Peerless
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Peerless Motor Company factory, circa 1910s |
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Frank Hershey's aluminum bodied Peerless, designed while he was employed by Murphy Body Works. Image taken before the car was shipped back to Peerless, which had decided to brew Carling Black Label beer instead of building cars. |
Peerless was an American automobile produced by the
Peerless Motor Company of
Cleveland, Ohio. The company was known for building high-quality, precision luxury automobiles. Peerless' factory was located at 9400 Quincy Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio [
1]
Established in Cleveland in
1900,
Peerless Motors began producing
De Dion-Bouton "machines" under license from the French Company. At the time, Cleveland was the thriving center of automotive production in the United States. Peerless employed
Barney Oldfield as a driver of its Green Dragon racecar; in early speed races Peerless proved the durability of the product and setting world speed records. Peerless was noted for its use of
flat-plane crankshafts in its engine designs.
As the Peerless evolved, it, along with makes
Packard and
Pierce-Arrow, became known as the "Three-P's of Motordom" (premium vehicles) in the United States.
Peerless' downfall was in its quality. In the
1920s, the company was producing conservatively-styled vehicles that would last for ten or more years. Current Peerless owners held onto their cars, which ran very well; new buyers of luxury cars were attracted to
LaSalle,
Packard and the
Studebaker President series.
In
1930-
1931, Peerless commissioned
Murphy Body Works of
Pasadena, California to design what the company envisioned as its
1933 model. The task was assigned to a young
Frank Hershey. Hershey's design for Peerless was a remarkably clean, elegant vehicle, powered by the company's planned
V16 engine.
Just as the car was ready to be shipped back to Cleveland, the Board of Directors pulled Peerless out of the automobile business and reoriented the company to brew beer under the
Carling's Black Label brand of beer.
Hershey's prototype was walled up in a room at the Peerless factory where it sat until the end of World War II. Hershey's Peerless prototype is now owned by the
Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland.
Hershey himself would go onto design the 1949
Cadillac, among other American classics.
*
* Howell, James W. and Hershey,
Hershey Franklin Q. Franklin Q. Hershey's Murphy-Bodied Peerless V-16 Prototype Collectible Automobile, Volume 12, Number 4, December 1995. pp.56-63.
