(first posted 11/5/2018) The name “Suburban” has of course been appropriated by Chevrolet, but it used to be used generically. Plymouth used it for their station wagons for decades. But this is almost certainly the first use of the term, and a somewhat cryptic one. Just what distinguished this 1907 Pierce-Arrow Suburban from the Town Car version (below) is subtle at best, other than an extra side window, and perhaps a flat roof instead of a rounded one. And the target buyer: “American men to be driven over American roads…” Is there something subtly masculine about it I’m not quite picking up on?
Here’s the P-A Town Car, from 1905. And applying my handy little ruler to it, I can confirm what my eye was already seeing: the Suburban body is a bit longer. I suspect it may very likely have a couple of jump seats or such to accommodate more of those American men, whereas the Town car was for taking Sir and Madam out…on the town.
I stumble into this doing some research for an article coming soon, and this confirms that in the early days of the enclosed automobile, terms and definitions hadn’t yet quite gelled.
I agree with your take – the two smaller rear quarter windows of the Suburban cover a larger area than the single rear quarter window of the Town Car.
A Suburban and a Town Car – two vehicles found in many, many American driveways one hundred years later. 🙂
Interesting article.There was another Suburban car built in 1911-1912. Here’s the shady story behind it.
When I lived in New York (admittedly 30+ years ago) titles and registrations had a “Body Style” designation listed on them. The designation for station wagons was “SUBN” which was an abbreviated version of “suburban”.
I don’t know if that’s still the case, but at least in NY in the 80s, “suburban” was a generic term for all station wagons.
My folks 1995 Plymouth Voyager was classified as a Ply Subn throughout its life by New York according to the windshield registration.
Also from 1926 through the late 1950’s, New York issued a specific SUBURBAN license plate for station wagons/suburbans.
Those pre-1910 Pierce-Arrows were gigantic automobiles. I was acquainted with a collector of them who restored a 1908 Great Arrow touring car, then drove it from Seattle to the Pierce-Arrow club national meet in Buffalo, NY and back.
Another fun fact: New York only has a five letter field for the automobile make. At one time I owned a MO/MO – any guesses as to what that was?
Morris Minor?
Morgan?
49-54 Morris Oxford .
I guess I never answered the question – it was a Moto Morini motorcycle.
I answered that correctly several weeks ago in another thread. I almost bought out a Moto Morini dealer in Vermont about 20 yrs ago, but didn’t.. dumb. It included 3 running V-twins, Shoulda coulda woulda.
As to why the Pierce was like American men: it’s big, in your face, and has a bulging arse…
Contrary to popular belief, the suburbs of US were not “invented in the 1950’s”. As this 1907 car ad shows.
What changed was the nature of suburban communities.
Prior to World War II, Philadelphia’s Main Line suburbs, for example, were largely where the well-to-do lived. Working-class people lived in rowhouses or apartment buildings located near factories. They thus didn’t have to spend much, if any, money on street car or railway fares to get to and from work.
Suburbanites could afford this, and could also afford to live in homes surrounded by nice, green lawns (at least in Pennsylvania, where there is enough rainfall to maintain a green lawn). Their homes were also located away from factories that belched smoke into the air all day.
This may also be an early instance of creating a new model / larger car by simply increasing rear overhang.
The Great Arrow Suburban was an expensive vehicle:
25-32 HP = $135,000 today
40-45 HP = $168,000 today
So basically twice as expensive as a 2018 Chevy Suburban and maybe 50% more than the Escalade.
You beat me to it while I was running the numbers, but what amazes me is the $33,569.02 premium (in 2018 dollars) for an increase of only 12 – 13 horsepower.
Of course that represents a boost of roughly 42%, which is probably like a BMW M5 vs a normal 5 series, or in the Lexus world, an F-Sport vs a lower level model of the same car, so that’s probably just about right.
These “horsepower” ratings have nothing to do with the actual power produced by the engines. The ratings were based on an arbitrary formula used by both Britain and the USA for tax or licensing purposes. These ratings fell out of favor over time, though Britain used them until 1947 to calculate road taxes. The actual power of the engines could be far different.
But that was not the case in the US. Actual brake hp was the norm, as cars weren’t taxed on their displacement. The two numbers may well have been something like a peak/continuous rating.
Not true. The British formula was used for the American cars as well.
And this is from a 1926 Elcar catalog.
Quite right you are!
I don’t think “American men” was intended to convey masculinity; rather, it hails from an era when women were treated (at least in the eyes of the law) largely as property of men, with no right to vote (that was still 14 years in the future in 1905) or to work in many jobs amongst many other things. “Men” in the context of this ad meant “people” as was common at the time, much as Packard’s “ask the man who owns one” wasn’t intended to mean women shouldn’t own Packards or that they were distinctly masculine cars.
GM was keeping a close eye on Plymouth’s non-use of the Suburban moniker after 1977. When ten years (or whatever the legal requirement was) passed without anyone else calling their vehicle by that name, GM filed for a trademark on “Suburban”. I doubt if it were a newly launched SUV today rather than a model that dates back to 1933 they’d call it “Suburban”, yet it’s the most aptly named SUV on the market, far more so than those that imply outdoors adventure.
I had read somewhere that an uneasy coexistence had involved Plymouth using Suburban on passenger cars and Chevy using Suburban on trucks. I would suspect that once Plymouth quit using the term Chevrolet planted its flag on that turf.
The thing that struck me — why is the horsepower given as a range rather than an exact number? Was there that much variation between individual engines back then?
Could be. Plus, the quality of gasoline varied widely in those days. Perhaps that would have affected the available horsepower, too?
Pretty sure those were real HP. A technical book from that era gives fine details of various cars including a similar Pierce touring car, and it’s described as 15 BHP. I don’t think they’d use BHP for taxable horsepower or ‘chevaux’.
Actually, it is Chevaux Vapeur or “steam horse”. Think of it this way, the 2CV from Citroen had 29 horsepower, but was taxed under the French system as 2 Steam Horsepower. It’s truly apples and oranges.
Actually the early 2CV with the 425cc or 435cc engines were 2CV but the later 602cc (29hp) were actually taxed as 3CV, but the name was so well established they never changed it.
If I were to “collect” classic cars, I do think I’d concentrate on the Brass Era. Some were veritable works of art, but they were art following function. GM and Harley Earl’s “Art and Color Section” didn’t come about for almost a decade after this era. It seems some of these cars of the Brass Era are quite affordable, considering their age and rarity. But, I suppose that owes to the lack of demand, seeing as a lot of the people who grew up with these cars, thus having a personal connection to them, are long gone.
One internet-based inflation calculator goes as far back as 1913, but not 1907.
$6,250 in 1913 is listed as the equivalent of $160,994.26 in 2018.
And so, this fine 45 HP “Pierce Great Arrow” Suburban was surely a wonderful vehicle for 1907’s one-percenters.
Meantime, my grandmother was ducking Russian pogroms & living the life of Fiddler On The Roof, before reaching Ellis Island.
And so it goes. Woulda been a nice car in which to flee those Ruskies.
DEFINITELY MASCULINE!
No female was going to be able to turn over that engine with a crank! Probably a lot of MEN had trouble getting it started as well.
Think of that monster on an ice-cold morning!
One certainly employed a chauffeur for doing such things.