Embager

Embager is an American company, known for their ambitions, ownership of multiple brands over the years and financial problems after the entering the 21st Century. It is part of the Embager Group.

History

Embager Group was created in 1908 by Allen Bager, in Detroit, Michigan, USA, as well as a group of investors named Lucas Johnson-Marcel and Charles Smith. Embager was just a ‘continuation’ of sorts from Allen’s horse carriage company that made a lot of success in 1900. This was only a façade as Allen Bager was incredibly rich and wanted to have more companies under one roof. In less than one week, Embager Group had full ownership of Dunbar and later brought in Reuter and Laumet. But in an attempt to buy the Dearborn Motor Company, he was ousted from the company.

While Allen Bager decided to quit the car industry as a whole, the people that remained in Embager continued to expand the company over the years. Embager Group created their own sub brand called Embager in 1918 that would sell cars like Reuter and Laumet, with many projects like their first model ever, the Embager 840.

The years passed and Embager Group kept buying more and more companies, and in 1925, they expanded their European operations when they bought 100% of Russell and in 1926, 80% of Chalton, then 100% in 1932, merging the two into Russell Chalton (or just RC).

In 1926, the Ruler sub brand was created, and proved to be extremely popular, and thus caused the company to reorganize itself from a ‘tiered version of luxury’, being fully realized in 1941 with the order being Embager, Ruler, Reuter, Dunbar and Laumet.

Several years went through and the Luxury tier created years prior was starting to fade away as the company had similar offerings with similar engines and prices without all of its sub brands. The Embager Emancipator was created in 1967 to try to stop the Dearborn Dominator from cornering the market but it was unsuccessful. And while the company maintained its world leadership in revenue and market share throughout the 1960s to 1980s, it was product controversy that plagued the company in this period. It seemed that, in every decade, a major mass-production product line was launched with defects of one type or another showing up early in their life cycle. And, in each case, improvements were eventually made to mitigate the problems, but the resulting improved product ended up failing in the marketplace as its negative reputation overshadowed its ultimate excellence.

The 1980s and 1990s weren’t too kind to Embager as profits kept being on the red, and despite multiple attempts to bounce back the company, they were only successful for a period, going back down. Entering the 2000s the company was all but bankrupt, despite numerous tries to keep itself afloat. This finally led Embager Group to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008 and deal with the fallout. While Reuter was phased out in 2004 thanks to declining sales of the brand, Dunbar and Ruler were phased out in 2009 and 2012 respectively as a result. In 2017, Embager sold Russell Charlon to the Armand-Croisière Groupe (now EuroNext Initiative).

In 2009 and later years, the company was able to bounce back, post-’trimming the fat’ and focusing on the market that was looking for a new type of car, Electric Vehicles (EVs), as well as SUVs and trucks. 2016 saw the Embager Shock, their first EV that was a success and somewhat of a benchmark for companies to follow.

BFR

BFR stands for Born For Racing. The brand started its life being a special trim for the first generation of the Emancipator and eventually turned into a proper tuning oriented sub-brand in 1974. Since then, BFR has been synonymous with Embager racing prowess, bagging multiple wins in the American Stock Car Racing Series and many others.

The popularity of the sub-brand led Embager to trim their cars again with the BFR badge, and its cars sport custom tuned engines and parts to make it stand out against the more common models.

Featured Vehicles In Project Redline

Regular

Emancipator (1968)

The first generation Embager Emancipator is a muscle car to behold, a true classic from 1967. Its competition? Only the Dearborn Dominator, so it had to do well, and it did. This particular model is a refresh released a year later, with minor cosmetic changes.

This version comes with a 6.5L V8 in a FR configuration.

Emancipator BFR (2017)

It took a while for Embager to show the sixth generation of the Emancipator, but it finally released in 2016. Many trims were available but the version here is the most sporty version, the factory-tuned BFR. A worthy modern muscle car, the Emancipator BFR was very successful in reigniting the passion in muscle cars from Embager.

The BFR trim comes with a supercharged 6.2L V8 engine in a FR configuration.

Baltimore Sport (1996)

The fourth generation Baltimore (B4) has many fans. It might be its design, it might be its performance, it might be its comfort while driving. It might even be all of those. But what’s undeniable is that the Baltimore is an excellent car. Embager launched the last version of the fourth generation Baltimore as the ‘Baltimore Sport’, with its trademark middle large stripe and dark wheels. Only a thousand of these were made.

This version comes with the excellent MT4 engine, with a 5.7L V8, with a 6-speed manual transmission in a FR layout.

Baltimore BFR (2024)

The eighth generation Baltimore was highly anticipated as a modern sports car that could almost be a super. With an ‘angry looking’ design, the B8 is indeed a car that most would love to own, being the American car of the year 2020. In 2024, Embager revealed the new version with the maximum performance trim, the BFR.

This new version comes with a 5.5L V8 twin-turbo engine with an 8-speed dual-clutch transmission in a RMR layout, the most powerful V8 made by Embager.

Baltimore BFR GTC (2007)

The replacement for the iconic B5 GTC was the Baltimore (B6) BFR GTC. Its default yellow livery is still very recognizable and of course iconic. Also just as iconic was the FIMV American Series wins, dominating the 2007 and 2008 seasons.

Powered by a 7.0L V8 engine with a 6-speed manual transmission and standard FR configuration, as it is the norm for GTC competitions, this racing B6 had a lot of life to give.

Custom

BigEnergy Baltimore (1988)

A customized version of the B4, the Big Energy Baltimore is a hypertuned version of the B4 by a company called BigEnergy. Almost non-street legal, it pushed the boundaries of what was possible to get away with regulations. It took the 5.7L V8 twin-turboed engine of the regular B4 BFR and turned to squeeze the maximum potential of the car. And to make it unique, it came with its own custom made bodywork.

Illinice Baltimore (2023)

Illinice is an American company that makes custom parts for the Baltimore, and this version is no exception. This is a fully customized version of the B8, carefully visually and mechanically modified to be superior to the normal trim.

STAR R&T Baltimore (1996)

STAR R&T is a famous Japanese car customization and importer, mostly dedicated to the Baltimore. The inclusion of the STAR R&T Baltimore B4 on a famous Japanese racing game managed to gather a lot of fans, both from the east and the west parts of the world. Since then, the company sells customization kits for those that own B4s or offer the entire car customized by them, by hand.

SPE Emancipator Demon Slayer (2023)

He who knows understands that a mere Emancipator isn’t enough, it needs to be a Demon Slayer. A customized version by a third party turning company called SPE, the Emancipator Demon Slayer came out with a lot of hype surrounding it. Using the sixth generation of the Emancipator as a base, the Demon Slayer is quite the car, being much faster than the normal trim.