1930 American Luxury Sedans

Styling departments had only recently begun to appear in the USA by the 1930 model year.  Most high-priced cars having factory-built or contract body-builder bodies were not professionally designed.  General Motors had a styling section and Chrysler Corporation was setting one up around that time.  Otherwise, "factory" bodies were usually designed by engineers, though some carmakers might have made use of custom body designers to make suggestions or even do some actual design work.

The present post presents some non-custom-bodied sedans from that essentially pre-styling model year.  Car bodies were typically wood-framed with metal or sometimes fabric cladding.  How appealing are they?

Gallery

1930 Cadillac V-16 - Hyman Ltd. photo
The body seems to be by Fleetwood, a captive supplier.  Fisher-bodied V-16 sedans were similar, but had hood louvers rather than doors.

1930 Chrysler Imperial Seven-Passenger Sedan
"Styled" Imperials arrived the next model year.

1930 Lincoln L Series Sedan - for-sale photo
This was the final model year for that series, so the design is less up-to-date than some others seen here.

1930 Packard 740 Custom Eight Five-Passenger Sedan
At that time, Packard was regarded as the premier American luxury carmaker.

1930 Pierce-Arrow Model A Seven-Passenger Sedan - for sale photo
Most Pierce-Arrows featured distinctive (and ugly) fender-mounted headlights.

1930 Peerless
I'm not sure if this is a sedan or a limousine.  Alexis de Sakhnoffsky might have contributed to the design.

1930 Marmon Big Eight Five-Passenger Sedan - via Marmon Club: owner's photo
The rounded top and window outlines suggest a designer's touch.

Another Murphy Doors-Into-the-Roof Design

The Walter M. Murphy Company of Pasadena, California was an important West Coast coachbuilding firm from 1920 to 1932.  Murphy specialized in luxury cars such as Duesenberg for a clientele that included many in the Hollywood set.

In its final years, personnel included important stylists such as Frank Spring (who later led Hudson styling), Phil Wright (who designed the futuristic-at-the-time 1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow), and Frank Hershey (background here and here) who later designed such cars as the 1955 Ford Thunderbird.

An important Murphy product designed by Hershey was the 1931 prototype Peerless V-16 that I wrote about here.  Its most distinctive feature was doors that extended into the roof.

I thought that was unique until I came across a photo of a Cord L-29 with similar doors.

Gallery

1931 Peerless V-16 by Murphy
The V-16 had clean, somewhat rounded styling that was slightly ahead of its time.

In those days roofs tended to be flat and thin, unlike the rounded top shown here.

The door cutlines are difficult to see in these old photos.

But all is revealed in this image of the car with opened doors.

Cord L-29 Sport Sedan by Murphy
Here is the circa-1931 Cord L-29 with similar doors whose cutlines are barely visible.  Hershey is credited with this design.

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.

Peerless Sixteen: Frank Hershey's First Big Project

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.