chassis was nothing extraordinary, a 72 hp Wisconsin HIE four-cylinder engine was fitted; everything else underneath came from varying component suppliers in the field. But the look of the car was spectacular. Its wheelbase was a long 136 inches, and its body styling was aptly described by Martin as "rickshaw phaeton." The word flamboyance found all-new meaning in the Wasp, with its shallow pointed, stylized fenders, its fully-nickeled German radiator, its large step-plates, 1 natural wood bows on its top of many curves, the bullet lights in the windshield, the sheen of its black lacquer body contrasting with the high polish of its natural aluminum hood. And yet there was nothing gaudy about a Wasp, no striping, no excess ornamentation. The interior was tastefully furnished, with a handsome engine-turned dashboard complete with St. Christopher's medal, the only car in America (possibly the world) to carry one as standard equipment. The price was $5,000 to Bennington. Douglas Fairbanks happened to stroll through the lobby of the Commodore, and he bought the Wasp on the spot, purportedly as a present for his bride Mary Pickford. Five more cars were built through 1921. Late in 1922 Karl Mal announced his intention to go bigger and longer with his Wasp: a 70 hp Continental six-cylinder engine and a 144-inch wheelbase chassis. The price of the earlier model was now $5,500, and he offered the new six-cylinder "rickshaw phaeton" at a hefty $10,000. But by now the money was running out; just three Wasp sixes were built for a total production of the fours was 14 cars. "I don't believe we really failed at all Karl Martin reminisced in later years. "We were impractical, it is true... but the point is that we did build cars and we did sell them." The last Wasp automobile was built in 1924. Karl Martin's later work included the design and building of furniture, mi work and intricate inlaid cabinets. He died in 1954.

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Barley commissioned the coachbuilder Karl H Martin, of New York, to design the bodywork. Martin had already made a name for himself designing stylish bodies on European chassis for the American market. With his support and that of Kenworthy, Alfred Barley founded the Barley Motor Co in 1916 to manufacture his new car. The name chosen for it, the Roamer, was that of a famous racehorse of the day.

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The most ambitious car made in Kalamazoo was the Roamer, a high-line luxury car made from 1917-29. It was founded by Cloyd Y. Kenworthy in association with Karl H. Martin and Albert C. Barley. The grille was a copy of the Rolls-Royce grille and the name was suggested by Kenworthy's chauffeur, after a famous race horse of the day. Among its owners were Mary Pickford and Buster Keaton

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Introduced during the summer of 1919, the initial Meteor was introduced as a 4-passenger sports touring model, the rear seat disappearing into the rear deck when not in use. This was priced at $4850. The price was increased to $5000 for 1920, and the line was augmented by a 2-passenger roadster at $5500. For 1921-22, the line was further extended with a town car priced at $6500, plus the availability of a bare chassis at $4000. At least one collapsible town car, designed by coachbuilder Karl H Martin, manufacturer of the Wasp automobile, was built on special order in 1921. Meteor, unable to survive the 1920's Depression, ceased manufacturing in early 1922. Production is estimated at 75 to 125 completed cars.

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Karl Martin – Rubay – Raulang - Sadly, coachwork by Karl Martin, who had designed the Roamer bodies, did not stave off bankruptcy in 1922 after little more than 200 cars had been made. Martin subsequently also built his own car, the Wasp, at Bennington, Vermont, up to 1925. Only 18 were produced, one of which survives. With the accent on style, Martin’s departure encouraged Barley to employ other coachbuilders, of whom one was Léon Rubay.

In 1922 the Belgian-designed, overhead camshaft engined Léon Rubay car was introduced, but lasted less than a year. It does emphasise, however, the European nature of the Roamer, and Barley’s continuing dedication to style. A body shop was also opened in the Roamer works at Kalamazoo, and the early coachwork built there reflected European influence. To emphasise the company slogan, ‘America’s Smartest Car’, which began to be used in advertisements as early as 1916, some rather bizarre designs and colour schemes were offered. These included a tourer with twin oval windscreens, giving it the appearance of a pair of pince-nez; a doctor’s coupe of distinctly European appearance, and a boat-tailed speedster with rakish sports bodywork, all of them with Houk wire wheels. Although wire wheels continued to be used after Martin’s departure in 1919, disc wheels were also introduced and the Kalamazoo plant continued to build open bodies to Martin’s designs, whilst most of the closed bodywork was styled by Rubay.

For more information please read:

Keith Marvin - Bennington's Wasp

Biographies of Prominent Carriage Draftsmen - Carriage Monthly, April 1904

Marian Suman-Hreblay - Dictionary of World Coachbuilders and Car Stylists

Daniel D. Hutchins - Wheels Across America: Carriage Art & Craftsmanship

Marian Suman-Hreblay - Dictionary of World Coachbuilders and Car Stylists

Michael Lamm and Dave Holls - A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design

Nick Georgano - The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile: Coachbuilding

George Arthur Oliver - A History of Coachbuilding

George Arthur Oliver - Cars and Coachbuilding: One Hundred Years of Road Vehicle Development

Hugo Pfau - The Custom Body Era

Beverly Rae Kimes - The Classic Car