Company History

Our early beginning in 1913, and the taxi cab driver's invention.

Ideal's history began in the early part of the 20th century, when a young Mercedes engineer named Philip Rauch, Sr., immigrated to Brooklyn, NY, from Mannheim, Germany. Although his first business was a taxi company, Rauch was more interested in tinkering with his cabs than in driving them. Thanks to his engineering expertise, Rauch soon developed and patented the worm drive hose clamp, and in 1913, formed the Ideal Clamp Manufacturing Company. His company philosophy was "Quality Products and Quality Service."

Ideal prospered during those early years and, like the country's economy, business boomed. The elder Rauch died suddenly in 1932, leaving his sons Phil and Lou to guide the business through the lean depression years and into the business boom following World War II. Using new materials and designs, Ideal engineers created a new generation of clamps for applications in the automotive, aircraft, plumbing, marine, agricultural, hardware and industrial markets.

Ideal's quality has been documented by some extreme real-world tests. In the race to cross the ocean by air, Ideal was selected as supplier of hose clamps to the first trans-Atlantic flight, by the U.S. Navy Flying Boat NC-4 in 1919, and the flight of the Spirit of St. Louis by Charles Lindbergh in 1927. Because of the inherent danger of these feats, both projects necessitated the most dependable airplane hardware available. Testing under the demands of the racing arena has also been part of Ideal's success. Ideal has a history of supplying quality parts to racers of all types, and has supplied hose clamps to the winner of the Indy 500 every year since 1953. In more recent years, the U.S. space program successfully used our Ideal patented bi-directional no-hub couplings on the shuttle.

Through all of this, Ideal has become one of the most innovative and respected clamp manufacturers in the world, and is the first worm-drive clamp manufacturer in the world to possess the prestigious QS9000 quality certification. Now headquartered in Smyrna, Tennessee, Ideal has undergone many changes since its founding, yet retains the company philosophy of its founder: "Quality Products and Quality Service".