Monarch Motor Company
Detroit, Michigan
Robert C. Hupp was a busy guy. He had worked for Oldsmobile, Ford, Regal and in 1908 he founded the Hupp Motor Car Company. The company had produced 6,079 in 1911 alone and had become a major manufacturer in Detroit. In 1910 one of the company's cars set off on a around the world tour that would take it on a 48,000 mile, 26 country tour. When it arrived back to Detroit in January 1912, the Hupp Motor Car Company did not employ Robert C. Hupp any more. Hupp had left the company after a disagreement with the board members and had started another company. The company he named after himself, R.D.H had failed and the one after that, called the Hupp-Yeats had also failed.
In the spring of 1913 Hupp had just finalized plans for another car. It was a 16 horsepower, 4 cylinder car, with a 110 inch wheelbase. The plan was to sell the car in the thousand dollar range. Hupp, along with his brother-in-law Joseph Bloom, had started the Monarch Motor Company. In the first year of production, the company had made 150 examples of the thousand dollar car and they began making a smaller four cylinder powered car with a $675 base price in 1914.
In 1915 Hupp designed a V8 and needed more capital to invest in the larger car that would sell at $1,500. In the May 1915 issue of the Automobile Journal appeared a report saying the Monarch Motor Company had received “new capital of large proportions” from Detroit investors for V8 production. However, the funds must have fallen through, because the V8 Monarch was only in production for a very short time.
In 1916 the Monarch Motor Company was judged bankrupt and all rights to the Monarch were purchased by the Carter Brothers of Hyattsville, Maryland. The Carter firm judged the V8, and a V12 Robert had designed, worth reproducing. However, when the engines debuted in 1917, they bore the name of the Carter Brothers.
During the same time as the Monarch Roberts brother, Louis Hupp, founded and lost a car company called the Tribune. Meanwhile the most successful business the Hupps were involved with, the Huppmobile, would go on to produce thousands of cars and last until 1940.
By: Chris Breeden