Driggs Ordnance & Manufacturing Corporation

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Driggs-Seabury Ordnance Corporation
Driggs Ordnance & Manufacturing Corporation
legal form Corporation
founding 1890s
resolution 1925
Seat New York City , New York , USA
management LL Driggs
Branch Guns , automobiles , commercial vehicles

Driggs Ordnance & Manufacturing Corporation , previously Driggs-Seabury Ordnance Corporation , was a US company.

Company history

The Driggs-Seabury Ordnance Corporation was founded in the 1890s. She made weapons . 1912 started at a plant in Sharon in Pennsylvania , the production of commercial vehicles of the brand Vulcan . In 1915, passenger cars were also created , first marketed as Driggs-Seabury and later that year as Sharon . The company also commissioned cyclecars for manufactured Ritz Cyclecar Company and Twombly Car and a Voiturette -like small car for the Vulcan Manufacturing Company in Painesville ( Ohio ). The Vulcan was a design by motorcycle and automobile pioneer Alonzo R. Marsh and was built from 1913 to 1915. This end of production coincides with the company's withdrawal from automotive engineering in favor of increased arms production. as a result of the First World War .

After the war, the name was Driggs Ordnance & Manufacturing Corporation . In the summer of 1921, President LL Driggs moved to New York City . Car production began again at a previously used plant in New Haven , Connecticut . The brand name was now Driggs . However, business was bad and the company's own, innovative and lightweight four-cylinder model was far too expensive to be able to establish itself on the market.

From October 1922 taxis added to the range. Here, too, was a production on behalf of the customer. The Diamond Taxicab Company had acquired a prototype from Apex Motor Corporation , which was based on an Elcar design. Diamond Taxicab was controlled by New York taxi operator Nat Jacoby , who was not happy with the result. He wanted a significantly lighter vehicle that could be operated with significantly lower maintenance costs. Driggs designed a modern and light taxi according to the customer's specifications, which could only carry two instead of the usual five passengers and was therefore built correspondingly lighter. Jacoby had found that taxis were rarely used by more than two passengers at the same time. At the same time, Driggs used the in-house engine, which had only about half as much displacement as conventional taxis. Other innovative ideas were the screwed instead of riveted body parts, which made them easy to replace, and seat cushions that could be easily removed for cleaning. The fare should drop to 10 cents instead of the US 30 to 40 cents per mile. The official regulations introduced in the 1920s, which were intended to curb the proliferation in the taxi industry with often unsuitable and occasionally unsafe vehicles, are likely to have become the doom of the Driggs taxi. A regulation said that the wheelbase of a taxi had to be at least 120 inches (3,048 mm) and that the rear of the car had to accommodate at least five people.

Unfortunately, Driggs ran into bankruptcy in November 1923 . The company was able to get out of it again, but lost the interesting taxi order. At the same time, the normal passenger cars were discontinued. Production ended in 1925 when the company was dissolved.

Automobiles

Brand name Driggs-Seabury

The only car model was called the cycle car. However, it did not meet the criteria. The water-cooled four - cylinder engine with a 63.5 mm bore , 101.6 mm stroke and 1287 cm³ displacement developed 10 hp . The chassis had a wheelbase of 254 cm . The Model A had a friction gear , chain drive and space for two people in a row. The Model C had a two-speed gearbox and was bodied as a roadster with two seats arranged side by side.

Brand name Sharon

The tandem two-seater matched the previous Driggs-Seabury Model A .

Brand name Driggs

The Model D also had a four-cylinder engine. It made 22 hp. The wheelbase was 264 cm. From 1921 to 1922 there were touring cars and sedans with four seats and a roadster with two seats. In 1923 a two-seater coupe was added.

The taxis had a four-cylinder L-head engine , 66.675 mm bore, 114.3 mm stroke and 1596 cm³ displacement. The engine power was transmitted to the rear axle via a three-speed gearbox. The wheelbase was 276 cm. The curb weight was given as 998 kg.

