A pair of stately Pierce-Arrows

 

 

 

In the early part of the twentieth century, the Pierce-Arrow was one of America’s outstanding automobiles built in Buffalo New York. Beginning in 1901, the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company built an expensive line of autos that stressed style, grace, quality and durability which appealed to the upper classes of society.

 

Pierce-Arrow owners included President William Howard Taft, his successor Woodrow Wilson; actors Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, beer mogul Adolphus Busch, aviation pioneer Orville Wright, and baseball legend George Herman “Babe” Ruth as well as multiple members of the Rockefeller and Carnegie families.

 

 

Since 1914 the styling hallmark of Pierce-Arrow was the distinctive headlights molded in the front fenders which gave the car the appearance of a wider stance. Pierce patented this placement by designer Herbert M. Dawley with patent number 1096802, although the company also offered the customer the option of conventional headlamps. Another hallmark was Pierce-Arrow’s use of cast aluminum for the entire structure of their automobile bodies.

Pierce-Arrow’s factory at Elmwood and Great Arrow Avenues built in 1907 boasted nearly 1.5 million square feet of space on 34 acres, that employed almost 10,000 employees at its peak, began to slow during the nineteen twenties, as Pierce-Arrow stuck with their proven “dual valve” six-cylinder engine.

During its lifetime the company also built heavy trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, travel trailers, but finances became a crisis and in 1928 Pierce-Arrow merged with Studebaker through the Indiana company’s purchase of $5.7 million in Pierce-Arrow stock. This provided the needed funds to invest in research and new developments at the Buffalo factory, most notably a new straight-eight cylinder engine.

There is a popular misconception that Pierce-Arrow cars of this era were powered by modified Studebaker President engines probably because the new Pierce-Arrow engine blocks which used nine main bearings for the counterbalanced crankshaft were cast at Studebaker’s foundry in South Bend Indiana.  

 

The new Pierce-Arrow equipped with the largest 385-cubic inch engine fed with a single Stromberg UU-2 carburetor that developed 125 horsepower and fed through a three-speed transmission that could carry the car to 85 miles per hour attracted a lot of attention and Pierce-Arrow sales for 1929 doubled over the previous year.      

For 1930 Pierce introduced the A, B, and C models. The A was the largest and most expensive, while the C was the most economical of the three offering. Customers had multiple body styles and four wheelbases from which to select from that ranged from 132-, 134-, 139- and 144 inches. Three engine sizes were offered -the Model A used the 385 cubic-inch engine while the Model B was powered by a 365 cubic-inch while the Model C was equipped with a 340-cubic-inch 115-horsepower engine.  A pair of 1930 Pierce-Arrow automobiles displayed at the Blackhawk Museum in Danville California are beautiful examples of the automotive craftsmanship of Pierce-Arrow.

 

 

1930 Model A 7-passenger “torpedo” touring car on a 144-inch wheelbase chassis. Note the unusual orange color of the chassis.

1930 Model B 7- passenger sedan on a 139-inch wheelbase chassis.

While Pierce-Arrow’s financial prospects soared, despite the economic Depression, Studebaker’s did not and after the company filed for bankruptcy in 1933, the one-time Studebaker President and Pierce-Arrow chairman, Albert Russel Erskine, committed suicide. A group of Buffalo businessmen pooled their funding and purchased Pierce-Arrow’s assets from the bankruptcy court.

 

Unfortunately the new Pierce-Arrow Motor Corporation was on shaky financial footing from the start, and while over the next few years, the company produced some ground breaking vehicles (including a V-12 engine, vacuum boosted braking and the art deco Silver Arrow) the company became insolvent and closed in 1938 with most of the company’s remaining assets scrapped in 1942.

Surprisingly, remaining Pierce-Arrow automobiles are considerably more affordable for collectors than Duesenberg, Packard or Stutz cars of the same era.

 

Photos by the author