E-M-F Company

The E-M-F Company was an early American automobile manufacturer that produced automobiles from 1909 to 1912. The name E-M-F was gleaned from the initials of the three company founders: Barney Everitt - a custom auto body builder from Detroit, Willaim Metzger - formerly of Cadillac, and Walter Flanders, who had served as Henry Ford's production manager.

E-M-F produced several models of its own design and contracted with the Studebaker Corporation to sell E-M-F's though Studebaker wagon dealerships.

E-M-F vehicles were in their time for their notoriously bad build qualities. Detractors soon began stating that the E-M-F name stood for "Every Morning Fix-it", "Every Mechanical Fault" and "Every Miss Fire". Internal fighting between the partners did nothing to solve the products problems.

John M. Studebaker, unhappy with E-M-F 's poor quality and lack of management, gained control of the assets and plant facilities in 1910. To remedy the damage done by E-M-F, Studebaker paid mechanics to visit each unsatisfied owner and replace the defective parts in their vehicles at a cost of US$1 million to the company. The E-M-F name continued into 1912 with the Studebaker name becoming more and more prevalent on the cars. In 1913, the E-M-F was replaced by the Studebaker.

Problems aside, E-M-F held its own in the growing market place. In 1909 E-M-F placed fourth (producing 7,960 vehicles) in total automobile production in the U.S. behind that of Ford Motor Company, Buick and Maxwell, with Cadillac in the fifth position. In 1910 the firm built 15,020 vehicle and again held onto fourth place behind Ford, Buick, Overland. In 1911 the firm placed second in over all assemblies with 26,827 automobiles produced for the year.

Flanders also ran the short-lived Flanders Automobile Company, which produced cars that were wholly based on previous E-M-F designs. The Flanders company was absorbed into Maxwell Motor Company (Incorporated) which was reorganized out of the assets of the United States Motor Company in 1913.

On June 20, 2005, the E-M-F Plant on Piquette Street (at John R) caught fire and within a few hours was gone. The five-alarm fire nearly spread to the famous Ford Piquette Plant where Henry Ford built the first Model T.