12. Marmon
Marmon Motor Cars Company was another renowned luxury manufacturer from Indianapolis, Indiana. Howard Carpenter Marmon established the brand in 1902. It soon became famous for its innovative V2, V4, V6 and V8 engines. Marmon cars were fast and powerful for their time, so the next logical step was to enter the races. In 1909, the Marmon Wasp racing car was the first car to win the famous Indianapolis 500 race. This gave the company some valuable publicity.
The company was famous for luxurious, fast sedans, but over the years, it lost ground to its flashier, better-marketed counterparts. In its last attempt to win the market over, Marmon introduced a V16 engine to compete with Cadillac. However, it just wasn’t enough, so the company closed in 1933.