Early life[edit]

Gar Wood was born on December 4, 1880 in Mapleton, Iowa, into a family of 13 children.^[1] His father was a ferryboat operator on Lake Osakis, Minnesota, and Gar worked on boats from an early age. In 1911, at age 31, he invented a hydraulic lift for unloading coal from rail trucks.

Garwood Industries[edit]

He established the Wood Hoist Co. in Detroit, Michigan, and soon became a successful businessman. Later, he changed the company's name to Garwood Industries, which built racing and pleasure boats under the Gar Wood brand. Wood also capitalized on experience with coal unloaders to successfully produce and market GarWood truck, bus and coach bodies. He had a home in Algonac, Michigan.

Garwood Industries also built truck bodies, tractor attachments and winches that were used by truck and tractor manufacturers such as Allis-Chalmers,^[2] International Harvester, and were an OEM supplier to both the civilian and military market. Many trucks built during World War II came equipped with Garwood bodies and winches. Garwood Industries also developed the garbage truck, originally sold as the Garwood Load Packer.

Racing career[edit]

In 1916, Wood purchased a motorboat for racing called Miss Detroit. He also bought the company that made it, run by brothers Chris and Henry Smith (who would work for Wood until 1922, when Chris formed the Chris Smith & Sons Boat Company in Algonac, Michigan, renamed Chris-Craft in 1924). This led directly to the construction of Gar Wood brand pleasure craft.

Initially still focused on racing, Wood set a new water speed record of 74.870 miles per hour (120.492 km/h) in 1920 on the Detroit River, using a new twin Liberty V-12 powered boat called Miss America. In the following twelve years, Wood built nine more Miss Americas and broke the record five times, raising it to 124.860 miles per hour (200.943 km/h) in 1932 on the St. Clair River.

In 1921, Wood raced one of his boats against the Havana Special train, 1,250 miles (2,010 km) up the Atlantic coast from Miami to New York City. Wood made the trip in 47 hours and 23 minutes and beat the train by 12 minutes. In 1925, he raced the 20th Century Limited train up the Hudson River between Albany and New York and won by 22 minutes.

As well as being a record breaker and showman, Wood won five straight powerboat Gold Cup races between 1917 and 1921. Wood also won the prestigious Harmsworth Trophy nine times (1920–21, 1926, 1928–30, 1932–33).

In 1931, he lost the Trophy in dramatic circumstances to his younger brother George. The race was held on the Detroit River and was billed as a match race between the Wood brothers and English (sic) racing driver and record-breaker Kaye Don, driving Miss England II. Before an estimated crowd of over a million spectators (one of the largest crowds for a sporting event ever), Don won the first heat of the race. In the second heat, Wood was leading Don, when Miss England II suddenly flipped over rounding one of the turns, without injury to Don and his co-driver. Gar Wood finished the race first, but both he and Don were disqualified because they had jumped the starter's gun by seven seconds. George Wood completed the final race to win the trophy.

In April, 1936, Wood, along with many other sports champions and stand outs, was honored at a banquet in Detroit, MI.^[3] This banquet was the first celebration of Champions Day.

In July, 1936, a plaque was presented to Detroit from the White House honoring Detroit as the City of Champions.^[4] The plaque has five "medallions" featuring athletes. One of these medallions is of a power boat racer, representing Wood.^[5]

Wood retired from racing in 1933 to concentrate on his businesses.

Gar Wood boats[edit]

Garwood Industries began building boats under the "Gar Wood" brand following his early successes racing. The most famous were the exclusive Liberty V-12-powered 33’ "Baby Gar" gentleman’s racer built in the 1920s and early 1930s.^[6] Along with numerous models of runabouts (variously available as sedans, landaus, and limousines), a 28' "Baby Gar", a 25' triple-cockpit runabout, and 40' commuter, a limited number of the 16 ft Gar Wood Speedsters were built from 1934 to 1938.^[7] Starting in 1935 a 20' utility and 26' family cruiser were made, followed by an 18' utility and 36' express cruiser in 1936.^[7]

During World War II Garwood Industries produced a limited number of tugboats and target craft for the U.S. Navy. After the war, however, new technologies such as plywood and fiberglass, and mass production methods, entered the pleasure boating world. The company continued to build its traditional all wood boats until 1947, when it ended production.^[7]

Inventions[edit]

Wood was known as an inventive genius who, at one point, held more US patents than any other living American.^{[citation needed]}

In 1897, at age 17, he invented a downdraft carburetor which enabled his inspection boat to outrace the other inspectors.^{[citation needed]}

In 1911 or 1912 he invented the profitable hydraulic hoist for dump trucks. He used the money it earned to build racing boats which won many championships between 1917 and 1933.^[8]

At one point he had a job selling lightning rods to farmers, and to demonstrate their effectiveness he invented an induction coil device to mimic lightning.^[9]

Retirement and later years[edit]

In the 1950s, Wood acquired Fisher Island in South Florida's Biscayne Bay, the last of a series of millionaires to occupy it as a one-family island retreat. He sold it to a development group in 1963. Wood also had a summer retreat in McGregor Bay, Ontario.

A 1967 Popular Mechanics article^[1] showed even in retirement Wood was still active inventing an Electric Vehicle (EV) controller, which he used in the EV he built.

Wood died in Miami 16 Jun 1971, at age 90 and days before the 50th anniversary of his first Harmsworth win. Upon his death, George Van of The Detroit News wrote: “To the public, he was Tom Swift, Jules Verne, Frank Merriwell with a little bit of Horatio Alger thrown in.”^[10] Wood was buried near his home in Algonac, Michigan.

The InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel is a hotel at 111 East 48th Street, on Lexington Avenue between 48th and 49th Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The 14-story hotel, operated by IHG Hotels & Resorts, was designed by Cross and Cross in the Colonial style and contains 702 rooms. The Barclay was one of several large hotels developed around Grand Central Terminal as part of Terminal City.

The hotel building contains a facade of brick and limestone, with entrances from all three of the surrounding streets. It is arranged in the shape of the letter "H", with light courts facing north and south. The ground level contains a lobby, storefronts, and restaurant spaces, while the second story contains two ballrooms and other event spaces. Unlike traditional hotels of its time, the Barclay was designed as an apartment hotel and originally lacked large convention spaces or ballrooms. When the hotel opened, it had 842 guestrooms, in addition to bedrooms for maids and servants, but this has been reduced over the years. The top story initially contained a 17-room suite for New York Central Railroad director Harold Stirling Vanderbilt.

The Barclay Hotel opened on November 4, 1926, and was operated by Realty Hotels, a subsidiary of the New York Central Railroad, for more than six decades. The New York Central was superseded in 1968 by Penn Central, which tried to sell the hotel multiple times after going bankrupt in the 1970s. Loews Hotels purchased the hotel in June 1978 and resold it to InterContinental Hotels, which renamed the Barclay as the Inter-Continental New York in 1982 after an extensive renovation. The hotel was renovated again in 1995; it was rebranded the InterContinental, The Barclay New York in 2001 and as the InterContinental New York Barclay in 2009. Constellation Hotel Holdings bought a majority stake in the hotel in 2013, and the hotel underwent another renovation from 2014 to 2016.