For most of the first 30 years of the 20th century,
Peerless was ranked among America's leading luxury automobile brands.
When the Great Depression of the 1930s struck, Peerless was considering adding a V-16 motor to its lineup in light of Cadillac's V-16 introduced in 1930 and the 1931 V-16 Marmon, along with forthcoming 1932 V-12 powered cars by Packard, Pierce-Arrow, Lincoln, Franklin and Auburn (Cadillac introduced a V-12 late in 1930).
Peerless created a few engineering prototypes, but only one styling prototype. That was built in 1931 by the
Murphy coachbuilding firm of Pasadena, California. The stylist was young
Frank Hershey who soon became an important stylist at several Detroit car makers including General Motors and Ford. Hershey prepared design proposals for a range of body styles, but only the prototype of a prospective 1932 V-12 four-door sedan was built.
It was about then that Peerless management decided to phase out its automobile business and move on to other fields that included brewing Carling beer.
Gallery
1931 Peerless Master Eight DeLuxe sedan -- what the company was building while the V-16 project was underway.
1931 Peerless V-16 by Murphy -- Murphy photos. Hershey's design was essentially a cleaned-up, more rakish version of the 1931 American styling norm.
One distinctive feature was doors who tops curved into the car's roof. Presumably the idea was that due to the low body, passengers could enter more easily without knocking off their hats.
Thanks to the long motor, the prototype had a long hood. The windshield is slightly raked back and the hood line remains flat all the way to the windshield's base. Production 1931 Peerless cars had a curved cowling that served as transition between the hood and windshield, as can be seen in the first photo.
This rear quarter view emphasizes the roof that's more rounded than the early 1930s norm. All things considered, the prototype is an improvement on existing themes, but probably not too radical to frighten prospective affluent buyers.
For further context, here is a 1932 Cadillac V16 452B Fleetwood Imperial Limousine in an auction photo. This would have been the Peerless Sixteen's competition had it entered production. The Peerless was a nicer design.
3 comments:
Thank you,Mr. Pittenger, for your comments about Peerless. Have you seen the design studies for the other bodies Frank Hershey penned for the V-16 Chassis? Imagine the Coupe showing up at the 1932 N.Y. Auto Salon.
The article did a workmanlike job of writing about Peerless................but has a number of errors.
1. To wit, a discussion of luxury cars needs to cover Peerless as an axiom(you know, pre-Cadillac, pre-Rolls-Royce, pre-Pierce, 1 of the 3Ps of prestige)
2. A glance at the models offered by Peerless changes from year to year, but the mid-luxury 289 Cu. In. models with the Collins engine 1924-1929(Models 6-70, 6-90, 6-72) deserve mention[priced as high as $3,295]{It WAS nice to see a photo of a 1927 Model Six-90, an experiment to see if people would buy a shortened version of a $2,395 6-72 to save $500}; as well as the V-8 models, 1916-1928[prices as high as $4,195]. Your romp through Peerless photographs is better than most, but I see no V-8 Peerlesses at all(Models 56, 66, 8-69) in text or pictures.
3. After the Peerless "V-Type Eights", Peerless' most expensive models were straight-eights, beginning in 1929. Illustration #8(captioned: "An eight-cylinder 1930 Peerless Sedan.") is actually a 1929 Peerless Model 8-125 with a 114-HP inline eight[$2,195 130" w.b. Roadster, $2,395 138" w.b. Limousine]. As you may know -- that's more HP than the entire GM line for 1929.
4. The mention of a possible all-steel roof on illustration #6 supposes it's an actual car. Those 2 photos are convincing, but are of scale models completed for ad purposes before Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky's designs were executed in full scale by the coachbuilders. Peerless had at least 50, you know.
In 1930, Peerless announced an all-straight-8 policy w/ the new Standard/Master/Custom, but 2 of their 4 models for 1929 were such big sellers, they built 1930 continuation models of the 6-61 and 6-81, their lowest priced sixes. Your article included photos of both. You said you follow post-1930 autos more than pre-1930. The price of these two sixes was still more than a '36 Buick Century or Packard 120, models you see more of and in no way cheap cars for their time.
Good day....and I hope this will fill in the blanks a little for readers who are less likely than us to know what a Peerless is or that the Peerless company:
a) was founded in 1865
b) sold $300,000,000 worth of cars
Jefferson Brown author of Comment No. 2
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