Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-12-28 | Page 38 | New Axle Plant for Cleveland

HEW AXLE PLANT FOR GLEHEUli Eaton Company Is Formed, i With a Capital of $5,000,000. CLKVKLAXD, Dec. 27. Cleveland literally liter-ally becomes the axle of the automobile 1 industry by the establishment here of an j enormous manufacturing plant for the I production of axles for both trucks and j passenger cars. The new company, organized by a group 'of strong and well known financial inter-i inter-i ests and incorporated u ruler Ohio laws, I with an approximate capital of $5,000,000 us the Kaion Axle company, will have its first factorv unit completed soon and will be marketing its product by June, 1920. All the stock has been sold. V. V. Torbensen, inventor of the Tor-bensen Tor-bensen axle and one of the founders of the Torhens'm Axle company, is chief engineer of the Eaton Axle company, and i j. C Eaton, formerly president of the i Torbensen Axle company, is president and general manager of the new concern. Following inventions of Mr. Torbensen of a decade ago, the two founded the ( Torbensen Axle company, which started j production in a small shop in New Jersey. 1 Subsequently, the industry was moved to Cleveland, where it grew rapidly and is today cen ducted on a gigantic scale. "With the Eaton Axle company here, Cleveland Cleve-land will he supplying the bulk of axles j to tho automobile industry. The products j of the new company will be based on new inventions by Mr. Torbensen which elimi- 1 nate, it is declared, t he outst anding objections ob-jections to pleasure car and truck axles of the past. The Kaion company, according to Mr. Eaton, will manufacture two distinct types of axlesa conventional passenger car axle of beveled gear drive, and a truck axle of internal gear type, with all gears operating in oil. These soon will be featured fea-tured in a national advertising campaign. During the first year of operation the new company will produce 200 sets of passenger pas-senger car axles and 100 sets of truck axles pr day. Contracts for the1 first yea r's product have already been made. As rapidly as possible tho plant will bo enlarged. The new company, in locating in Cleve-'and. Cleve-'and. becomes one of more than a score of co!i corns manufacturing well known j cars and trucks a nd accessories. Automobile Auto-mobile men see its establishment here as an important link in Cleveland's steady I onrh avor to wrest the leadership in automobile auto-mobile manufacture from Detroit.