Terry Stafford, a Topeka bicycle shop owner, is one person who did successfully make the transition from amateur to professional auto maker. The first car Stafford ever saw was the one he designed and built himself after reading about automobiles in Scientific American magazine in 1899. Terry’s talents were tapped by the Smith Motor Car Company in Topeka, where he served as chief engineer from 1902 to 1907, until conflicts over product forced him to quit and start his own company.

The Stafford Motor Car Company operated from 1909 to 1915 at 22nd and Campbell in Kansas City and produced a total of 315 motorcars. Staffords featured very sophisticated engineering for the time, including hemispherical combustion chambers, overhead cams with roller tappets, and a three-speed, sliding gearbox. Almost entirely handmade, a five-passenger touring car with a 112 inch wheelbase cost $2,250 new.

The most famous Stafford employee was H.C. “Cotton” Henning who started with the company at age 16 and later became the chief mechanic for several winning race cars at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Despite the exceptional quality of Stafford motorcars, it soon became impossible to compete against mass-produced Packards and Cadillacs coming from Detroit. Stafford production ended in 1915.

Mass production gave rise to a second, brief wave of new, local, Kansas City car companies. By the 1910s, a whole satellite industry of parts suppliers developed, making everything from nuts and bolts to complete engines and bodies. Any would-be Henry Ford could start their own car company, order all the parts directly from the parts manufacturers, and then assemble the car in their “factory,” which might be nothing more than an oversized garage. Across the country, hundreds of companies building “assembled cars” sprung up practically overnight after World War I. Almost none survived the recession of 1920-21.

One such company was the Midwest Motor Company, which set up in the old Stafford plant to assemble what was at first to be called “the Kay-Cee,” but ended up as “the Highlander.” A whole lineup was announced at the 1919 Kansas City Auto Show, including closed-bodied models and a sport version. But only open touring cars were actually built before the company closed in 1922.

Another local was the Beggs Motor Car Company, which in 1875 began, like Studebaker, as a builder of overland wagons. By 1900 Beggs had carved out a niche making wagons for circuses. In 1919 they began to produce a fairly typical assembled car. Equipped with readily-available components including a 25-hp six-cylinder engine made by the Continental Motors Company, the Beggs lineup ranged from an $800 touring car to $2,775 seven-passenger sedan. A victim of mass-produced competition and the 1920-21 economic recession, Beggs folded in 1923.

In July 1920, the Severin Motor Car Company of Kansas City, Kansas, began assembling a similar car, also with a Continental six-cylinder engine, at the pace of one per week. Though the company slogan was “Faithful to the End of the Road,” in 1921 a warrant was issued for company president Homer T. Severin and his wife for selling stock in a new factory to be built in California without first filing incorporation papers. The Kansas City operation soldiered on, first renamed Mohawk, then Metropolitan, then closing in 1923.

Image Top Right:
The most famous person ever to have owned a Stafford was a young farmer from Grandview who drove a second-hand 1911 Stafford when courting the girl from Independence he was sweet on. Thirty-five years later, Harry Truman wrote: “It was an excellent car, and would take an awful beating.”

Image Right #2:
H.C. “Cotton” Henning, later the chief mechanic for several Indy 500 winners, cranks a Stafford racer. Terry Stafford is the passenger.

Image Right #3:
Highlanders parked in front of the Midwest Motor Company building.

Image Left:
This 1920 Beggs looks very similar to the Highlander (below) and they likely shared many of the same suppliers. They were both “assembled cars”. The Beggs company slogan: “Made a little better than seems necessary.”

Image Bottom Middle:
The Kay-Cee/Highlander was an “assembled car” built after World War I at the old Stafford plant.