While other automakers shunned the term “assembled car,” Cole embraced the concept with a series of high-quality automobiles, including one of the first V8s.

J.J. Cole with circa 1913 Cole Roadster

A successful carriage maker, Joseph Jarrett Cole of Indianapolis saw the potential of the automobile industry early on. He produced several models in small numbers, including a high-wheeler, before reorganizing his carriage works as the Cole Motor Car Company in 1909. Its first product was a two-cylinder, 14-hp car with a 90-in wheelbase, followed by a larger four-cylinder model in 1910, then an even larger car with a 132-in wheelbase and a six-cylinder engine in 1913. A factory team went racing for a time, and a four-cylinder Cole finished 26th in the first Indianapolis 500 in 1911.

In these early years of the industry, the label “assembled car” was often taken as a pejorative. It suggested poorly capitalized enterprises slapping together generic parts, producing cars of no particular distinction. J.J. Cole took the opposite view. As he saw it, outsourcing enabled him to select the best and most proven components available, creating a premium product that would serve as the standard of the industry. In his vision, he preferred the term “standardized,” and Cole’s slogan, “The Standardized Car,” summed up both the marketing and engineering strategies of the company. And really, the approach is not so different from that of the automakers today, who rely heavily on their tier 1 suppliers.

While Cole’s four and six-cylinder cars were well regarded, the company hit its stride in 1915 when it was one of the first automakers in the USA to offer a V8 engine. While the Cole V8 was manufactured by the Northway division of General Motors, which also built Cadillac’s V8, the Cole was in no way a copy. (Northway also produced V8s for Oakland and Oldsmobile.) Cole chief engineer Charles S. Crawford spent many months at the Northway plant in Detroit, surveying the state of the art in engineering and production as he designed the Cole V8.

With a bore and stroke of 3.5 inches by 4.5 inches and a displacement of 346.36 cubic inches, the Cole was considerably larger than the 314 CID Cadillac. It was also of remarkably different construction: While the Cadillac used an aluminum crankcase and cast iron cylinders, the Cole’s crankcase and cylinders were iron cast en bloc in two halves, left and right, which then bolted together on the crankshaft centerline. The Cole also sported detachable cylinder heads, a feature Cadillac would not adopt for a few more years.

In early dynamometer testing the V8 easily produced 74 horsepower and was given a 70 hp rating for the January 1915 introduction. Despite some early teething troubles with the new engine, the four and six-cylinder models were dropped for 1916 and from that point forward, the company produced only V8s. The cars were priced and equipped to go head-to-head with Cadillac, which J.J. Cole always regarded as his chief competition.

1924 Cole Eight Series 890 Roadster pacing the Indianapolis 500

As the auto industry matured in the early ’20s and it became increasingly difficult for the independents to survive, Cole chose not to fight to the last dollar remaining but to wind down the business in an orderly manner, paying all accounts due. A Cole Eight Roadster paced the 1924 Indy 500, but production of the 1925 models was completed and the plant was shut down by October of that year. J.J. Cole passed away in August of 1925. The Cole Motor Car Company produced more than 40,000 vehicles over its career, but only 77 are known to survive today. The handsome 1910 factory building on E. Washington Street in Indianapolis, still standing, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

1924 Cole Master Eight