1946 Vermillion Athena
Ever since Peter Vermillion left Hawthorne Cars, he had this car in mind. Well, not this exact design. There’s 8 years of difference after all. But what he had in mind slowly evolved into the Athena. You catch my drift, right? Initially, Peter intended to power the car with a licensed engine. See, while he had a lot of experience with car design, his engine design experience was a tad rusty. This first project was almost ready, with Pete buying a production hall in 1941, ready to produce the car in 1943.
World War II was both a set-back and a blessing. The factory Vermillion bought had to switch to war productions. To tank engines to be precise. Slightly bummed by not being able to start producing his first car, he took the time to revise his design, and used the opportunity to learn from the engines used in the tanks, to refresh his engine engineering skills. This led to the abandonment of the licenced engine idea, and led to the development of an in-house engine, known as the Vermillion Straight Six.
The first variant of the Vermillion Straight Six had 3 787 cc of capacity (that’s 231 cubic inches) and developed 77.4 kW (103.8 hp) of power, and in the first Athenas, was coupled to a 3-speed manual gearbox with overdrive.
Because of the limited size of the production hall, Pete Vermillion took extreme measures to ensure production efficiency - the initial version of Athena only had one trim option and one variant of the engine. (Though thankfully, the customers did get a paint choice.)
The car was finally unveiled in 1946, along with the first marketing slogan of the company: “Take a look.”
The Athena was very well received, receiving two awards at 1946 Model Year-In-Review Edition of Motor World Review - one for the Best Engine and one for the Best Sedan. Its success allowed the Vermillion Motor Co. to expand.