The Rapid Evolution Of American Cars, Part 3 of 4: 1920-1930

The first few decades in the U.S. automobile market were an amazing time of rapid technical and styling advancement. In my last article, we looked at cars through 1919. Today, we’ll look at the Twenties: A time when the basic form of cars had been established and the many firms in business competed fiercely to find unique ways to inspire buyers to choose them.

I was able to be in Arizona in January and catch the Barret-Jackson and RMSotheby’s auctions. The RMS event had an unusually large number of these cars, more than I’ve probably really looked at in one place before. When I first started attending the B-J Scottsdale auction in the early 90s, their car make-up was a lot different than today. Many of their most expensive lots were Full Classics (generally luxury cars from the 1920s-40s, but there is a strict definition) and they had many dozens of them, plus there were other auctions that specialized in those.

Of course, all that was mostly lost on me back then and though I laid eyes on many, I never really looked at them with any keen interest. I was much more interested in post-war cars. I didn’t have a lot of bandwidth for cars that I’d rarely ever seen on the street or even at most local car shows. These days, I’m much more open to different eras and cars I haven’t historically studied as much. Now that I’m more interested in Full Classic era cars, times have changed and they aren’t so readily found at the big auctions. This year B-J had less than a dozen, and they were far from their most expensive lots. But RMS was selling a private collection (see Part 1 for the story) that had over 30 excellent cars from 1903-1939.

With so many specimens from that early time, looked at chronologically, one could clearly see rapid evolution at work. Many deceased marques are represented, some of which I’d never even heard of. As we look at this progression of magnificent cars, you can click on the link to the auction website for more info and higher-quality pictures.

 

1921 Wills Sainte Claire A-68 Touring ($128k). In the freewheeling early days of cars, there were few barriers to starting a car company if you had the money and will. Many did. Childe Wills (great name!) was an early, prominent Ford engineer who departed the company with stock and had a passion to sell the finest cars he could design, cost as no object. He sold the first one in 1921, and this auction car is the second oldest known survivor. A real engineer’s car, it was made with as few compromises as possible. Its price was in line with the top luxury makes, though not as large or extravagant-looking.

The engine is a 265c.i. overhead cam V8 making 67hp, though a straight six OHC was later also available. The car was made with extensive use of molybdenum steel and aluminum, had dual exhausts, and the first automatic reverse lights among other groundbreaking features. Sadly, Wills had a lot more engineering sense than business sense, managing to go out of business in 1927, even before the Depression that took many other early makes. Only about 80 survive out of 12k made, so it’s a big deal amongst fans of the marque when one comes to auction.

Jay Leno’s Garage did an episode on his 1922 Wills St. Claire.

1921 Mercer Series 5 Sporting ($50k). Mercer is another example of a company making high-quality cars that didn’t survive the early hyper-competitive market. They are best known for their 1911+ Raceabout, one of the earliest sports cars/race cars (not much distinction between the two at that point), but also sold tourers. All their cars were considered “sporty”, which you can see in the relatively low-slung proportions, raked windshield, and even in the name of the model.

Power is from a 298c.i. (4.9L) L-head four making aprox. 80hp, which is quite good power for the time. Also known as handlers, Mercer was one of the first to use dampers (shocks). Though the Mercers were one of the best performing cars of the period, they only ever sold about 5,000 vehicles before their end in 1924.

1922 Cunningham V-4 Town Limousine ($52k). The front of this car looks like a drum kit (which, as a drummer, I love!). Yet another car I hadn’t heard of, Cunningham was one of the most expensive of its day. The model name is misleading, because the engine is not a V-4, but a 442c.i. V8, one of the earliest in the market in 1916. In 1922, it made an impressive 90hp but this was a heavy luxury car, not a performer like the Mercer above.

Cunningham sold their overbuilt, hand-made cars until 1931, when that became untenable due to the Depression. They did continue making bodies for other cars until 1936 and also branched into airplanes through the 40s.

Not surprisingly, Jay Leno also has a Cunningham which got an episode. 

