CHAPTER FOUR

 

THE LINCOLN COACHBUILDERS

    An American Carrossiers

        Who's Who

 

    Although custom coach building came into its glory in the 1920s, the

1930s were to be its finest hour.  The coach building art form was to all

but fade away by the end of that decade as the large auto makers recognized

the need for appealing to the buyer through coach styling.  In years past,

automobiles were purchased on their reputation for dependability.  By the

mid-1920s, most manufacturers were building reliable and well performing

motorcars.

    Custom luxury coach body building merits a separate chapter in the

automotive history.  Indeed, whole books have been written on some of these

legend-makers.  Americans in general love to tinker, and have produced over

four thousand brands of automobiles.  Automobile coach building clearly

evolved from the craft of carriage building.  The pioneer coachbuilders who

made the greatest impact on automotive body styling were, however, the

younger and more creative newcomers to the art form.  The custom hot rod

builders of the late 50s, like George Barris of California, were probably

the end of this era.  Now, the kit car craze has brought auto building full

circle, once again returning to thousands of different makes and styles of

custom automobiles.

    There were about one hundred coachbuilders of any notoriety in the

1920s and early 1930s.  Many survived in business for only a brief period,

and few ever really produced any volume of auto bodies.  Of course, anyone

could build a custom body on a Lincoln (as they can today).   However, only

a select few coachbuilders were engaged by the Lincoln Motor Company to do

so.  Builders contracted directly by Lincoln were American, Anderson,

Babcock, Brunn, Derham, Dietrich, Fleetwood, Holbrook, Judkins, Lang,

LeBaron, Locke, Murray, Towson, and Willoughby in the 1920s.  Murphy,

Rollston, and Waterhouse were added in the 1930s.

    Anderson Electric Car Company, along with the newly formed Towson, were

originally contracted by Leland to build the Model L bodies.  The Towson

Body Company of Detroit, Michigan, became known for their work on Packards,

and built medium-priced bodies for the Velie and Davis automobiles. 

Anderson did business under the Towson name after 1922.  Both companies, by

1925, became part of the Murray Corporation of America which had been

founded in Detroit in 1912.  The J.C. Widman Company was also merged into

Murray in 1925.  During its five-year existence, Widman originated the

custom two-door sedan called the Earl Brougham, and built bodies for the

Jewett, Chalmers, and Franklin.

    The C.R. Wilson Body Company in Detroit had built carriages since

1873.  In the early 1920s, they began building high-priced automobile

bodies on Packard and Lincoln chassis.  Wilson was purchased and became

part of Murray in 1927.  Murray also absorbed several smaller firms to

become the third largest coachbuilder.  Murray had one of the first

automobile coach design studios, headed by Amos Northrup, who came to

Murray from Wills Sainte Claire in 1924.  Northrup collaborated with Ray

Dietrich the following year to produce bodies for the Packard, Hupmobile,

Jordan, Reo, and Lincoln.  Murray Corporation still produces automobile

components.

    American Body Company began in 1919 in Buffalo, New York.  They

produced Model L bodies and other medium-priced auto bodies, specializing

in open Tourings.  American was out of business by 1926.

    The H.H. Babcock Company had started as wagon builders in the 1890s. 

From their facilities in Watertown, Massachusetts, they built light

delivery trucks and Town Cars on long wheelbases.  They built chassis for

Dodge and Franklin until going out of business in 1926.  Babcock built a

few Model A Duesenberg and Model L Lincoln bodies.

    Rauch & Lang of Cleveland, Ohio, was founded in 1899.  They began

building electric cars in 1904.  In 1916, they merged with Baker Vehicle

Company who built electric car parts and car bodies, and manufactured the

Owen-Magnetic car.  Baker, Rauch & Lang then purchased the Leon Rubay

Company of Cleveland at bankruptcy in 1922.  The company was also known as

Baker-Raulang.  At the 1929 Auto Salons, they displayed their Ruxton Town

Car.  A few quality custom bodies and production bodies were built by them

for Stearn-Knight and Peerless.  Baker-Raulang ceased auto body production

in 1939, but remains in business as suppliers of body parts and electronic

equipment.  The Lang Body Company of Cleveland, Ohio, sold their interest

in Rauch & Lang Carriage Company, and began building semi-custom bodies for

Dodge.  Several early Model L Lincoln bodies were built by them.  It was a

family owned business started in 1920, and was out of business by 1924.

    Holbrook Company was founded by H.F. Holbrook in West Manhattan, New

York City.  It was moved to Hudson, New York, in 1921.  They were best

known for their Phaeton and Town Car bodies on Packard and Crane-Simplex

chassis.  They built several of the first Duesenberg Model J coaches and

various Lincoln custom coaches in 1925 and 1926. The most popular Lincoln

body style which Holbrook built was the Collapsible Cabriolet.  It was

first shown at the 1925 New York Automobile Salon.  About forty of these

cars were built through 1929.  On this Cabriolet, the chauffeur's top

snapped off, and the rear compartment could be folded down like a

Landaulet.  Its predecessor was the Holbrook Brougham, produced in 1925. 

R.L. Stickney's drawing of this motorcar appears in the November 1924

issues of The Lincoln Magazine, Salon Issue.  These two designs are

excellent examples of the terms Brougham and Cabriolet.  In this case,

however, the Brougham lacked the all-weather driver's tarp.  Harry Holbrook

left his namesake company in 1927 to build cars with Henry Brewster at the

old Blue Ribbon Carriage works at Bridgeport, Connecticut, for two years. 

