Ruxton

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New Era Motors, Inc.
legal form Inc.
founding 1929
resolution 1930
Reason for dissolution insolvency
Seat New York City , New York , USA
management Archibald Andrews (President)
Branch Automobile manufacturer

Ruxton Model C Four Door Sedan (1929) with typical multi-color paintwork and "Woodlite" headlights

Ruxton is an American automobile brand of the former New Era Motors, Inc. , the 1929 to 1930 a model with front wheel drive and all-steel body could be prepared.

Prototype of Budd

The basis for the Ruxton was a prototype from the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company in Philadelphia . This company specialized in producing series bodies in large numbers for various automobile manufacturers. Budd had developed a process that made it possible to manufacture car bodies with a roof made entirely of metal, which had previously been ruled out due to the lack of suitable pressing tools. The auxiliary construction used instead was expensive and slowed down the manufacturing process of the vehicles.

Innovations

In order to make the vehicle look more spectacular, it was equipped with the newly emerging front-wheel drive . The driving force behind the project was William Muller, a former racing car designer. He was also responsible for the development of the chassis and drive.

Budds chief engineer Joseph Ledwinka designed and constructed the body. It was obvious that he opted for a four-door sedan body for the reference vehicle. With a wheelbase of 130 inches (3302 mm), the car was also designed to be quite long.

As with the Cord L-29 , which was produced at Auburn at the same time , the front-wheel drive was used here less because of its superior driving characteristics, but because it enabled an extremely low structure. The height of a conventional body resulted not least from the floor of the vehicle, which had to lie flat on the chassis at a suitable distance from the cardan shaft . Front-wheel drive cars get by without a cardan shaft. The bottom can be set correspondingly deeper. The prototype was only 1607 mm high, a good 25 cm less than a conventional car from that time.

Auto seeks manufacturer

The prototype quickly caught the attention of Wall Street financier Archie Andrews , a board member of Budd and the Hupp Motor Car Corporation in Detroit, manufacturer of the Hupmobile . Andrews really wanted to get the new car into series production. So he bought the prototype and started looking for a manufacturer who could and would produce the car. He first negotiated with Hupp, where they were interested but did not come to an agreement. Now Andrews tackled the project himself. Early 1929 he founded in New York City , the New Era Motors Inc. , where he served as president and Muller as Vice-President. Muller was now preparing the car for series production , while Andrews tried to raise funding and find a production facility. This is how the car got its name: Andrews named it after the prominent New York broker William Ruxton . However, he never invested a cent in the project.

Andrews negotiated unsuccessfully with Gardner in St. Louis and then got hold of Marmon , then one of the finest addresses in the US auto industry. An agreement was reached and the date for the signing of the contract was set for October 29, 1929. However, this day should go down in history as “ Black Tuesday ” - the day of the great stock market crash and the beginning of the great economic crisis. In any case, Marmon pulled the emergency brake at the last minute. One after the other, Andrews went to Jordan , Pierce-Arrow and Stutz , but nobody wanted to take such a risk in these times.

Moon and Kissel

Finally, Andrews also checked out Moon in St. Louis, a company that was on the verge of collapse. Andrews bought Moon shares until he finally controlled the company. Production of the Ruxton began here in the summer of 1930. It soon became apparent that the factory was not fully meeting the requirements - and Andrews was again looking for additional production space. He found what he was looking for at Kissel in Hartford , Wisconsin . He did not need to buy this company; it was in financial difficulties and welcomed the prospect of better utilization of the production facilities. Ruxton were eventually made by both Moon and Kissel, most of which were made by Moon.

Technology and design

When the Ruxton went into series production, it had a side-controlled in-line eight - cylinder from Continental with a capacity of 268.6 cubic inches (4.4 liters) and 100 bhp (75 kW) - 20 bhp less than its rival Cord L-29. As with this one, the motor was turned by 180 ° and placed in the chassis . The clutch and the power transmission designed by Muller were at the forefront. The transmission had three gears. The first and the reverse gear sat in front of the differential , the second and third behind it. This made a very short engine / gearbox combination possible.

The body shape has been adopted from the prototype practically unchanged. It was slim, low, with a long hood and no running boards. Ruxton were also available in wild color combinations with up to eight shades. Most of them also received the “Woodlite” headlights available as a brand-independent accessory. These should concentrate the light on a narrow and strong beam.

The end

The Depression had drastically reduced the number of potential buyers for the Ruxton, and for a car in the US $ 3,000 price range in general. And of those who could and wanted to do this, many opted for the more mature competitor product Cord L-29.

It is not entirely clear whether the end for Ruxton came in late 1930 or early 1931. Two sources definitely state 1930. 96 pieces have been built. Gardner, Moon, Kissel, Jordan, Marmon and Stutz had to give up at the very beginning of the economic crisis. Pierce-Arrow followed in 1938. Cord produced the L-29 until 1933 and made a second attempt with the 810/812 from 1936 to 1937. Hupmobile closed in 1941 - after, ironically, the last time a model had been produced with the Skylark , the body of which had been developed from the compression molds of the Cord 812 front-wheel drive .

While front-wheel drive was able to establish itself in Europe ( DKW , Adler , Citroën ), a series-production car with front-wheel drive was not to be produced again in the USA until 1966: the Oldsmobile Toronado .

Very few Ruxton still exist. All have the status of "Full Classic" of the Classic Car Club of America (CCCA).

Web links

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

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. 1315-1316 (English).
  • George Nicholas Georgano (Ed.): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile . Volume 3: P-Z . Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , pp. 1391-1392 (English).

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. 1315-1316 (English).
  2. ↑ George Nicholas Georgano (Ed.): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile . Volume 3: P-Z . Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , pp. 1391-1392 (English).
  3. ↑ Jim Fasnacht: The Ruxton Automobile: History and Authenticity Guide . Fetherston Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-0-9646175-9-9 .