electric autolite company founded 1911 headquarters lake forest illinois united states parent fram group llc website http www.autolite.com autolite or auto lite is an american brand of spark plugs and ignition wire sets . autolite products are sold in the united states canada and mexico and as of 2015 are now sold in australia . until 2011 the autolite brand was a part of honeywell s automotive consumer products group along with fram and prestone . since then it has been manufactured and marketed by fram group llc which is a constituent company of auckland new zealand based investment firm rank group . 1 autolite has been the official spark plug of nascar since april 2000 . contents 1 history 2 current products 3 references 4 external links history edit the origins of autolite can be traced to 1911 when electric autolite was founded . the company produced a generator to power early day auto lamps or buggy lamps . in 1927 electric autolite acquired the prest o lite battery company from the union carbide corporation which produced automotive batteries . in 1935 royce g. martin president of the electric autolite company decided that the company should enter the business of manufacturing spark plugs . robert twells a ceramic engineer led the development team . a few months later the company was selling their first spark plug . electric autolite s products were expanded further to include starting motors generators regulators ignition systems wire and cable products . autolite enjoyed instant success as it had secured supply contracts with leading car manufacturers such as chrysler studebaker packard and willys . in a 1940 promotional film autolite featured stop motion animation of its products marching past autolite factories to the tune of franz schubert s military march . an abbreviated version of this sequence was later used in television ads for autolite especially those on the 1950s cbs program suspense which autolite sponsored . autolite had sponsored the earlier radio program . in 1961 seeking to enter the profitable aftermarket auto parts business the ford motor company acquired the autolite tradename an ohio spark plug factory a michigan battery facility limited distribution rights and the services of several employees . 2 autolite products became standard original factory equipment in ford vehicles . a federal antitrust lawsuit was filed against ford which dragged on through the remainder of the 1960s and ford was forced to sell its autolite related assets to the bendix corporation by 1973 . in 1963 the portion of the autolite company which was not acquired by ford merged with the mergenthaler linotype company and the eltra corporation was formed . former autolite motor phase of the company became the prestolite motor and ignition company later prestolite electric . in 1973 the bendix corporation had purchased both fram and autolite . in 1980 the eltra corporation is acquired by the allied signal corporation which became honeywell in 1999 . bendix was acquired by allied in 1983 thereby bringing autolite back to its original parent electric autolite eltra as part of allied signal honeywell . in 2011 honeywell sold its automotive consumer products group to the rank group which set up fram group llc and several other companies to take over the operations and the transfer of ownership of the acquired trademarks . autolite is currently led by president michael s. mizusawa and vice president of sales and marketing joshua gordon . current products edit spark plugs iridium xp enhanced alloy technology r spark plugs xs xtreme sport spark plugs xp xtreme performance spark plugs revolution ht spark plugs double platinum spark plugs platinum spark plugs copper core spark plugs glow plugs spark plugs references edit http www.rankgroup.co.nz rank group 1 external links edit autolite v t e alliedsignal subsidiaries allied corp. garrett airesearch solvay process company allied corp. bendix corporation bunker ramo corporation eugene meyer william ripley nichols garrett airesearch central air data computer frederick dallenbach cliff garrett garrett stamp homer j. wood normalair related honeywell v t e prestolite electric subsidiaries autolite leece neville lucas electric related companies ametek sheller globe corporation retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title autolite & oldid 737607501 categories automotive companies of the united states navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 3 september 2016 at 23 04 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view