1908 Welch Model 4-L Touring

Brothers Fred and A.R. Welch built their first automobile in 1901 and entered production in 1903 in Chelsea, Michigan. The company moved to Pontiac, Michigan in 1904 and in 1909 they spun off a subsidiary producing a small car called the Welch-Detroit. General Motors acquired Welch in 1910 and quickly phased it out.

The student of automotive history knows that there are no new ideas. Long before Chrysler engineers had the idea, the engine of the Pontiac, Michigan-built Welch featured hemispherical combustion chambers – a "Hemi" ahead of its time – with its valves in small "cages" and actuated by a single overhead camshaft, driven by a vertical shaft off the crankshaft, and rocker arms to a pair of inclined valves per cylinder. There are two spark plugs per cylinder, with ignition by trembler coils for starting and by a Bosch magneto, driven by the vertical camshaft drive, once running. As historian Dean Batchelor noted, this layout was similar to the designs later used in Allison aircraft engines, Ferrari V-12s, and postwar BMW four- and six-cylinder models – all decades after Welch left the scene.

Only four of the "hemi" Welch automobiles are known to have survived and the example in Don C. Boulton's collection may well be the best-known of them all.

Descriptions & pictures by bonhams & classiccarweekly & other