Dietrich Inc.

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The Dietrich Inc. was an American manufacturer of automobile bodies, which was based in Detroit from 1925 to 1936 and produced superstructures for chassis from Lincoln or Packard . A successor company called Ray Dietrich Inc. existed from 1949 to 1953.

Company history

With body designed by Dietrich: Erskine (approx. 1928)
Packard 840 Convertible Sedan with Dietrich body (1931)

Dietrich Inc. was founded by Raymond Dietrich in the summer of 1925 . Dietrich had worked as a draftsman and stylist for the bodywork manufacturer Brewster & Company since 1913 , before he took part in founding his own company called LeBaron Carossiers in 1921 . After initial successes, he left LeBaron and founded Dietrich Inc. with financial and logistical support from Edsel Ford . The decision to do so was made easy for him. Dietrich met Edsel Ford in December 1923 at the New York Auto Salon . Just one year later, Dietrich designed car bodies for Lincoln , whose boss was Edsel Ford. He wanted to work more closely with Dietrich. In December 1924, he had Allan Sheldon , president of the major Ford supplier Murray Corporation , which manufactured a large part of the bodies for the Model T , buy LeBaron. This failed because of the financial ideas at LeBaron. Murray Dietrich then offered to finance his own company with 50% (Dietrich held the other half), his own production facilities and his own designer and draftsman's office. As a bonus, there was a supply contract for Lincoln bodies from Edsel Ford.

The deliberate positioning of the company in Detroit was intended to increase the proximity to Ford, but also to other large automobile manufacturers in the USA, and thereby promote the company's expansion opportunities. On the one hand, the company was to act as a design consultant to leading manufacturers such as Lincoln or Packard ; later Franklin and the Studebaker offshoot Erskine were added. Furthermore, special bodies were also created, which were either built as individual pieces ("Full Custom") or in very small series for the respective manufacturer ("Semi-Custom"). A successful design was often included in the manufacturers' special catalogs. Lincoln ordered such assemblies in batches of 5 to 10 units. Packard felt the same way. In this area, Dietrich Inc. was in constant competition with other specialist companies such as Brunn , Derham , Holbrook , Judkins , Locke , LeBaron, Rollson , Waterhouse or Willoughby . LeBaron was eventually taken over by Murray's main competitor, Briggs Manufacturing Company . This led to the situation that Murray built Lincoln bodies which Ray Dietrich had designed for LeBaron before that company was controlled by rival Briggs. This particularly affected three-legged sedans and two-legged Victoria Coupés .

Business did not go well from the start. Dietrich Inc. started with working capital of US $ 150,000 - and lost almost as much in its first fiscal year.

From 1925 Dietrich Inc. worked in different areas. On the one hand, Dietrich developed the design of entire series from different manufacturers, on the other hand, it designed and manufactured individual bodies for high-quality chassis according to customer requirements.

The first company to have a whole range of models designed by Dietrich was Packard. At the end of 1925 Dietrich received the order to manufacture a number of special bodies for Packard, which were initially shown at exhibitions. This resulted in 325 orders. They formed the basis for a longstanding relationship between Dietrich and Packard. In 1927 Dietrich designed the model range of the Franklin company, which specializes in air-cooled vehicles, as well as the first series of the newly founded automobile manufacturer Erskine. Here Dietrich limited himself to the designs of car bodies; the vehicles were built by other manufacturers.

With regard to individual superstructures, Dietrich soon became the largest body manufacturer in the United States. In the late 1920s, Dietrich produced up to 25 customer vehicles per week. The designs were standardized many times and produced in 25 to 50 copies per year. In the late 1920s, Dietrich offered bodies that fit different chassis. The Dietrich Victoria Convertible from 1929, for example, could be connected to both a Packard and a Lincoln chassis. In addition, Dietrich experimented with a concept called observation car by the British Peter Jones . A Packard 645 Deluxe Eight Sedan limousine was given a new rear end with additional rails bent at 90 ° in the roof end and a rear door with a crank window and an integrated pull-out table. In addition, the rear bench seat could be rotated 180 °. Packard was interested, but not enough orders came in to include the design in the catalog.

Dietrich wasn't too good for commercial vehicles either. Only a few were built, probably for reasons of cost. The commander of the Detroit Fire Department, Paxton Mendelssohn , gave one thing to his fire department in 1927: a combination of ambulance and staff car based on a Packard Six 433 .

From 1929 onwards, sales collapsed. For some body types, only half to a third of the calculated amount based on experience was reordered. After the stock market crash at the end of October 1929 (" Black Friday "), Dietrich Inc. ran into serious problems. The Murray Corporation, for its part under new management since 1926 after business miscalculations, dropped Raymond Dietrich. He had to give up the chairmanship of his own company in September 1930. He was succeeded by L. Clayton Hill , who had been Murray's deputy sales manager until then. In addition, numerous irreplaceable professionals at Dietrich Inc. have been laid off.

In 1931 Dietrich Inc. was merged with the Murray Corporation in terms of space and organization. Dietrich increasingly lost his independence. The superstructures sold under the name Dietrich in the 1930s increasingly resembled those of Murray in terms of style; the main difference was that higher quality materials were used for the Dietrich versions.

Packard used the superstructures designed by Dietrich in 1929 until 1934. Until then, the designs had only been modified slightly. The increasingly outdated design was a major reason why Packard sold fewer and fewer cars in the early 1930s. This only changed with a new design introduced in 1935. The 1935 Packards were also attributed to Dietrich; in fact, however, neither Raymond Dietrich nor Dietrich Inc. had anything to do with these designs. Packard had only acquired the right to use the name Dietrich for these self-designed bodies.

In 1936 the sale of Dietrich bodies was given up.

literature

  • Richard M. Langworth: Automobiles of the 1930s . Beekman House, New York 1980, ISBN 0-517-30994-7 . (English)
  • Pfau, Hugo: The Coachbuilt Packard. Dalton-Watson, London / Motorbooks International, Minneapolis 1973, ISBN 0-901564-10-9 . (English)
  • Walter MP McCall, Tom McPherson: Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Fire Engine Manufacturers. Iconografix, Hudson WI 2009, ISBN 978-1-58388-252-8 . (English)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d coachbuilt.com: Murray Corporation
  2. ^ Pfau: The Coachbuilt Packard (1938), p. 91.
  3. ^ McCall / McPherson: Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Fire Engine Manufacturers , p. 14.
  4. ^ Pfau: The Coachbuilt Packard (1938), p. 101.