The original Holbrook Company went bankrupt in May of 1930, and many

employees including Hjalmar Holm, the sales manager, went over to the

Rollston coach works.  Holbrook had, for some time, been sending its repair

business to Rollston.

    The Rollston Company of New York City was started in 1921 mainly to

provide wealthy Easterners  with custom bodies for their imported

Rolls-Royces.  The firm quickly expanded into other expensive bodies like

Packard and Stutz.  Rollston built the famous Duesenberg Convertible

Victoria and several custom Lincoln Town Cars.  Drawings of these designs

by George Hildebrand remain valuable collector items today.  Rollston's

founder retired in 1939, and the company relocated to Plainview, New York,

continuing to build bodies for Packard until the beginning of World War

II.  It remains in business today, fabricating galleys for aircraft.

    Budd Manufacturing Company, on occasion, has been listed as a Lincoln

coachbuilder, but very few Lincoln bodies were ever custom produced by

Budd.  Edward G. Budd was actually more famous as a railroad car builder. 

He designed and built rail cars of lightweight riveted aluminum for the

M-10000 and the Pioneer Zephyr.  Budd was one of the first coachbuilders to

produce all-steel coach bodies for automobiles.

    A company occasionally listed as a Lincoln coachbuilder was

Guider-Sweetland and its surviving company of Sierers & Erdman were founded

in Detroit in 1913.  Guider-Sweetland built ambulances and burial coaches

on Lincoln chassis until the late 1930s.  Central Manufacturing Company of

Connersville, Indiana, is also sometimes mentioned but they too built only

a few customs.  Central was absorbed into Auburn-Cord.  The original

Central Manufacturing complex operated almost continually for forty years,

and even built Jeeps during World War II.  One additional company,

Cunningham Sons of Rochester, New York, built a few one-off Lincolns. 

Founded in the 1890s, they manufactured their own V-8 engines from 1916

through 1934.  During the mid-thirties, they also built custom bodied cars

on Ford chassis.

    The Derham Body Company of Rosemont, Pennsylvania, was founded as a

carriage builder in 1884.  They were known in the 1920s for their Lincoln,

Packard, and Pierce-Arrow Town Cars.  In 1928, the Floyd-Derham Company was

formed to build custom bodies at the old Alexander Woflington's Sons

Company facility in Philadelphia.  This operation was short lived.  Derham

Body Company was famous for their Chrysler convertibles in the thirties. 

Today, the Wolfington company builds school buses, and the Derham company

custom builds expensive limousines.

    Locke & Company began in 1902 as a quality body builder in New York

City.  They were known for their exquisite finishes and distinctive Town

Cars.   In 1926, the company relocated to Rochester, New York.  Increasing

numbers of orders were placed by the Chrysler, Franklin, and Lincoln

companies.  Locke was best known for its early Lincoln Phaetons.  In

November of 1929, at the 25th Annual Chicago Automobile Salon, Locke

displayed a five-passenger Sedan on a Ruxton front-wheel-drive chassis. 

The design was unusually low in profile while still providing ample

headroom, had no running boards, and was all black without body molding or

striping.  The following year, a similar design was built on a Chrysler

convertible.  The Locke 1930 Lincoln Roadster had a totally disappearing

top which folded into a recess behind the seat, and was covered by a deck

panel.  Locke & Company was, however, out of business by 1933.

    Walter M. Murphy was related to Henry Leland, and had been authorized

as one of the original Lincoln distributors.  Located in Pasadena,

California, the Murphy Company began modifying the early Model L Lincolns

from the outset.  Murphy also built custom coach bodies on the Rolls-Royce

and on the Model J Duesenberg for the West Coast elite.  The firm was an

unauthorized Lincoln coachbuilder until 1932, when Lincoln contracted with

them to build Type 43 Phaetons and three different types of Sport

Roadsters.  Shortly afterward, Murphy Company ceased to do business. 

Former Murphy employees Bohman & Schwartz continued the business under

their own names until 1938.

    The Lehmann Manufacturing Company started building wagons in Indiana

one hundred years after the American Revolution.  They evolved into

Lehmann-Peterson Company at Indianapolis by 1925, producing replacement

bodies for the Model T Ford.  They also built ambulance bodies and other

commercial vehicles, including several White House Lincoln limousines.  The

firm is still in business today as an automobile alteration facility.

    The name Fleetwood is generally associated with Cadillac but it

originated in 1905 with the Reading Metal Company, servicing companies like

Duryea and Chadwick.  In 1912, the officers of the company started a new

operation at Fleetwood, Pennsylvania, about twenty miles from Reading. 

They built coaches on most of the major U.S. chassis including Daniels,

Lincoln, and Packard, as well as on imports such as Isotta-Fraschini and

Maybach.  Fleetwood Metal Body Company became famous for all-metal coach

designs, and was purchased by General Motors in 1925.  A facility was set

up for Fleetwood in Detroit, as a division of Fisher Body, and they began

building Cadillac bodies in 1933.  The older Pennsylvania facility

continued to build coaches for Stutz and imported luxury cars until 1931,

after General Motors had acquired ownership.  The Fleetwood's New York

sales office was opened in 1918 at 2 Columbus Circle, the same location at

which LeBaron began business in 1923.  An example of a Fleetwood built

LeBaron design was the 1923 Roadster for Rudolph Valentino.  The actor was

also an accomplished auto mechanic, and ordered a full-length running board

tool box.  Fleetwood built several hundred custom Lincoln Model L coach

bodies.  A few of these coaches were not delivered until after Fleetwood's

merger into Fisher Body of GM.  (This may have been the closest General

Motors and Ford ever came to becoming co-manufacturers.)

