Re: History Question: Body Shops 1928-31

Posted by Rusty O\'Toole On 2011/2/21 9:50:07

In those days luxury car bodies were more or less hand made and could come from a variety of suppliers, even for the same year and make of car.

First, you could order a car with the factory supplied body. In some cases they were made by the car manufacturer, but in many cases they bought bodies from outside suppliers. These bodies were bought in batches of 50,100 or more. They were kept in the factory warehouse and could be painted and upholstered to the customer's taste, and suitable accessories added, while the car was being made.

The factory catalog could show body designs by several different body suppliers especially fancy styles like roadsters, convertibles and speedsters.

If a customer wanted something really special he could order a chassis and have it sent to his favorite body company and have a unique custom built car made to his own design.

Probably 80% to 90% of Packards had factory supplied bodies but there are the some with special bodies by LeBaron, Derham and other custom builders.