The Marmon Motor Car Company

The photographs on this page, brought to life.

Dawson's Marmon on the track, 1 October 1910. The caption is written on the negative itself. Bain News Service. Library of Congress.

The first Indianapolis 500 was won by a company engineer driving a car with a mirror bolted to it. Ray Harroun worked for Marmon. In 1911 he took the Wasp — a single-seater built on the Model 32 — and won the inaugural Indianapolis 500. Because he was driving alone, without the riding mechanic who normally watched the traffic behind, the Wasp carried what is generally reckoned to be the first automobile rear-view mirror. Marmon built cars in Indianapolis from 1902 until 1933, and was early to aluminium — the Model 34 came in under thirty-three hundred pounds at a time when a luxury car did not. In 1927 Howard Marmon set out to build the world's first sixteen-cylinder engine. Cadillac got there first, with a V16 designed by Owen Nacker, who had previously worked at Marmon. The money troubles had started by 1924. The crash of 1929 settled the argument, and car production stopped in 1933. If your family worked at Marmon, or you know where a Model 34 ended up, add it below. Compiled by MyHistoryStone from published reference sources, August 2026. Corrections welcome.