Company History

    For over thirty years , the Atwater Kent® Manufacturing Company has been aggressively involved in the development of rare and hard to find automotive products.

   In the mid 1970's, know as the JF Sullivan Company , we were the first to implement a program for the full manufacture and rebuilding of fuel tank sending units.  This has allowed the later Atwater Kent® to provide service to such well known firms as General Motors, Ford, Chrysler Corporation, the Charles P. Chrysler Museum, and Rolls Royce of Beverly Hills.

    The late 1980's provided the Atwater Kent® Manufacturing Company with the ability to further develop manufacturing for a full line of  ignition coils, temperature sending units, voltage regulators and other automotive products of which the automotive industry is fully familiar with.

   By the beginning of the 21st century,  we had been successful in the introduction of remanufacturing and wide development of automotive replacement parts, of which are still expanding on a daily basis.

        In keeping with our roots, the Atwater Kent® Manufacturing Company has maintained it's deep heritage by the  introduction of it's world class famous Atwater Kent® Radios. The Atwater Kent®  line of radios expose the inner world of true quality married with modern art.  The Atwater Kent® radio's extremely distinctive construction and matchless sound quality give our listeners a truly remarkable experience.

    Arthur Atwater Kent®; founder of the Atwater Kent® Manufacturing Company started his career on Herman Street. in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1895 under the name of Kent Electrical Manufacturing Company

    Though prosperous in Worcester, Mr. Kent was not content with his accomplishments in the booming manufacturing city, he therefore relocated his business to Arch Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1904. 

    In purchasing his first single cylinder automobile, Mr. Kent soon encountered the troubles of many automobile owners of the period;  Undependable ignition systems.  Mr. Kent was so troubled by this he sat right down and invented the first automotive distributor; patent #12273.  This basic design was used on all automobiles up to 1980.  Arthur Atwater Kent® received the John Scott Legacy Award for his innovation and America was driving dependable automobiles.

    Mr. Kent did not stop there,  holding more than 100 various patents from 1906 to 1936 and building a 32 acre plant on Wissahickon Avenue Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he soon became the largest manufacturer of radio sets in the world.  By 1926, he was manufacturing over 2 million radios a year, outselling RCA. 

    The Atwater Kent® Manufacturing Company was founded on very simple, but stern, standards that we still adhere to today;

1. "Manufacture what you sell.
2. Never be satisfied as there is always room for improvement
3. There is NO substitution for quality, craftsmanship, and dependability."

    - Arthur Atwater Kent®

    "The Atwater Kent® Manufacturing Co. has never had any shares of its stock on the market. It owns outright its business and its manufacturing plant. It has been in business for more than twenty-seven increasingly profitable years, has always done business on its own capital and has never borrowed a dollar. All its resources and experience are concentrated upon just one thing -- the making and selling of fine radio instruments. Production in its thirty-two acre factory is scientifically controlled, so that Atwater Kent® dealers always have enough radio on hand to meet the public demand, and are never overstocked. Its inventory is never excessive. Single-minded devotion to its one job -- the production of the finest radio that can be built -- has put the Atwater Kent® Manufacturing Company today in the strongest position it has ever held. Strongest in the excellence of its product -- Atwater Kent® Screen-Grid Radio. Strongest in the confidence of the public. Strongest in stability, which is the keystone of permanence in any business."
 

    - Arthur Atwater Kent®,  October 31^st 1929. (letter to stock holders two days after the stock market crash.)

All of us at Atwater Kent® Manufacturing Company today pledge to you that same quality products produced yesteryear, will be produced today!  When in the market for dependable automotive products or custom manufactured thermonic valve radios, You need not look any further than Atwater Kent®!

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Copyright © 2008 Atwater Kent Manufacturing Company
Last modified: 04/17/10