Metz roadster arrives back home

By JUNE KINOSHITA
Waltham Times Contributing Writer

Early on the morning of Feb. 4, the Waltham Museum welcomed a new addition to its collection: a 1911 Metz Plan car. 

The cobalt blue vehicle is a 12-horsepower, air-cooled, two-cylinder roadster with friction transmission and a double chain drive. Thomas Pruett, a retired optometrist from Lake Jackson, Texas, donated the rare specimen.

This new acquisition for the museum is an example of the Metz Plan cars developed by Charles Herman Metz. 

Metz founded the Waltham Manufacturing Co. in 1893. He originally manufactured the Orient bicycle but left the company in 1901 over disagreements with his investors. He went into business with the Marsh brothers of Brockton to produce the Marsh-Metz motorcycles.

By 1908 Waltham Manufacturing was struggling financially, and Metz was brought back to try to rescue it. Metz inherited a large stock of automobile parts for the 10-horsepower runabout designed by William H. Little. 

Metz devised a plan to divide the parts for an entire car into 14 packets and sell them on an installment plan for $27 each. The buyer assembled the car using the plans and tools supplied for a total price of $378. Metz Plan buyers would save $222 on a $600 car. 

The plan worked, and by 1911 Metz started offering fully built factory cars assembled in the old sawtooth building on Seyon Street, where BJs is now located.

Returning to its place of manufacture 114 years later, this Metz will occupy an honored place in the Waltham Museum’s collections documenting the city’s history.