    The Utica, New York, building where the Willoughby & Company coach

works was located is still used as a machine shop.  Francis W. Willoughby

and J. Vinton Locke both attended school at Hamilton College.  In 1908,

Willoughby set up his company to serve the new wealthy industrialists in

and around the Mohawk Valley.  The firm built semi-custom bodies for

Lincolns on the order of twenty-five to one hundred per run.  Willoughby

coaches were best known for their conservative lines and fine workmanship. 

They also built bodies for the Cole and the Wills Sainte Claire

automobiles.  Willoughby coach craftsman were exceedingly accomplished at

building to a standard chassis.  Packard and Lincoln bodies built by

Willoughby would quite often interchange.  In some cases, a Touring body

could be detached and the particular chassis fitted with a new Town Car

body.  Willoughby was best known for producing fine Town Cars.  With the

decline of chauffeur-driven cars in the thirties, their market was

particularly hard hit.  Willoughby had done very well in 1932 with new

designs for the Lincoln Model K.  Afterward, they suffered some decline,

but they managed to stay in business until 1938.  When, they closed, chief

designer, Martin Regitko, went to work at Ford's Lincoln design facility in

the styling section.

    Herman A. Brunn had worked in his uncle's carriage shop as a young man

in Buffalo, New York.  Many, if not almost all of the successful

carrossiers and great coach designers had served an apprenticeship in a

good coachbuilding shop.  Brunn worked briefly for the Babcock company in

Watertown, and then took over management of the Andrew Joyce Carriage

Company in Washington.  He returned to Buffalo and founded Brunn & Company

in 1908.  Through the twenties and until they closed in 1941, Brunn enjoyed

a fine reputation.  It was only natural that Edsel Ford, after acquiring

Lincoln, would turn to LeBaron and Brunn for creative designs.  Edsel would

approach each one separately with similar suggestions, and they would work

independently until their design concepts were completed.

    At the 1927 New York Automobile Salon, Brunn displayed a yellow and

brown Convertible Victoria, one of the earliest built in this country. 

They also displayed a Phaeton painted aluminum and black, a favorite Edsel

Ford color scheme.  Another interesting Lincoln custom was built for a

physician friend of Herman Brunn and shown in 1931 at the last New York

Auto Salon.  It was a double-entry two-door Sedan, with doors that opened

from either end and had a special latching mechanism which had been first

tried on the European Pinin Farina.  Only a few were ever built.  Many of

the Brunn Model L Lincoln designs were reproduced by Towson, American, and

Lang.  Lincoln factory photos show Brunn Town Cars in front of the Buffalo

Fine Arts Museum, a favorite photographing location.

    Brunn built many of the LeBaron designs, including the Ford family's

personal cars.  The friendship and personal ties between the Brunn and Ford

families grew.  The last Lincoln and Packard custom bodies built by Brunn &

Company were the 1938 and 1939 models.  They were of the Landaulet styles

on which the aft part of the passenger compartment had a convertible top. 

In 1940 and 1941, Brunn custom built the Buick series 90 Limousines at the

request of Buick's president Harlow Curtice, who had been unable to get

them from Fleetwood.  In 1942, the youngest brother, H.C. Brunn, went to

work for the Lincoln styling section at Detroit (he became one of Lincolns

most innovative interior designers).

    The Judkins, Merrimac, and Waterhouse Companies were loosely related. 

The John B. Judkins Company was founded in 1857 at West Amesbury,

Massachusetts.  The municipality of Amesbury was later renamed Merrimac,

and known as Carriage Hill because so many coachbuilding shops were located

in that part of New England.  Judkins' partner was Isaac Little.  His two

sons joined the company, Frederick B. in 1883, and Charles H. in 1891. 

About five years before the turn of the century, Judkins began building

automobile bodies for Colonel Pope of Hartford.  The firm built luxury

Brougham horse carriages until about 1910, at which time they went

exclusively to automobile coach building.  In the early years, Judkins

built over a thousand bodies for the Winton Motor Car Company.  In 1918,

Stanley L. Judkins opened Merrimac Body Company to handle the overflow work

from the main Judkins plant.  It mostly produced Packards and DuPont

bodies, and was closed in 1933.  Sergeant and Charles Waterhouse both

worked for Judkins prior to forming their own coach building company in

1928.  Waterhouse custom built several styles of Lincoln coach bodies until

1933.  The famous Ford stylist John F. Dobben worked at Judkins in the

1920s, and designer/artist R. L. Stickney went to work at Judkins when

LeBaron closed its New York offices to avoid a move to Detroit.  One of the

notable designs built by Judkins was the Lincoln Coupe deVoyage.  It was a

personal favorite of Mr. Judkins, and was drafted by Herman A. Kapp and

Hugo Pfau of LeBaron.  The famous 1926 Lincoln Model L Coaching Brougham,

based on the Concord stagecoach, was built by Judkins.  This rare

coachbuilt was on display at Henry Ford's Wayside Inn for years.  Judkins

also built the custom body coach for cowboy movie star Tom Mix's

Pierce-Arrow Club Coupe.  The main Judkins facility continued to build auto

bodies until 1938.

