Talk:Powell Manufacturing Company

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 * Powell Motor Company →  — The company discussed in this article was called "Powell Manufacturing Company". The company was never called "Powell Motor Company"--that may have been misconstrued because their pickup truck serial numbers used the prefix "PMC". The company was started by brothers Hayward and Channing Powell-(my father and uncle). After they ceased manufacturing the Powell pickups and station wagons in the 1950s, they reorganized the company as "Powell Brothers, Inc." (during the 1960s and early 1970s when they made trail-bikes). However through most of the company's existence they operated as "Powell Manufacturing Company." I have confirmed this with my mother Dorothy Powell (wife of co-founder Hayward Powell), who started working with the company in the late 1930s as their bookkeeper, married Hayward, and later became the CEO after Hayward and Channing retired in the 1970s. —
 * Personal knowledge is not enough to confirm something like this. Do you have anything that amounts to a reliable source as that term is used on Wikipedia to confirm the correct name? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 02:12, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Here is one (New York Times, 2/16/2004):
 * http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/16/automobiles/name-is-familiar-truck-is-not.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/T/Trucks%20and%20Trucking . The article states: "Powell: **:From 1954-56, the Powell Manufacturing Company in Compton, Calif., made a small pickup based on Plymouth components." BradPowell (talk) 03:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * That should be enough, and I'll add the one you mentioned on my talk page:
 * WEBSITE ALL ABOUT PLYMOUTHS (included because the Powell truck used a Plymouth chassis and motor):
 * http://www.allpar.com/old/powell.html By Jim Benjaminson; courtesy of the Plymouth Bulletin. For more details, see Plymouth, 1946-1959 the author writes: "Channing Powell is still alive; while the original Powell Manufacturing Company ... the Powell brothers created a new company to build motor scooters again, though not in Compton. The Powell family owns one of the three motor homes as well as a Sport Wagon pickup. The brothers died in 1978 and 1988." – ukexpat (talk) 04:13, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Difficult. I'm guessing that this is a good topic and will in time become a good article, but at present the article itself cites no sources at all. So perhaps the concern over the name is not the top priority. So far as the name goes, what we want in terms of WP:NC is to know what other people call or called the company, rather than what the company called itself. Company employees and officers are of course included, but many other people will also have had dealings with the company, including suppliers, agents and others in the motor trades, and of course customers. The official name should be a redirect if it differs from the common name. Andrewa (talk) 02:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

The common name of a vehicle (and even the respective company) is typically just the basic nameplate (i.e. Ford, Chevy, Mack) and then the model--so people commonly called the vehicle the Powell Sport Wagon. Indeed, as Andrewa points out, suppliers and others in the field would often just say "Powell" to refer to the company--but that wouldn't help here because the name is common--and there are Powell flutes, Powell Books, et.al. However, one alternative could be "Powell Brothers"--they were often called that, and it is a common denominator running through their company's history.

In the case of this article, someone was-- in good faith I'm sure--trying to title the article by what they thought was the proper company name and just got it slightly incorrect. The New York Times article referenced above correctly listed the company name as "Powell Manufacturing Company". And here's a large hardcover book with photographs; it also properly listed the company name as "Powell Manufacturing Company" in its page on the Powell Sport Wagon:

Pickup trucks : a History of the Great American Vehicle by Justin Lukach. Publisher: New York : Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 1998. ISBN: 1579120113 Library of Congress Control No.: 98073087

Further, the Powell brothers manufactured thousands of radios in the 1920s and 1930s, scooters in the late 1930s and after WW2, and then trail-bikes in the 1960/70s. Please realize the heading "Powell Motor Company" was just a simple error, and Wikipedians will be better served by the requested correction. Thanks. BradPowell (talk) 19:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Endorse move I noticed this at wp:RM.  This discussion is all pretty convincing and clear to me, that it should indeed be "Powell Manufacturing Company".  And BradPowell already moved it to that.  So, this looks ✅ to me.... doncram (talk) 22:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)