HANOVER

General Gas-Electric Co.

Hanover Motor Car Co. (1921-1927)

Hanover, Pennsylvania

This is a Hanover radiator script (c1923-1927)    ms

The Hanover was a light-weight minature two-seater car powered by a 12/15 hp V-twin engine. The Hanover was available with left or right hand steering, because the Hanover was made for export to Japan and Great Britain as well for the domestic market. 

The Hanover Motor Car Company was established in Hanover, Pennsylvania by Barnes Kintzig, who was the owner of the General Gas and Electric Company (GENCO). He took on ex-Pullman employee, Norman Dunkinson, to design and oversee the production of the Hanover car using the GENCO manufacturing facilities in Hanover.

Kintzig set out to raise capital for the purchase of the GENCO plant and equipment and for working capital. He made outrageous claims in the stock offering prospectus but it is not clear how successful he was in raising the necessary finance. 

Production of the Hanover car started in 1921 in Hanover but there was a plan to move production to New York and in June 1922 the company was reported as having bought the ex-Parenti Motors manufacturing plant in Buffalo, New York. However, it is not at all clear that this sale was completed. The Parenti company had close ties with Hanover and some Parenti cars were built in the Hanover facilities but company records show that Hanover operations did not move to Buffalo and no Hanover manufacturing took place in New York.

The Hanover was not successful and after building 133 cars in 1921 production fell sharply to only 25 cars in 1922. Much of this early production was exported to Japan and Great Britain. However, domestic sales were very limited and production soon petered out with only 12 cars made in 1923. A very few cars were made in the following years until all activity for the Hanover ended in 1927. The overall total production of the Hanover was 184 cars.

Emblems

The Hanover logo consisted of the word "Hanover" with a feather running through the letter "O" to symbolize the light weight of the Hanover car.

The first Hanover cars displayed the Hanover logo on the front of the radiator tank top, see examples shown below. 

The following is an early brochure illustration showing the Hanover logo without the feather:

Early radiator logo design (c1920)    ms

The following shows the final logo, which was printed onto the top of the radiator shell on the first Hanover cars, possibly using a decal, although I cannot confirm this.

This is a Hanover car showing the printed radiator logo emblem (1921-1922)   ms

The brass Hanover radiator script shown above at the top of this post was used on the last few cars built after 1923.

There was a Hanover radiator emblem, which is very rare, see example below, but it was never used on a Hanover car at the time of manufacture.

This is a Hanover radiator emblem (c1922)    yaim
Size: 64mm wide 49mm high   MM: Unknown

The emblem is inscribed "Hanover Motor Company" and "New York, N.Y." but the manufacturing company was the Hanover Motor Car Company and was based in Hanover, Pennsylvania not in New York. There was a board of Hanover directors based in New York, which dealt with the company finances, as well as the operating company board based in Hanover. The radiator emblems were made ready to be used when Hanover production moved to New York but this move never happened and the emblems were never used.

Only five Hanover cars are known to still exist. Some of these carry the Hanover emblem shown above, see example shown below, but these were all added to the cars many years after they were built.

Surviving Hanover car with radiator emblem (c1921)   ms

A Hanover brochure has been seen with a view of a Hanover car carrying a radiator emblem, see example shown below, but the emblem design is quite different and it too was in fact never used.

Brochure illustration showing radiator emblem (date unknown)  ms