    The coachbuilder's story which most profoundly impacted the early

Lincolns was that of Raymond H. Dietrich.  Actually, the story begins at

Brewster and moves through the LeBaron, Murray, and Briggs companies.  As a

young New York lad, Ray Dietrich worked as an apprentice engineer.  He was

inclined to study art, but instead was attracted to the automobile trade

and interviewed with Brewster & Company at Long Island City.  Henry

Cresilius, chief engineer for Brewster, introduced Dietrich to William H.

Brewster.  (Cresilius would later go to work for the Ford Motor Company.) 

Brewster & Company built Ford Town Car coach bodies into the 1930s under

the supervision of J.S. Inscip.  Inscip also worked on the English Jensen

design.  During the early development of the original Lincoln Continental,

both Brewster and Derham were considered as body contractors on the

project.  As it turned out, both facilities combined could not have handled

even the relatively small number of Continentals eventually produced.

    Dietrich had graduated from a design course given by Andrew F. Johnson,

a carriage draftsman, and soon became one of Brewster's most progressive

designers.  Ray Dietrich left Brewster for a short period to work at

Chevrolet, but returned to work on the new Brewster-Knight automobile

project.  It was during this time that he and Thomas L. Hibbard became

friends.  Hibbard went to Europe during World War I.  He wanted to stay and

work at the Kellner studio in Paris, but was shipped home with the rest of

the Dough Boys after the Armistice.  Hibbard and Dietrich were planning to

start their own company, and Brewster fired them both when he found out

they were peddling their own designs on the side.  They selected the name

LeBaron Carrossiers, Inc., and moved into 2 Columbus Circle.  (LeBaron was

the French-sounding name of a doctor friend of Dietrich's family, and

Carrossier is French for coachbuilder.)  The building on Columbus Circle

conveniently housed the New York offices of Fleetwood.

    Ralph Roberts, a young Dartmouth graduate, joined LeBaron as the

business manager.   When Al Jolson came to order a coach design at LeBaron,

he gave Roberts complementary tickets to his New York show, and that night,

while on stage, wisecracked that his performance should be worth a discount

on his new LeBaron.  Jolson loved fine cars.  When taking the train into

New York or Boston he would have his chauffeur make the trip by car in

order to meet the train and drive him around town.  Jolson was a perceptive

man, and decades ahead in his automobile tastes.  "Make it low and sleek,

so low I have to bend over to get in," he would tell the designers of his

cars.

    Since they had no facility of their own, the LeBaron staff worked as

contract coach designers.  They sold prospective drawings for $25 apiece to

Manhattan auto dealers like Captain D'Annunzio, son of the poet Gabriele

and the local Isotta representative.  Other customers included Milton

Budlong of Lincoln and Paul Ostruk of Minerva.  Ostruk resold the

LeBaron-designed coachbuilts under their own logo, Body by Ostruk.  New

York Governor C. Parvis, the Packard coach body purchasing agent,

commissioned LeBaron to design a limousine which became the benchmark for

many subsequent Packard limousines.  From their proposal drawings, Tom

Hibbard and Ray Dietrich often got the job of providing the working

drawings.  Thus, an additional and larger fee could be charged.  Early

techniques which gave these coach bodies lower and more flowing lines were

methods like lowering the headlight mounting and incorporating the famous

"LeBaron Sweep."  The LeBaron Sweep was a manipulation of the body's visual

focal point.  It basically centered on a flowing mold line which formed

over the cowl and around the top of the doors.  Two-tone paint schemes were

also used to breakup the appearance of body size and accent the LeBaron

Sweep.

    Milton Budlong who operated York Motors, the Lincoln dealership, told

Ray Dietrich, "I can't sell the Model Ls.  They are too conservative up

against the three Ps (Packard, Peerless, and Pierce-Arrow) and the

imports.  I'd like you to build me a sport Phaeton for the New York

Salon."  A custom Lincoln Phaeton was built at the Smith-Springfield body

works in eighteen days.  Milton was delighted, as was Edsel Ford, when he

saw the car.  Raymond Dietrich and Edsel Ford met for the first time in the

fall of 1922 at the 23rd New York Auto Salon.  It was about this time that

Frank deCausse from Locomobile and Roland L. Stickney arrived on the scene

at LeBaron.  R.L. Stickney's watercolor drawings of this periods coach

designs have become collector's items.  Art work by Stickney and Hibbard

appeared in popular magazines of the time like Town & Country, Vanity Fair,

and Country Life.  Thomas Hibbard departed for Paris in March of 1923.  He

eventually started a business there, as he had wanted to years before, with

Howard A. "Dutch" Darrin.  Early Hibbard-Darrin coaches were built at the

Van den Plas facility in Belgium.  Darrin returned to the United States in

1938, and set up a custom shop on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.  After World

War II, his shop built the Kaiser prototype.  Today the shop custom fits

Rolls-Royce bodies for West Coast dealers.

    By 1924, LeBaron had become the most successful new group of designers

in the coach building industry.  LeBaron was now a major supplier of custom

coach working drawings, and Ray Dietrich was personally supervising the

work on many of the projects, traveling from shop to shop, and spending a

great deal of time at Bridgeport, Connecticut.  Bridgeport Body Company

merged with LeBaron after the failure of Locomobile.  The former owners of

Bridgeport built custom station wagons and Packard coach bodies until the

mid-thirties.

