Byron Carter

Byron J. Carter, born on August 17, 1863 and died on April 6, 1908, was an American automotive pioneer and a founding partner of the Jackson Automobile Company, formed in Jackson, Michigan on July 19, 1902. In 1905 he left to found the Cartercar Company, whose car used a friction drive with variable speed friction discs instead of gears, a system that also let the car brake by reversing the lever. He was granted a patent for the friction transmission and earlier for a three-cylinder steam engine for the 1902 Jaxon steam car. General Motors, under William C. Durant, bought Cartercar in 1909 and discontinued it after the 1916 model. Carter died in 1908 after pneumonia that followed a jaw injury from hand cranking a stranded car.