Thor Products & White Automotive (Whitco)

UPDATE II: Dinesh obtained these Thor-Automatic looking hubs, but on the cover they read Allstate Power Matic rather than Thor. I suspect they are Thor hubs rebranded for Allstate. Here are some pics:

Here is a the interior portion of a set of Thor hubs:

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UPDATE (May 24, 2021): The October 1963 issue of Four Wheeler Magazine include this Thor-designed product to make shifting the transfercase more convenient. It moves the shifter from the passenger-side of the transmission to the driver's side. I imagine there are few, if any, of these shifters out there.

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Originally published April 9, 2017:

More information on some of these companies can be found here: http://www.ewillys.com/2019/07/08/selectro-husky-dualmatic-overview/

White Manufacturing Co. (also known as White Automotive and Whitco over time) was started in the late 1950s by Richard T, Bingman and partners. The company progressed at a modest level making, among other things, aluminum floral display stands. Eventually, White allied with Kaiser and began making tops. White filed for incorporation in 1959. One of the company's earliest products was a white soft top for jeeps.

The next year, in 1960, Richard T. Bingham filed a patent for a pair of locking hubs. One set would automatically shift into gear when it sensed the axles were being powered (i.e., when the transfercase was shifted into four wheel drive). The second set of hubs added a dash-mounted button to allow for control of the hubs from the driver's seat (assuming I have interpreted the patent correctly!).

The interesting thing is that Bingham never assigned the patents to the White Automotive Company. Instead, the patents and hubs ended up being used by Thor Products, which also operated out of Colorado Springs (though sometimes the address is Manitou Springs, a small town just west of Colorado Springs).

This suggests that Bingham had some time of relationship with Thor, but his exact connection to Thor isn't known at this time (my guess is that it was a subsidiary or sister company of White).

1. The Thor auto-matic hub patent vs. the finished device:

2. The Thor Lectro-matic hub patent vs. the finished device. See a breakdown of this hub model on the PDF.

Thor Automotive was seriously about the jeep parts business, because the company secured a Small Business Adminstration loan for nearly $20,000 in 1960 (may have been a rotating line of credit).

In early 1962, Four Wheeler Magazine began operations. By October 1962 (the earliest magazine I own), White Manufacturing was already advertising their "White Convertible Top". Thor did not advertise in that issue.

However, by March of 1963, Thor was not only advertising their hubs, the company had several other products as well.  According to the SBA, the company still had a loan with a balance of $20,000.

In the same March 1963 issue, White Manufacturing had begun branding itself as Whitco, by claiming "Whitco means go!". At that time the company introduced its 700 Series all season convertible top.

Mysteriously, by January of 1964, Thor had ceased advertising its hubs or any of its other products. Instead, it ran a couple months of ads featuring a stabilizer. Strangely, it never mentioned the stabilizer as "another product" in the 1963 ad.

So, what happened to Thor? Did it go under? Did White Automotive buy out the company? Were some of the assets sold to other Colorado manufacturers? That's simply not clear. However, it's possible that some of eachhappened. For example, when I compared Thor's tire carrier with Whitco's, the two look like they have the same rounded bar, single-swing action carrier:

Thor's spare tire carrier from a 1963 Ad:

Whitco's spare tire carrier from a mid 1960s brochure:

The Thor example is not of great quality, but I think the design is close (closer than any other tire carrier of the time ...  see other carrier examples here).

As for the Thor hubs, perhaps the hub design was sold to Husky Products in Longmont and that company redesigned the Lectro-Matic into the Selectro brand? The name is surprisingly close. Moreover, it's not clear to me where Husky came up with the Selectro hub (that post is forthcoming).

Another odd twist is the Thor name. A man named Don Chapman worked at one of the jeep parts companies in Colorado, then moved to California, where he invented the Viking Selective Hub and appears to have been involved in the Thor Winch (both companies located in Gardena, California). An attempted to find some link between Chapman and Thor Automotive proved a dead end.

Thor might have disappeared, but Whitco continued to do well, expanding over the years. In 1974, the company opened a 1,400 square foot lunch and break room for its employes. Done in a Paris Street motif by Mrs. Charles L. Schwer, the wife of the executive vice president, its "pleasant and restful atmosphere" made possible one area where employees could gather for a hot sandwich and a cup of coffee.

By 1977, White Automotive was averaging total revenues of $5 million a year and was the nation’s largest manufacturer of convertible tops, roll bars, tire carriers and wheel covers, carpeting and folding pickup truck tops. Richard T. Bingham, 51 years old, was the sole stockholder. The company had expanded to a 45,000 square foot facility in Colorado Springs that employed 230 people. A second facility in Columbia City, Indiana, had also been purchased and was being run with 28 employees. (this is a full page article with photos about the company).

During the late 1980s the company began to struggle. By 1991, unable to find a buyer, it declared bankruptcy. This poorly rendered image gives some of the details.

I'm sure someone in the Colorado Springs area probably knows much more about the company's history. Perhaps a visit to the city's historical society could yield some clues.