    The A.T. Demarest & Company, an old New Haven coachbuilder, moved to

New York in the early 1920s.  They built several different LeBaron designed

bodies for Locomobile and Sportif.  The Clayton Company of New York also

built several custom LeBaron bodies.  Humer-Binder Company who built early

LeBaron bodies, is still in business in New York.  They were the main

service and repair center for early LeBaron coach bodies.

    One of Ray Dietrich's favorite stories was of an attorney who owned a

Renault coachbuilt.  The counselor complained to Ray that the body always

squeaked.  Dietrich had the attorney take the car in to one of the local

coach shops.  Dietrich used an old trick, that of shooting the inner body

with graphite to stop the squeak.  It always worked, at least for awhile. 

Later, during a luncheon, Ray asked the same attorney to look over a

contract he was considering signing as a personal favor.  The attorney did

and later sent Ray a bill for $400 with a note saying that one cannot use a

professional's time for free.  Ray replied with a $500 invoice for the

coach repairs and a similar note.

    By 1925, Edsel Ford was prevailing upon Raymond Dietrich, mostly

through Allen Sheldon the president of Murray Corporation, to open a design

shop in Detroit.  Larry Fisher of General Motors was also after Dietrich. 

Ralph Roberts, now half-owner of LeBaron, was against the move entirely,

but this new challenge was just what Ray was looking for.  Besides, Edsel

had agreed that Dietrich could continue doing independent designs and

consulting.  In Detroit, Ray was set up as the Dietrich Custom Body Company

under Murray Corporation of America.  Before long, Ray wanted to do more

than concept work so Dietrich, Inc. was founded.  During this period, some

of the finest luxury car body designs were created.  The last Raymond

Dietrich Lincoln production design built was a 1934 Model K.

    Dietrich himself lost a personal fortune with the decline of the Salon

Catalogue market.  He was even more vulnerable than most of the

coachbuilders as he had less of customizing trade to fall back on.  He left

the company which he had founded in 1932, and the following year Dietrich,

Inc. was merged into Murray Corporation.  In addition to his friendship

with Edsel Ford, Ray Dietrich also had a friend in Walter P. Chrysler.  Ray

went to work at Chrysler as a design consultant.  Walter warned him,

however, that Chrysler was ruled by iron-willed mechanical engineers and

that all work would be on cars planned for mass production.  Dietrich took

the job anyway and remained until Walter Chrysler, his champion, died in

1940.  The Chrysler LeBaron today is named more in honor of Raymond

Dietrich than for his former company.

    While at Chrysler, Dietrich upgraded the modeling procedures, taught at

the Chrysler Institute of Engineering, and influenced design concepts for

years to come.  In semi-retirement, Dietrich created one last

custom-designed coachbuilt for the Ford family, and designed the 1950

Lincoln White House parade car.  The American motorcar industry was made a

better place because of Raymond H. Dietrich.

    Ralph Roberts ran LeBaron after Dietrich left, but was not well known

for his design talents.  However, Roberts had some very talented people

working under him.  People like R.L. Stickney, Hugo Pfau, and Ray Birge

(the former manager of the Bridgeport facility) were still at LeBaron. 

After Ray set up business in Detroit, Roberts contacted him explaining that

he was having difficulty managing LeBaron as a minority stockholder. 

Dietrich agreed to sell his interest in LeBaron to Roberts.  Edsel Ford had

been pushing LeBaron, Murray, and Briggs for greater Lincoln production

quotas.  The Briggs Manufacturing Company of Detroit had been founded in

1909 by Walter Briggs, a former Ford plant manager.  His company

specialized in high-production, inexpensive closed coach bodies, and had

been a major Ford Motor Company subcontractor for years.  LeBaron had lots

of luxury car experience, but in low production numbers.  Briggs had the

opposite experience, and both wanted Lincoln's business.  It was a shotgun

wedding at best.  Imagine Ray Dietrich's surprise in 1926 when Ford

vice-president, George Walker told him that LeBaron had been purchased by

Briggs for a considerable sum.

    In 1928, Briggs acquired the Phillips Custom Body Company of Warren,

Ohio.  It was an old family owned carriage company that had turned to auto

body building in the early twenties.  Phillips' general manager Ed Carter

became a major asset to the Briggs organization.  Briggs of Detroit should

not be confused with the Briggs Carriage Company of Amesbury,

Massachusetts.  The latter was founded in 1876, and began building

automobile carriages as early as 1908.  They built the early steam

Locomobiles, but ceased auto production altogether in 1920.

    The new LeBaron-Briggs company was called LeBaron-Detroit Company, and

operated under that name until 1941.  The Lincoln Model K bodies by LeBaron

were built at Detroit, and totaled 412 Coupes and 413 Convertible Sedans. 

The body building facilities were purchased, and most of the talent was

absorbed, by Chrysler in 1948 after Walter Briggs' death.  LeBaron, Inc.

maintained a New York office until 1930.  During the mid-thirties, Briggs

became well known for their streamlined Airflow and Zephyr designs.  One of

the last LeBaron-Briggs designs was Alex Tremulis' Chrysler Thunderbolt and

Arrow.  The new president of Chrysler was K.T. Keller.  Like Edsel Ford, he

always tried to encourage talent.  Keller remarked one time that the

Thunderbolt looked like a streamlined Budd train.  It was modern with

straight slab fenders, pre World War II, pre GM future car, and ten years

ahead in styling.

                          LINCOLN COACH BODY TERMS

    The Lincoln Model L and Model K coachbuilts followed the traditional

luxury body styling of the 1920s and 1930s.  The French term "Cabriolet"

originally applied to a collapsible top carriage with doors, usually two. 

