What Could Have Been… Bendix Corporation’s Abortive Attempt at Entering the Postwar Light Plane Market 

     Vincent
Hugo Bendix was born in 1881 in Moline, Ill., the son of a Methodist
Minister. As a youngster Vincent was fascinated by mechanical objects but
his father, a strict disciplinarian, disapproved of his son’s dream of
becoming an engineer. However, Vincent was determined to pursue his dream,
so at age 16, he left home to seek his future in New York City.

    
Bendix worked as a mechanic for a number of different companies in New
York while studying engineering at night school. In 1901 he moved to
Hammondsport, N.Y., to work for Glenn Curtiss designing motorcycles.
Bendix later moved to Chicago to work as sales manager for the Holsman
Automobile Co. and in his evening hours designed a two-passenger
automobile named the Motor Buggy. Bendix then signed a deal with a Chicago
company to manufacture that vehicle and close to 7,000 were built until
1907, when he was forced into bankruptcy.

    
Early on Bendix had seen the need for a self-starter to eliminate the
dangers inherent in hand-cranking an automobile. Applying his talents to
the challenge he designed a triple-lead screw device that was superior to
existing starter drives of that time. In 1910 he signed a contract with
the Eclipse Manufacturing Co. in Elmira, N.Y., to manufacture his Bendix
Drive and by 1919 had sold over 1.5 million units.

    
When Bendix’s father was killed by an automobile whose brakes had
failed, he focused his efforts on developing an improved braking system.
After meeting a French engineer who had patented a four-wheel braking
system, Bendix acquired the patent rights and formed the Bendix Corp. to
manufacture the new system. Within four years virtually every American
automobile was equipped with Bendix brakes and in 1928 General Motors
Corp. became a major investor in Bendix’s company.

    
With his company now on a sound financial footing, Bendix turned his
attention towards the rapidly growing aviation industry. In 1929 he
changed the company’s name to the Bendix Aviation Corp. and in the years
that followed bought a controlling interest in a number of major aircraft
accessory manufacturers. In addition, to stimulate interest in aviation,
Bendix introduced the Bendix Transcontinental Air Race Trophy to encourage
engineers to develop faster and more reliable airplanes.

    
Bendix Aviation survived the stock market crash of 1929 and by 1935 was
slowly emerging from the Great Depression. That same year General Motors,
then holding 25 percent of Bendix stock, appointed two GM executives to
the Bendix board of directors. When Vincent Bendix retired in 1942 one of
those GM executives, Ernest R. Breech, was elected president of Bendix.
Breech was born in 1897 in Lebanon, Mo., and had attended Drury College
and the Univ. of Illinois. After college he joined the Yellow Cab Co. and
when that company was taken over by General Motors was named Yellow Cab’s
president. In 1933, now a GM vice president, Breech negotiated a merger
between General Aviation Corp. and North American Aviation, at the time
controlled by GM, and was named president of North American. After he
became president of Bendix, Breech began
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