On the back roads

Modern Arkansans are usually surprised to learn that our state was, for a brief but hopeful few years after World War I, home to its own automobile-manufacturing company.

The Climber Automobile, which had a high road clearance specifically for navigating deeply rutted Arkansas roads, was as ill-fated as it was hopeful—but it symbolizes the striving of early 20th Century Arkansans to be a part of the national economic mainstream.

In early 1919 three Little Rock businessmen, William Drake, Clarence Roth and David Hopson, formed the Climber Motor Corporation with Drake as president. Capitalized at $1 million, stocks sold at $10 per share. Climber quickly purchased 20 acres on East 17th Street, in far eastern Little Rock, with ready railroad access.

A professional automotive engineer, George Schoeneck of Detroit, was hired as chief engineer. Interestingly, at the time the Climber was being designed, an Arkansas native, Jesse G. Vincent, was chief engineer and vice president at the Packard Automobile Company, the Detroit maker of luxury cars.

Like many newly formed companies, Climber experienced some painful internal discord during its first months of operation. Before its first birthday, a reorganization brought on a new team led by Henry Fernando Buhler, who had been sales manager. Buhler inherited a company that was less than one year old and already struggling to survive. In addition to trying to sell corporate stock, Buhler mounted an aggressive campaign to market the car itself.

In a full-page advertisement in the Arkansas Gazette on November 20, 1919, Buhler promoted his company as a “rare opportunity for business investment.” He wrote, “It is not often you can get stock in a factory already in production and making daily profits.” The reference to profits was a bit premature, but production was indeed underway.

The Climber Corporation made two cars, the Climber Four, called the “Four-Forty” due to its four-cylinder, 40-horsepower Spillman engine. It was a five-passenger touring car. The Climber Six was a larger, fancier touring car with an electrically lighted instrument panel, all necessary gauges, and a clock. They also made a Climber truck. All vehicles came equipped with tires mounted on wheels with hickory spokes. Wood was also used to make the frame.

Buhler had beautiful vehicles to market. Both car models were available in a variety of colors; however, an additional charge was added for a white one. Fenders were apparently black on both models. Like most autos of the day, both cars had tops which could be folded away. The cars were well-appointed, including leather upholstery.

The Climber Four was publicized for its quality and durability. During the winter of 1919-20, the car was put through an endurance test under the watchful eye of state highway commissioner William B. Owen. For days the little car made its way across several Southern states, the motor running constantly. After 20,239 miles through “winter mud and rain over the nearly impassable roads of the South,” as the Climber marketing people put it, the test ended on the state Capitol grounds where Governor Charles H. Brough stopped the engine by disconnecting the carburetor.

Henry Buhler later boasted that the car got 19 miles to the gallon of gasoline and 125 miles to the quart of oil. Buhler also claimed that the stout little Climber Four was the perfect car for Southern people—and, especially, for the notoriously poor Southern roads. “The South demands a sturdier and stronger-built car,” Climber company literature said, noting that their auto had “a high road clearance to care for the ruts and stumps.”

Buhler’s grand marketing scheme was to concentrate solely on the Southern market which, though small, was growing rapidly. Unfortunately, the company was so under-capitalized that it faced insolvency from the beginning. A last-minute push to sell more stock fizzled. In February 1924 the company declared bankruptcy.

Fewer than 300 Climbers were manufactured, and only two are known to survive today. Both remaining cars, six-cylinder models, are owned by the Museum of Automobiles on Petit Jean Mountain near Morrilton. One of the two cars is kept on permanent exhibit.