Most early motorcar Cabriolet styles had a rag top over the first two-doors

or driver's compartment only.  In later years, the term Cabriolet was used

for several classically styled four-passenger, three-window Convertible

Coupes.  Whether coupe or sedan, a true Cabriolet style is an automobile

which has the ability to open partially over the driver's area, and also to

be fully opened.  The term "all-weather" can mean almost anything, but it

generally applies to the ability of the vehicle to carry its own removable

top.  Many terms are used interchangeably in describing model and body

styles (the glossary in the back of this book will provide some general

definitions).

    There are no precise rules on the use of many of these terms.  For

example, a difference which is generally accepted between a "Roadster" and

"Convertible Coupe" is that the Roadster has sidecurtains and the

Convertible has roll-up windows, although many early Convertibles are

referred to as Roadsters.

    The large rear compartment lids on Coupes and Roadsters usually had an

auxiliary seat called a  "Dicky."  (Dicky or dickey being an early name for

the rumble seat.)  Auxiliary seating is a more general term which might

also refer to the small rear bench seat in a coupe or the foldaway seats in

a limousine.  Another commonly used term was "Victoria," which described a

deluxe two-door sedan.  It later became the proper name for a given body

style like the Convertible Victoria.  An earlier popular name for a single

bench seat coupe was "Doctor's Coupe."

    "Berline" is a style of closed sedan named for the capital of Germany,

but pronounced "burlean."  Use of this term was dropped as America entered

World War II.  Another term for a body style which is often unclear is that

of "Brougham,"  named after Henry P. Brougham, a carriage builder of the

early 1800s, and refers to a closed carriage with an open driver's seat. 

This term is sometimes confused with Herman Brunn, a contemporary

coachbuilder.  Brougham is really a better term than Cabriolet for an open

driver Town Car, but the terms were used interchangeably throughout the

1920s.  Some body styles, like the new Locke Sport Phaeton, were referred

to as four-passenger and five-passenger because of their adjustable,

hideaway, rear seat center armrest.

    A distinctive bar located at the rear of a convertible top or padded

roof is called a "coach bar" or a "landau iron," functional on early model

folding tops for both carriages and automobiles, and were later used as

decorative items on closed sedans and coupes.  The term "closed" in early

model automobiles refers to its not being a Touring or a Roadster.  Later,

however, the term closed also applied to the omitting of the last window in

profile on sedans and limousines.  In window counting, there is a different

rule for coupes than for sedans.  On a coupe, all windows are counted

except the windshield and the wing-windows.  The rear window, the one that

you look through the rear view mirror towards, is counted as one window

even if double.  Thus, a closed coupe might be referred to as a five-window

or three-window coupe.  Sedans, both two-door and four-door styles, use

only the profile windows in counting.  Here again, the forward triangle or

wing-window is not counted.  Thus, sedans are either two-window or

three-window.  The two-window style affords more privacy for the rear

passengers, and was sometimes referred to as a closed sedan or limousine. 

It is perfectly workable to use the same window count method for sedans as

coupes.  In doing so, a two-window sedan would be a five-window and a

three-window sedan would be a seven-window.  Anything less would by default

have to be a sedan delivery or a hearse.

    Doors on most four-door sedans and Tourings are positioned adjacent to

one another.  The exception to this is on a Dual-Cowl Phaeton, where a

center section or second cowl separates the side doors.  Doors on coupes

were either forward (front) opening or modern standard (rear) opening. 

Doors on sedans are either of the front-rear, rear-front or rear-rear

opening arrangements.  The rear-front was very popular on Town Cars due to

the ease by which the chauffeur might open the rear door for his

passengers.  Lincoln was the last of the sedan builders to depart from this

arrangement, but did so finally in the late sixties.  Front-opening doors

were nicknamed "suicide doors."  Hugo Pfau wrote that in all his years at

LeBaron, he had never heard of an accident involving such doors in spite of

their reputation.  The front-opening doors were popular in early years as

they were particularly useful if one had to crank start or adjust something

in the engine, then run and jump in.  The rear-rear door arrangement was

finally adopted for safety in modern family sedans.  When unlatched, the

airstream aids in holding the door shut on the rear opening arrangement.

    The terms Model, Style, Series, and Type are often used

interchangeably.  Most of this nonstandard terminology arose from the

methods used by various coachbuilders and from Lincoln's own catalogues. 

In referring to the Lincoln make in general, the term "Model" applies to a

specific design and not a year, i.e., Model K or Model L.  The term "Style"

refers to body styling, i.e., Roadster or Touring.  A "Type" number is that

particular number within a Series assigned to a given body design. 

"Series" refers to the year in which a group of Styles were built, i.e.,

Series 201 indicates body Types 202 thru 221 for 1931.  The term Series can

be used interchangeably with "Model Year," and was also used to refer to a

given year's bare chassis beginning with Model K production.  The Series

231 began the 1932 Model KB, the Series 501 began the 1932 Model KA, and so

on.  Prior to that, the Model L had only two chassis Types, the 122 and the

150B.  The Model H could not be separated from its chassis so a year code

was devised.

                         EARLY LINCOLN ADVERTISING

    The best word to explain early Lincoln advertising is "institutional." 

Under Leland, advertising promoted quality and reputation.  The first

graphics of a Coupe and Touring were done rather crudely in pen and ink. 

Ford's advertising moved toward what might be called stately advertising. 

