Federal Mogul Corporation history

Determined to be their own bosses in the market they knew best, the two partners opened their first facility on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, in 1900.

The year 1910 brought an important order for 10,000 connecting rod bearings for the massive Buick 10.

In 1923, Muzzy learned that Douglas-Dahlin, a large Kansas City-based parts distributor, stood in danger of bankruptcy while owing Mogul a large sum of money.

In 1924, the Muzzy-Lyon Company and Federal Bearings and Bushing, an engine bearings and bushings manufacturing company, merged to become Federal-Mogul Corporation.

In 1927, Federal-Mogul purchased United States Bearings Company, an Indiana distributor that resold replacement bearings.

Federal Mogul established a research division in 1929, with the help of Battelle Memorial Institute.

In 1931, during the Great Depression, Federal-Mogul started its Equi-Poise propeller division.

In 1932, the company developed a new alloy called C-100, one of the first new bearing materials since the discovery of Babbitt metal.

The Federal-Mogul research team revamped the C-100 in 1934 to create a C-50 alloy.

The corporation acquired the Indianapolis-based Superior Bearings Company in 1936.

In 1937 the service division went international with the acquisition of the former Watkins Rebabbitting Limited that had locations in Toronto, Montreal, and Winnipeg, Canada.

By 1941, Federal-Mogul had over 50 facilities devoted to military production, turning out millions of bearings, bushings, and seals for military applications.

The relationship that had begun with a 1950 sales agreement had culminated into a union of the two businesses.

In 1955, the company acquired National Motor Bearing Company, and the company name was changed to Federal-Mogul Bower.

Even more significant growth occurred in 1955 when the Bower Roller Bearing Company merged with Federal-Mogul. It ranked 350 in 1956 with sales that exceeded $100 million that year.

Federal-Mogul management noted this trend and in March of 1960 started to invest in foreign manufacturing operations and purchased interests in various major European bearing firms.

In 1963, Federal-Mogul Bower's Arrowhead division manufactured components for NASA's Saturn launch vehicle.

In April 1965, Federal-Mogul Bower merged with Sterling Aluminum Products.

The early 1970’s marked a domestic expansion into the southern states.

An additional powdered metal parts plant in Ripley, Tennessee opened in 1972.

Economic recession in 1975 prompted management at Federal-Mogul to begin reassessing its long-term strategy.

Öhlins Racing AB was founded in 1976 in Sweden by Kenth Öhlin. Öhlins started making gas shock absorbers for motorcycles and rapidly became a reference within the motorcycle racing circuit.

Although the company quickly recovered from the recession, recording its fourth consecutive year of record sales and earnings in 1979, management had found that the company’s earnings were overly reliant on the fortunes of automotive OEMs.

In 1981, Federal-Mogul Arrowhead parts were implemented in the NASA space shuttle launch.

In 1984, Öhlins filed its first patent for Continuously Controlled Electronic Suspension valve (CES) technology and started to work on developing the valves, shock absorbers, sensors, ECUs and software required to make semi-active suspension systems for a variety of applications.

In July 1985, Federal-Mogul acquired the Mather Company, a manufacturer of high performance sealing products for the automotive and industrial markets and a leader in PTFE (Teflon) technology.

In August 1989, Federal-Mogul completed a joint venture agreement with G. Bruss GmbH and Co.

Principal acquisitions included: the vehicular lighting assets of R.E. Dietz and Co. in March 1990; German manufacturer of automotive and diesel engine bearings, Glyco AG in October 1990; Brown & Dureau (Australia) and Sealed Power Replacement.

By 1993, 21 percent of the company's sales were generated by businesses outside the United States and Canada, while another 13 percent of annual revenues still came from exports.

In September 1995, the company acquired Seal Technology Systems (STS), one of Europe's leading designers and manufacturers of a specialized range of seals and gaskets for the automotive sector and other industrial markets.

Chrysler Corporation recognized the company for outstanding manufacturing plant performance in the areas of Quality, Delivery, and Warranty in May 1996, with its Gold Pentastar Award being given to Federal-Mogul's Blacksburg, Virginia engine bearing manufacturing facility.

Another accolade came in January 1997, when Federal-Mogul's engine bearings facility in Orleans, France, was honored with the first-ever Platinum Award for supplier excellence from the Rover Group, for winning the Gold Supplier Excellence Award three consecutive years.

In January 1998, Federal-Mogul acquired privately owned Fel-Pro Inc.--the premier automotive and industrial gasket manufacturer for the North American aftermarket and OE heavy-duty market, headquartered in Skokie, Illinois--and its subsidiaries.

With automotive roots dating back more than a century, Tenneco’s history as a stand-alone automotive entity began in 1999, when it emerged from a conglomerate formerly consisting of six distinct businesses.

The large number of products liability claims that came with the Turner & Newall acquisition were largely responsible for Federal-Mogul's federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 2002.

In 2003, Tenneco and Öhlins jointly launched the first CES shock absorbers as standard equipment on the Volvo S60R performance car.

The company emerged from Chapter 11 reorganization in January 2008, and in April 2008, the company listed Class A common stock on NASDAQ under the trading symbol FDML.

In June 2010, Federal-Mogul expanded further into Asia by opening a headquarters and technical center in Shanghai, China.

In July 2012, Federal-Mogul announced a definitive agreement to purchase the BERU spark plug business from BorgWarner Inc.

In February 2014, Daniel A. Ninivaggi was appointed CEO of the Federal-Mogul Vehicle Components segment (VCS).

The company expects the split to be completed in the first half of 2015 pending regulatory approval.

In December 2016, Federal-Mogul completed the acquisition of the Beck/Arnley brand and certain associated assets.

In January 2017, majority shareholder Carl Icahn completed a $300 million deal for all of Federal-Mogul's stock, after which he changed the company from a public company to a private company.

In April 2018, Tenneco announced that they had purchased Federal-Mogul in a deal worth approximately US$5.4 billion.

Tenneco acquired Öhlins Racing in January 2019.