Jordan Motor Car Company
Encyclopedia
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
by Edward S. "Ned" Jordan, a former advertising executive from Thomas B. Jeffery Company
Thomas B. Jeffery Company
The Thomas B. Jeffery Company was an American automobile manufacturer in Kenosha, Wisconsin from 1902 until 1916. The company manufactured the Rambler and Jeffery brand motorcars. It was preceded by the Gormully & Jeffery Manufacturing Company and it was the parent company to Nash Motors, thus one...
of Kenosha, Wisconsin
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Kenosha is a city and the county seat of Kenosha County in the State of Wisconsin in United States. With a population of 99,218 as of May 2011, Kenosha is the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Kenosha is also the fourth-largest city on the western shore of Lake Michigan, following Chicago,...
. The factory produced what were known as "assembled cars" until 1931, using components from other manufacturers. Jordan cars were noted more for attractive styling than for advanced engineering, although they did bring their share of innovations to the marketplace. Not surprisingly, the company's advertising was often more original than the cars themselves. Said Jordan, “Cars are too dull and drab.” He reasoned that since people dressed smartly, they were willing to drive “smart looking cars” as well.
Establishment in Cleveland
Jordan Motor Car established its plant east of downtown Cleveland at 1070 East 152nd Street along the Nickel Plate Railroad tracks. The location not only provided an excellent location for shipping the finished cars, but also provided Jordan with ready access to out of area suppliers. The plant was built in two stages; the first 30000 square feet (2,787.1 m²) building was begun on April 5, 1916 and finished some seven weeks later, while the second addition was completed within months of the first structure. In their first year of production (1916), Jordan sold over one thousand vehicles.Manufacturing Methods
Continental Motors Company
Continental Motors Company was an American engine and automobile manufacturer. The company produced engines for various independent manufacturers of automobiles, tractors, and stationary equipment from the 1900s through the 1960s. Continental Motors also produced Continental-branded automobiles in...
, used Timken
Timken Company
The Timken Company is a global manufacturer of bearings, alloy steels, and related components and assemblies.- History :The company was founded by Henry Timken in St. Louis, Missouri in 1899 and incorporated as The Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company. A year earlier, in 1898, Timken got a patent...
axles, Bijur starters, and Bosch
Robert Bosch GmbH
Robert Bosch GmbH is a multinational engineering and electronics company headquartered in Gerlingen, near Stuttgart, Germany. It is the world's largest supplier of automotive components...
ignitions. According to Ned Jordan's biographer, James Lackey, the source of early Jordan bodies was somewhat a mystery. While Jordan had the capacity to paint the automobile bodies and attach them to the chassis and outfit the passenger compartment, the facility was unable to fabricate the bodies themselves. Later production bodies were shipped from a variety of manufacturers in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
and Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. They were fabricated from aluminum.
While most automobile producers limited themselves to a single color combination, and Ford relied exclusively on the fast-drying Japan Black
Japan Black
Japan black is a lacquer or varnish suitable for many substrates but known especially for its use on iron and steel. It is named after Japan. Its high bitumen content provides a protective finish that is durable and dries quickly...
lacquer which cured in a matter of hours, Jordan automobiles were available in no less than three colors of red - "Apache Red", "Mercedes Red", and "Savage Red"- as well as "Ocean Sand Gray", "Venetian Green", "Briarcliff Green", "Egyptian Bronze", "Liberty Blue", and "Chinese Blue". Black was also available. The most flamboyant of color schemes was on the four-passenger Sport model which could be ordered in "Submarine Gray", with khaki top and orange wheels.
Details given the cars were unusually advanced for an independently made assembled car. For example, Jordans boasted one of the first cowl fresh air ventilation systems. Jordan also went to all-steel construction in the mid 1920s, some ten years before Buick
Buick
Buick is a premium brand of General Motors . Buick models are sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, and Israel, with China being its largest market. Buick holds the distinction as the oldest active American make...
, and eight years before Chrysler
Chrysler
Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....
introduced the advanced Airflow
Chrysler Airflow
The Chrysler Airflow is an automobile produced by the Chrysler Corporation from 1934-1937. The Airflow was the first full-size American production car to use streamlining as a basis for building a sleeker automobile, one less susceptible to air resistance...
models.
Jordan marketing
Jordan was also one of the first automakers to christen its model types with unique, evocative names such as the Sport Marine (with "fashionably low" 32×4-inch {81×10 cm} wheels, it was "essentially a woman's car"), Tomboy, and Playboy. In 1920, the company issued the Friendly Three coupe, with the slogan "Seats two, three if they're friendly”.Jordan used the emerging suburbs of Cleveland Heights
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Cleveland Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, a suburb of Cleveland. The city's population was 46,121 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Cleveland Heights is located at ....
and Shaker Heights
Shaker Heights, Ohio
Shaker Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population was 28,448. It is an inner-ring streetcar suburb of Cleveland that abuts the city on its eastern side.-Topography:Shaker Heights is located at...
as back drops for his advertising photographs, setting the cars in front of the mansions of Overlook and South Park Drives.
Appearing in the June, 1923 edition of the Saturday Evening Post, the ad promoted the Jordan Playboy, in art by Fred Cole, driven by a cloche hat
Cloche hat
The cloche hat is a fitted, bell-shaped hat for women that was invented by milliner Caroline Reboux in 1908, became especially popular during the 1920s, and continued to be commonly seen until about 1933. Cloche is the French word for "bell"....
wearing flapper
Flapper
Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
hunkered down behind the wheel in abstract fashion, racing a cowboy and the clouds.
While other Jordan ads contained the same winsome prose, one in particular had an unseen outcome. Jordan's "Port of Missing Men", which also appeared in the Saturday Evening Post (1920), featured Jordan's musings on restless man, and those places where they travel to when they needed to get away. The ad featured art work showing a Jordan Playboy in front of a cottage in winter by the sea, with a young boy walking by, looking up to the second story window aglow red from within.
Jordan wrote to the editor of the Post:
Final years
The company survived the Stock Market Crash of 1929, but with intense competition among the many US automakers then extant, and personal problems besetting 'Ned' Jordan, the company ceased production in 1931.
The true total production of Jordan cars is unclear. Some sources list the total amount as high as over 100,000 units, while other sources list the production as low as 30,000.