The Model L was pictured in front of various monuments and government

structures.  These pen and ink drawings improved in quality, and by 1922

some were also appearing with pastel watercolor tints.  There is an old

advertising idiom which says that if you repeat something often enough

people may start to believe you.  "Beauty That Lives," the Lincoln ads

repeated.  Very early Lincoln ads stopped short of being depressing, but

they were a little drab.

    By late 1925, Lincoln discontinued the stately advertising approach and

went in for society themes like a day at the hunt, the dog show, on the

golf course, or a night at the opera.  The same ads were often printed in

pastels as well as in black and white.  Their focal point was always an

austere and tasteful artist's rendering of a particular Lincoln body

style.  Above the pictured scene, a decorative oval or block bore an

inscription relating some kind words about the particular automobile in the

drawing.  Generally, at the top of the ad in large standard typeset was the

word LINCOLN, and bore the signature line Lincoln Motor Company Division of

Ford Motor Company.  Through 1925, Lincoln used the letter L in an octagon

seal as its logo.  Advertising also appeared in foreign magazines like the

French L'Illustration which promoted the style and grace of the improved

Model L.  The word Lincoln had a greyhound dashing through the center of

the logo in the foreign ads, and in some domestic ads of the late 1920s.

    Advertising in popular magazines for 1929 began using actual

photographs of Lincoln body styles in natural settings.  These photos were

of excellent clarity.  During the 1930 model year, a switch was made back

to artist's drawings which were now very detailed and included intricate

background scenes.  The people in the scenes were almost cartoon-like, but

the drawings represented restraint and good artistic taste.  Many of the

latter were drawn by James Williamson, and appeared in the Saturday Evening

Post.  The coachbuilders themselves, on occasion, ran separate advertising

of notably different layout.  The coachbuilders, however, mainly confined

their promotions to brochures and prospectus to be given away at salons and

showrooms.

                             THE LINCOLN SALONS

    The Salon of choice for prestige coachbuilders was New York City. 

During this era New York, not Detroit, was the auto capital.  These New

York Auto Salons were the custom coachbuilder's showrooms.  The first was

held in 1905, and was a competitor to the New York Auto Show founded a few

years earlier.  The New York Salon was held in the fall, usually in October

in the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Commodore.  In addition, special salons

at the Astor Hotel were held by various manufacturers.  Seven years after

the New York Auto Show's beginning, an American car was finally admitted

for exhibit.  Bodies on American chassis by established coachbuilders were

admitted if they were $3,000 or higher in price, and until its conclusion

in 1931, European chassis dominated.  The New York Auto Show which was

mostly imports is often confused with the New York Auto Salon which was

mostly American coachbuilts.

    By the late 1920s, a Chicago Salon at the Drake Hotel was added in

January.  A few years later, a Los Angeles Salon was begun in February at

the Biltmore Hotel and, still later, at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco

the following month.  The New York Salon was by invitation only, but the

western Salons were generally open to the public.  These exclusive Salons

were different from the Automobile Show, which was open to the public.  In

New York City, the public shows were held at Madison Square Garden.  In Los

Angeles, they were held in circus tents.  They were open to all

manufacturers, and were more for the ready-builts than the custom coach

designs.  (In fact, these early public shows were not much different from

the auto shows conducted today at municipal auditoriums and state fairs.)

    At the New York Auto Salon, a typical program would list four groups of

exhibitors:  "Exhibiting; Exhibited by Coachmaker; Coachwork Exhibits; and

Accessory Exhibits."  Lincolns were shown in the Exhibited by Coachmaker

group.  Automobiles shipped by rail could be brought into the Commodore

Hotel via an elevated railway running from Grand Central Station to the

hotel.  Other cars were trucked in.  Many coachbuilders like LeBaron would

build a special custom show car each year for the event.  On occasion,

identical designs and color schemes would show up.  (Admittedly, this was

as embarrassing a situation as two ladies wearing identical designer gowns

to the same formal ball.)  Due to concern for the expensive oriental

carpeting and the city fire codes, the gas and oil had to be removed from

all the show cars.  On a good show year, cars would overflow into the lobby

and onto the terrace outside the hotel's Grill Room.  Most of the coach

bodies displayed were Town Cars and Limousines because, after all, this was

the Carriage Trade.

    At the 1925 Salon, LeBaron displayed their design number 1331, which

later became the Lincoln Type 155.  As a forerunner to the tropical bird

advertising theme, this Sport Cabriolet had a rather gaudy decor.  It was

painted Paroquet Green with a black top and reddish-brown pinstriping. 

Holbrook displayed their Lincoln Cabriolet, and Dietrich's entry was a

Convertible Sedan.  This was Dietrich's first show separate from LeBaron. 

Brunn presented a pair of Lincolns, a Town Car and a Sports Sedan.  In all,

six different Lincoln body styles were on display.

    In the 1927 Lincoln Salon Catalogue, one finds the Renaissance

Semi-Collapsible Cabriolet by Brunn.  The driver is in the open but has a

large side windows in place which are independent of the chauffeur's top. 

The passenger compartment is closed, with a padded roof and decorative

coach bars.  Variations on this body style were the Eighteenth Century

All-Weather Convertible by LeBaron, and the Colonial Semi-Collapsible

Cabriolet by Willoughby.  The latter had a bellflower pattern woven

broadcloth interior.  All had dual sidemounted spare tires.  Their paint

schemes and lower headlight mountings gave them the illusion of having an

extra long hood and lowered cowl.