The original definition of brougham, one of our favorite words here at CC, was a car which had an enclosed body for the passengers and an open body for the driver. This was the default arrangement in horse drawn days, and in the early motor age many wealthy buyers carried this norm over to their chauffeur-driven automobiles. The irrationality (or even cruelty) of this practice became more obvious by the 30’s, when enclosed driver compartments were increasingly common in chauffeured cars. 

1923 Jewett Model 18-22 Special Touring ($17k). While the mechanical and stylistic traits of automobiles were becoming well-established and standardized in the 20’s, the cast of players was still roiling. Paige had been building luxury cars since 1908 and decided to develop a less-expensive companion make, which became the six-cylinder Jewett of 1922-26. They sold over 100k cars, but the parent company was struggling and sold to Graham in 1927. Their cars briefly became Graham-Paiges, then just Grahams. Graham car production faltered in 1940, but the company stayed alive with war materiel production. After the war, it became Frazer, part of Kaiser-Frazer, then Kaiser bought Willys eventually becoming Kaiser-Jeep, then sold to AMC, then sold to Chrysler, etc, etc. Long story short, the company still sort of exists but the Jewett is long forgotten.

1927 Cadillac V8 Sport Phaeton ($91k). Part 1 and 2 featured 1907 and 1917 Cadillacs, the contrast nicely showing how much cars had progressed in those ten years. Ten more years sees a Caddy with roughly similar shape to 1917 but obviously much more developed and refined. The engine was basically the same 314c.i. (5.1L) V8 introduced for 1915 (1927 was its last year), but now with a 90° crossplane crankshaft for increased smoothness. Horsepower was up 13.5 to 83.5. This was a really sharp car in black with red interior and red inset on the doors!

The dual-cowl phaeton, as seen on the 27 Caddy, is a body style that evolved into existence in the mid-20’s, then out of existence within ten years. A phaeton generally is a two-row open car with a folding top and no side windows. This is pretty much the same definition as a touring car, except the touring has jump seats and is listed for more passengers. The dual-cowl developed to give the rear passengers a less wind-tossed and more pleasant experience. It fell out of favor as buyers preferred true convertible tops with roll-up side windows and those really concerned with wind bought enclosed cars. 

1929 Packard 640 Custom Eight Phaeton ($64k). Packard was the most successful independent luxury make in the early U.S. market. They had a perplexing number of models, known well only to real Packard fans. Starting in 1899, Packard progressed from one-cylinder engines, to four, to six. Cadillac had success with the first mass market V-8 in 1915 and Packard soon came out with a V-12. For 1924 they decided the better course was an Eight, but theirs was a straight eight, the first to be manufactured in really large numbers.

The 385c.i. looks pretty good for an L-head, and while its 105hp is not quite class-leading, it was more than Cadillac. The straight eight design had legendary smoothness and quiet. Rush and hush.

1930 Packard 740 Custom Eight Sport Phaeton ($114k). Here’s another pretty example, but more flashy with chrome (or was it still nickel?) wheels and dual cowls. There were a huge number of styles, options, and colors available to luxury buyers, who had every expectation of never encountering another car exactly like theirs.

1930 Cadillac V-16 All-Weather Phaeton ($235k). With improving gasoline, increasing compression ratios, and well-funded engineering departments, competition at the top of the market was fierce, creating something of a Cylinder War. Cadillac kept their V-8, but added a V-12 and a V-16 for 1930.

This is a good looking engine! The 452c.i. V-16 made 165hp, second only to Duesenberg.  As I said, I never used to be a Full Classic aficionado but I was aware of the Cadillac V-16 from early on and have always considered it one of the most lovely and amazing cars.

In what may be an early practice of name debasement, Cadillac coined the self-contradicting term All Weather Phaeton to describe their convertible sedan. It does have a nice ring to it.

Most luxury cars in the early market had their bodies constructed by an outside coachbuilder, so monied customers had a tremendous number of options to make their cars unique. Dozens of firms offered bodies for Packards, Cadillacs, Duesenbergs, etc. though a handful were dominant. In 1930 Cadillac cataloged 33 different bodies from their in-house Fisher and Fleetwood coachbuilders, not counting what you could get from third party firms. In-house body making became more normalized during the 30’s, and completely took over by WWII. 

Come back next week for the conclusion in Part 4, where we will see some of the most beautiful cars yet.