Long before Holley was swapping between corporate owners, it was the vision of brothers George and Earl Holley, who returned from a 1901 trip to France with a license to build and sell the Longuemare carburetor. They installed it on their gas-powered Auto-Bike, which had pedals and a 2 1/4 horsepower motor and could hit a top speed of 35 mph. In 1902, they built a motorcar, the Motorette runabout, also fueled by the Longuemare carb. According to the Holley blog, the Holley brothers made 600 Motorettes that year before Henry Ford urged them to switch to manufacturing carburetors instead.
The Holley brothers moved to Detroit and built carburetors for the Model T until Ford bought George and Earl out in 1917. They soon went back into business and built carburetors for boats and airplanes through World War II. At the time of the company’s 2021 acquisition by Empower Limited, Holley was valued at $1.55 billion. Not quite that valuable is the lone remaining Holley Auto-Bike, which is on display at Holley headquarters in Bowling Green along with one of three (or possibly four) surviving Motorettes.