    The Custom Salon Catalogue business in the mid twenties was in full

bloom.  In fact, these publications were so artistically done that most are

sought after collector's items.  The 1927 full-color Lincoln Salon

Catalogue illustrated a LeBaron five-window, four-passenger Coupe in an

oriental motif with gold, ebony, and red trim.  There was also a Judkins

closed Sedan Berline with landau bars called the Egyptian.  Its upholstery

was done in lotus blossoms and papyrus pattern.  The triangle windows

located either side of the windshield were retained from an earlier body

style.  The Dietrich Convertible Club Roadster was finished in a ribbed

broadcloth.  The Willoughby seven-passenger Limousine appeared as the

Gothic style, and was rather plain except for an odd windshield design with

hand-carved interior window arch garnitures.  The Georgian Landau Limousine

by Locke was much like the Judkins Berline, except that it was a

three-window sedan.  The Empire Cabriolet two-window sedan by Holbrook was

totally devoid of any streamlining.  The most modern offering of this 1927

Salon Catalogue collection was Dietrich's Dual-Cowl Sport Phaeton.  A

boat-tailed open Touring, it was equipped with a rear-seat passenger

compartment windshield and dual sidemounts.  The exterior was BRG with dark

orange wires, and accent pinstriping just below the coach sill.  The

interior was two-tone green handcrafted leather with orange piping.

    In 1927, both Locke and Judkins, built carriage replicas.  Locke's

offering was the Louis XIV French Brougham.  The Coaching Brougham offered

by the John Judkins Company was designed by their chief engineer, and

closely resembled a European stagecoach.  Much research had been done for

this design at the carriage-building facility of Abbot and Downing in

Concord, New Hampshire, and it survives as a unique example of the

coachbuilder's art.  The Coaching Brougham was sold to Miss Ethel Jackson

in Hollywood (it may have been too gaudy to sell elsewhere).  On one

occasion, it was used to promote a W.C. Fields movie.  In the 1960s,

Macmillian Company used it as a publicity device for the television show

"The Beverly Hillbillies."  The Coaching Brougham was painted traditional

English coach colors of yellow and black with red accent striping.  The

interior was dark green Moroccan leather with plush red trim like the early

Concord coaches.  This car went to Tokyo, Japan, on tour with the Harrahs

Collection in 1971.

    The 1928 Salon Catalogue promoted designs like the Cabriolet Brougham

by Brunn with phrases such as, "The rear compartment offers drawing room

comfort with two occasional seats.  A trunk rack is provided for those who

prefer this type of body for touring."  The Locke Sport Touring boasted,

"Yacht-like length and beauty."  The Sport Roadster pitched, "Large luggage

compartment with a curb-side access door."

    The New York Salon often failed to draw good western attendance.  Thus,

the Chicago Salon followed the New York Salon, with only a week between the

Chicago and Los Angeles Salons.  The show automobiles were placed on

railway cars which were attached to the regular express passenger trains. 

Beginning with the 25th New York Salon, the Chicago Salon proceeded it.  At

the 29th New York Salon, Lincolns were represented in every major corner of

the Grand and West Ballrooms.  On display were two Brunn Town Cars, a

Derham Convertible Phaeton, a Convertible Coupe, a Sedan by Dietrich, a

Berline and Coupe by Judkins, a LeBaron Roadster and Town Car, a Panel

Brougham and Limousine, a Landaulet by Willoughby, and a Locke Roadster. 

About the same numbers of Packards, Pierce-Arrows, and Cadillacs were on

display.

    In 1929, the Chicago Salon preceded the New York Auto Show by almost a

month.  Many manufacturers of luxury cars took advantage of this earlier

opportunity to introduce their new designs.  As these Salons were by

invitation only, dignitaries including Henry and Edsel Ford often

attended.  Famous designers such as Amos Northrup of Murray and Walter

Briggs also came.  Security was provided by the same Pinkerton men who

manned the gates at the Belmont Park club house during racing season.  Many

Detroit designers and other automotive notables received invitations from

more than one host company, and so were able to bring along staff members. 

The Chicago Salon became a place for the exchange of innovative engineering

and body design ideas.  Custom firms, however, could not keep pace with the

new and less expensive production techniques of the mass manufacturers. 

The 27th New York Auto Salon held in 1931 was to be the last.

    The standing joke among coachbuilders was that if you designed and

built something too wild for Yankee conservatism, you could take it to

Hollywood to sell.  They found that Beverly Hills celebrities, starlets,

and promoters would buy anything flashy.  Thus, the Los Angeles Auto Shows

were always popular and generally successful.  None, however, had quite as

spectacular a finish as the 1929 show.  The many tents which shaded the

cars caught fire, and hundreds of show cars from Fords to Duesenbergs were

incinerated.

    During the 1920s and 1930s, the railroads were the land cruisers, the

caravan hotels of Pullman sleepers with dining cars and lounges.  They were

the links between major cities and resorts.  The well-to-do even shipped

their motorcars by express railways on trains with romantic names like

Overland, Dixie Flyer, Empire State, Santa Fe Chief, and the Crescent

Limited.  Men who debated Lincoln versus Packard also debated the New York

Central versus the Baltimore & Ohio.  Ocean cruisers no longer placed

passengers at peril on the sea.  Trains no longer passed through hostile

savage territory.  Risk had given way to luxury.  For the coachbuilt

motorcar, this was the age of opulence.

 

from http://www.storydomain.com/lincoln/lbch4.htm