Peerless -- Towards the End

Peerless automobiles (1900-1931) were recognized as one of America's "Three-Ps" luxury brands -- along with Packard and Pierce-Arrow -- during the early decades of the 20th century.  The company's Wikipedia entry is here, and there isn't much else a little Google searching turned up.   My personal reference library has little regarding Peerless because my focus is on cars from around 1930 onwards, the era of professional automobile styling.

What this means is that I won't very informative in this post.

I previously wrote about Peerless here, dealing with its 16 cylinder prototype styled by Frank Hershey.

What I find puzzling is that the cars in images of late-1920s Peerlesses I found on the Internet didn't strike me as being luxury cars.  Admittedly, this was a very small sample, but cars with impressively long hoods were virtually absent.  Moreover, many of those Peerless cars had six-cylinder motors: eight cylinders and more would be expected for an expensive car in those days.

That said, below are some images of Peerless automobiles made during the last few years the company built cars.

Gallery

1927c Peerless Six-90 Sedan photographed for a San Francisco newspaper.  Six-cylinder versions had stubby hoods.

1928 Peerless Victoria Opera Coupe, auction promotion photo.  This too seems to be a six.

1929 Peerless Six-81 Sedan - for sale photo.  Yet another visually unimpressive car with typical late 1920s body design.

1929 Peerless Six-61 Roadster - Owls Head auction photo.

Same car, side view.  Sporty, yet otherwise undistinguished appearance.

These two 1930 model year advertisements announce a new direction for Peerless.  Perhaps the V-16 prototype was one result of this failed initiative.  In any case, the cars pictured here seem like actual luxury models.  The car shown in the first ad appears to have a metal top, not the normal canvas insert  covering typical of the times.  Yet all-metal tops did not become common until later in the 1930s, so I wonder what sort of top the pictured car had.

An eight-cylinder 1930 Peerless sedan.  More impressive than the Sixes shown above, but still of the 1920s pre-styling age body design practice.

1931 Peerless Master Eight DeLuxe Sedan.  I can believe this was a luxury car by its proportions.

Wikimedia Commons image of a 1931 Peerless.