Business & Finance: Death of Champion

As it must to all men, death last week came to Albert Champion, 49. He had made more spark plugs (the A-C brand) than had any other man. Despatches from Paris, where he had died, gave no cause for death. But he had lived hard, incessantly driving himself at his work. Born in France, he made himself what Frenchmen call “typical” U. S. businessman, always under nervous tension. When he played, he played hard. He was married.

His hard work began in the 1890’s. He made himself bicycle champion of France in 1894. He was only 16 years old then. Soon he was earning $20,000 to $25,000 a year by leg work. A few years later and he was world champion bicycle rider. Eventually he drove racing motorcycles and cars.

The ambition of most motor racers is to open a motor repair or accessory shop when they break down physically. Albert Champion, shrewd and foreseeing, abandoned racing while he still was healthy. He imported spark plugs and sold them to the then small and experimenting U. S. motor manufacturers. Twenty years ago he began a small factory in Boston to make them himself. William Crapo Durant, planning to organize General Motors, built a factory with him at Flint, Mich., and the fame of Albert Champion, racer, faded behind the greater fame of his initials which trademarked the spark plugs he made.