LeBaron

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The LeBaron Carossiers (later: LeBaron, Inc. ) was an American design office for automobiles and a cartwright that was based in New York City and later in Detroit .

Company history

Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A with body by LeBaron
Chrysler LeBaron Newport Show Car (1941)
Chrysler LeBaron Sedan (1977)

The company was founded in 1920 by Raymond H. Dietrich (1894–1980) and Thomas L. Hibbard (1898–1982) as a design office for automobile bodies in New York . Both founders had previously worked for the cartwright company Brewster & Co. in New York State. Shortly afterwards, Ralph S. Roberts joined the company as a third partner, who initially took care of the administration, but also worked as a designer.

Initially, the company worked in a similar way to an architecture firm.

First orders came from York Motors in New York and Lincoln .

In 1923, Hibbard left the company, founded a Minerva agency in Paris with a partner and began manufacturing exclusive individual bodies under the name Hibbard & Darrin with partner Howard Darrin in Paris, including for Delage and Duesenberg . In January 1924, LeBaron Carossiers merged with Bridgeport Body Co. , a cartwright in Bridgeport (Connecticut) , to form LeBaron Inc. Dietrich and Clarence W. Seward became presidents of the new company. LeBaron built individual and small series bodies for all well-known American automobile companies such as Stutz , Pierce-Arrow or Packard , but also for Isotta Fraschini , Minerva , Rolls-Royce and other European luxury car manufacturers. Because Duesenberg called the in-house design office (under Gordon Buehrig ) in a clear reference to LeBaron " LaGrande ", LeBaron refused to work for the Cord Corporation .

In 1924 and 1925 the company carried out many design assignments for Edsel Ford , who was friends with Dietrich. In 1925 Dietrich also left the company and went to Detroit. There he founded the body construction company Dietrich Inc.

In 1927, at the instigation of Walter O. Briggs , owner of the serial body manufacturer Briggs Manufacturing Company , the company's headquarters were relocated to Detroit to build specialty bodies for Lincoln. 3 years later, Briggs took over the company; the offices in New York and Bridgeport were closed and LeBaron was run as a design office and department for exclusive solutions at Briggs. LeBaron experts were involved in the design of the open Ford Model A types; Ford also ordered an additional Series A sedan from Briggs, designed as a scaled-down version of a Lincoln sedan from LeBaron.

Alex Tremulis , a LeBaron designer, was instrumental in developing the Chrysler Thunderbolt prototype .

In 1934 the Bridgeport Body Co. was re-established at the old location under the old owners, but without any contact with LeBaron. In 1952 Walter O. Briggs died. A year later, his heirs sold all of his companies to his largest customer Chrysler . This is how the LeBaron brand came to this group. First, based on the exclusive special bodies of the same name, particularly high-quality equipment lines of various models from Chrysler and Imperial were given the addition of LeBaron. Between 1977 and 1995 Chrysler offered several mid-range models with the designation LeBaron . Since then the name has not been used.

Sources and web links

Commons : LeBaron  - collection of images, videos and audio files