Biddle & Smart

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Biddle & Smart
legal form
founding 1869
Seat Amesbury , United States
Branch vehicle construction

Biddle & Smart was an American wheelwright company based in Amesbury , Massachusetts .

The company was founded in 1869 when William E. Biddle Sr. (1845–1907) joined the Wagner Charles H. Cadieu in his hometown of Amesbury. The two initially made door and window frames. 1880 joined WW Smart one another Stellmacher in the operation, which from now on Biddle & Smart said, and 60 people employed. In addition to individual wooden components, carriages were also built . Just 3 years later, 270 workers were producing the 4,000th carriage. In 1897, the partner Smart died and the company stopped building coaches and, as before, manufactured individual wooden components.

In 1903 the first car bodies were made for Peerless . 1905 founded William E. Biddle jun. , the new president of the company, Amesbury Brass & Foundry Cie. , which made all brass parts that were needed for the production of cars.

In 1916, Biddle & Smart built sedans and coupes for Hudson , Mercer and Packard . In 1919 the company was already operating 10 plants in Amesbury. Other customers were z. B. Rolls-Royce with its plants in the USA, Lincoln and Marmon .

From 1923 the company worked exclusively for Hudson and manufactured 5 and 7-seater sedans from aluminum in 21 plants (all in Amesbury). With the exception of a smaller order for Rolls-Royce (USA) in 1925, the relationship with Hudson remained unchanged until operations were closed. 1926 was the best year for Biddle & Smart: 4,736 workers and salaried employees produced 400 car bodies per day in three shifts; a total of almost 41,000 pieces were produced this year.

In the same year Hudson decided to set up its own body production in Detroit . In 1928 the order volume for Biddle & Smart had decreased by 60%. No other customers were in sight. At the end of 1930, Hudson let the management of Biddle & Smart know that they could no longer expect orders from Detroit from the following year. An attempt to manufacture boats from aluminum from 1931 onwards failed due to insufficient demand. The company closed its doors that same year.

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