Investment guru Warren Buffett has a personal worth of close to £100 billion. The super-shrewd business watcher is chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway. The investment house’s massive portfolio of safe-bet stake holdings includes Marmon-Herrington, the foremost provider of all-wheel-drive systems for original fitment and after-market conversions.
Marmon-Herrington’s products may be out of sight under a chassis, but that does not conceal a history that encompasses experimental prototypes that led the way to the Willys Jeep.
In the 1930s, Marmon-Herrington engineered the world’s first 6x6s sold commercially and the first big all-wheel-drive oilfield specials. And 112 years ago, the predecessor Marmon Motor Car Company business built the Marmon Wasp, winner of the inaugural running in 1911 of the Indianapolis 500, the 200-lap race on the legendary 2.5-mile banked oval Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Under the Marmon marque name, the original business, Nordyke & Marmon Machine Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, turned its attention to the manufacture of sporting and premium luxury automobiles in 1902. During the preceding five decades it had built milling machinery.
The 1911 Indianapolis 500 winner was evolved from an early Marmon sports model. The project teamed the talents of engineering graduate Howard Marmon, scion of the family, and Ray Harroun, who combined race driving with his job as a project engineer with the company.
Marmons had already been race winners. This experience fed into the Wasp’s design. At a time when drivers in long distance races were accompanied by a riding mechanic (part of whose job was to maintain aHarroun was determined to race alone. This provoked an outcry over the perceived safety risks.
