Waterhouse Company

Waterhouse Company
legal form
founding	1928
resolution	2003
Seat	Webster , Massachusetts
management	Charles Waterhouse, S. Roberts Dunham
Branch	Body shop

Pierce-Arrow Model B Convertible Victoria (1930)

Convertible Victoria : Fully covered rear bench

Pierce-Arrow Model B Convertible Victoria (interior)

The Waterhouse Company was an American manufacturer of automobile bodies that manufactured individual bodies for luxury vehicles , primarily of American origin, between the two world wars. The company was best known for its Convertible Victoria Cabriolets.

Company history

Waterhouse was founded in January 1928 by Roger Clapp, S. Roberts Dunham and Charles Waterhouse senior. The company was based in Webster , Massachusetts .

Charles Waterhouse senior (1873–1953), the namesake and minority owner of the company, completed an apprenticeship as a wheelwright with several carriage manufacturers in the 1890s . He worked for several years at the JB Judkins Company , where he was responsible for the manufacture of interior fittings for carriages and automobile bodies. Several of his sons also worked here. After the First World War , Waterhouse and his sons gave up their work at Judkins. Charles Waterhouse became the workshop manager of the local Cadillac dealership in Boston in the 1920s , while his sons accepted a job at the body and railroad car manufacturer Woonsocket in Rhode Island .

In 1927, Waterhouse went into business for itself with financial support from investors Clapp and Dunham. The company, which had been founded with the aim of producing automobile bodies, was given Waterhouse's name, although he himself only held a small stake in it. The Waterhouse Company took over the technical equipment from Woonsocket in early 1928 after the company went bankrupt as a result of a large order that had been canceled. From Woonsocket, Waterhouse also took over the designer George Briggs Weaver, who designed most of the bodies for Waterhouse in the first few years. Weaver worked full-time for Du Pont Motors and later for the motorcycle manufacturer Indian ; his work for Waterhouse was just a sideline. From around 1930, Charles Waterhouse Jr., a son of the company's founder, designed most of the Waterhouse bodies, but Weaver continued to work in an advisory capacity.

In the first few months after the company was founded, Waterhouse initially manufactured boats and repaired motor vehicles. In the summer of 1928, through the mediation of George Weaver, Waterhouse finally received its first order from Du Pont Motors, a manufacturer of high-quality luxury vehicles, for which a total of 82 bodies had been produced by 1930. Many superstructures were unique, tailored to customer requirements; some designs were also made in several copies. A roadster designed by Waterhouse was delivered to the silent film star Douglas Fairbanks senior .

In 1929, Waterhouse produced an individual roadster body for a Packard chassis at the customer's request , which, in accordance with the customer's specifications, was based on a design that the Brussels-based body manufacturer Van den Plas had also realized on a Packard two years earlier. A special feature of this design was a flat roof with a very wide, windowless area behind the doors. Waterhouse called this design concept Convertible Victoria . The car was shown publicly several times and received a large, positive response in the reporting. Waterhouse became known in the automotive industry through the Victoria Convertible . In the years that followed, Waterhouse produced numerous similarly designed vehicles for Packard and other manufacturers. In the 1930s, Waterhouse bodies were available in large numbers for chassis from Chrysler , Lincoln and Pierce-Arrow . In a few years, these manufacturers sometimes ordered several dozen similar bodies (so-called semi-custom bodies ), which were sold directly through the brand dealers in addition to the factory superstructures. In addition, Waterhouse continued to manufacture individual bodies according to customer requirements; Individual chassis from the upper-class manufacturers Marmon and Stutz were also dressed.

In 1933, Waterhouse stopped building individual automobile bodies and manufacturing small series. Until the outbreak of the Second World War , the company manufactured bodies for commercial vehicles and trailers . After the war it produced furniture under the Dudley Manufacturing Company until 2003.

Scope of production

The exact number of bodies Waterhouse made is unknown. Some sources assume that nearly 300 superstructures were built between 1928 and 1933. The superstructures are then distributed among the individual chassis manufacturers as follows:

Packard: 131
Du Pont: 82
Lincoln: 40
Chrysler: Dec.
Pierce-Arrow: 3
Stutz: 2
Cadillac and Rolls-Royce : 1 each.

There is evidence that at least one Duesenberg was also dressed by Waterhouse; but this is not conclusively proven.

literature

Richard M. Langworth: Encyclopedia of American Cars 1930-1980 . New York (Beekman House) 1984. ISBN 0-517-42462-2 .

Web links

Commons : Waterhouse Bodies - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files