Model overview

year brand model cylinder Power ( hp ) Wheelbase (cm) construction
1915 Driggs-Seabury Model A 4th 10 254 tandem
1915 Driggs-Seabury Model C 4th 10 254 Roadster 2-seater
1915 Sharon 4th 10 254 tandem
1921-1922 Driggs Model D 4th 22nd 264 4-seater touring car, 2-seater roadster, 4-seater sedan
1922-1925 Driggs taxi 4th 276 taxi
1923 Driggs Model D 4th 22nd 264 4-seater touring car, 2-seater roadster, 2-seater coupé, 4-seater sedan

commercial vehicles

Brand name Driggs-Seabury

Apart from the start of production in 1912, no further data is available for commercial vehicles of this brand; possibly it was just a variant of the cycle car.

Brand name Vulcan

Driggs-Seabury built Vulcan trucks from 1912 onwards. These are not to be confused with the products of the British Vulcan Motor or the only made-to-order trucks of the HRM & Vulcan Company in Seattle ( Washington ).

This was a continuation of licensed production of British Commer -Truck by an unnamed well-known company in Sharon, which was apparently taken from Driggs. In the year it was introduced there were five models with payloads between 3 and 7 shillings. tn. corresponding to 2.7 to 7.3 tons . The latter were heavy trucks at the time. Vulcan trucks had four-cylinder engines of their own design, and the press-steel chassis, the cone couplings and the chain drive were also manufactured in-house.

Not only car production ended temporarily in 1915. In the middle of the year the commercial vehicle range was reduced to three models with payloads of 2 to 5 shillings. tn. (1.8 to 4.5 tons). At the end of 1916, the production of motor vehicles was completely stopped. The cause was probably larger orders for weapons from 1915 onwards, but it is known that it became increasingly difficult for civilian production to obtain materials and transport capacities. After that there was no return to the production of commercial vehicles, but the taxi program gained in importance.

literature

  • Beverly Rae Kimes, Henry Austin Clark Jr .: Standard catalog of American Cars. 1805-1942. Digital edition . 3. Edition. Krause Publications, Iola 2013, ISBN 978-1-4402-3778-2 , pp. 493 and p. 1343 (English).
  • George Nicholas Georgano (Ed.): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile . Volume 1: A-F . Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , pp. 457 (English).
  • GN Georgano (Ed.), G. Marshall Naul: Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles. MBI Motor Books International, Osceola WI, 1979; ISBN 0-87341-024-6 .
  • Albert Mroz: Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Trucks and Commercial Vehicles. Krause Publications, Iola WI, 1996; ISBN 0-87341-368-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Beverly Rae Kimes, Henry Austin Clark Jr .: Standard catalog of American Cars. 1805-1942. Digital edition . 3. Edition. Krause Publications, Iola 2013, ISBN 978-1-4402-3778-2 , pp. 493 and p. 1343 (English).
  2. ↑ George Nicholas Georgano (Ed.): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile . Volume 1: A-F . Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , pp. 457 (English).
  3. ↑ Beverly Rae Kimes, Henry Austin Clark Jr .: Standard catalog of American Cars. 1805-1942. Digital edition . 3. Edition. Krause Publications, Iola 2013, ISBN 978-1-4402-3778-2 , pp. 1504 (English).
  4. ↑ Ben Merkel, John Fay: Checker the All-American Taxi. Earlswood Press, 2015; ISBN 0-95747-547-0 ; P. 38.
  5. ↑ coachbuilt.com: Driggs Ordnance & Manufacturing Corp.
  6. ↑ Dates of the Taxis 1924 and Dates of the Taxis 1925 (English, accessed on January 6, 2018)
  7. ↑ a b c d e Georgano, Naul: Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles. 1979; P. 654.
  8. ↑ a b c d Mroz: Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Trucks and Commercial Vehicles. 1996, p. 397.