Scripps Booth

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Scripps-Booth brand logo
Scripps-Booth Rocket (1914)
Scripps Booth (1916)

Scripps-Booth was an American automobile brand.

description

The manufacturers were successively James Scripps Booth , Scripps-Booth Cyclecar Company, Scripps-Booth Company, Scripps-Booth Corporation and finally General Motors . The seat was in Detroit , Michigan .

The company was founded by James Scripps Booth, a child of the family in whose hands the media company EW Scripps Company is, and his uncle William E. Booth. He had designed the Bi-Autogo as early as 1912 , as a single-track car a mixture of motorcycle and automobile, of which, however, never more than just the prototype had been built. At first, Scripps-Booth produced small vehicles, which he referred to as cycle cars , even though they did not meet the criteria. Cyclecars were inexpensive vehicles that were a mixture of automobiles and motorized bicycles and had a displacement limit of 1100 cm³. The vehicles had a two-cylinder engine with 88.9 mm cylinder bore , 93.218 mm piston stroke and 1157 cm³ displacement . The first model appeared under the name Rocket and was available for $ 385 . Since Ford's Model T was available at ever lower prices and “full-fledged” automobiles were available for little more money, the success of the cycle cars was short-lived. After about 400 units, their production was therefore stopped.

Commercial vehicle versions of this model were sold as a package .

Scripps-Booth switched to the luxury segment. The more expensive bodies were sold in sufficient numbers and with the production of a powerful V8 engine there was direct competition with Stutz . These cars were manufactured between 1915 and 1919. As early as 1917, James Scripps Booth sold shares in his company, which was initially taken over by Chevrolet under the direction of William Durant and finally incorporated into their product line in 1918 after the takeover by General Motors. Since then, only GM engines have been used. However, Durant lost control of General Motors and new management phased out production so that the last car was manufactured in 1922.

Production numbers

year Production number
1914-1915 3,000
1916 3,500
1917 2,600
1918 4,000
1919 8,100
1920 7,000
1921 2,200
1922 3,000
1923 4,400
total 37,800

Source: The figure for 1923 is unclear, as the same source states that the last vehicles were manufactured in 1922.

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. 1141 and pp. 1332-1334 (English).

Web links

Commons : Scripps-Booth  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b 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. 1427-1428 (English).
  2. ↑ 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. 1141 (English).
  3. ↑ a b c 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. 1332-1334 (English).