Coachbult.com - Chupurdy



H.R. Chupurdy & Company - 1912-1926 - Chupudy Auto Coach - New York, New York

H.R.Chupurdy & Company - New York, NY 1912-1926 or Chupudy?

A small custom body shop on West 53rd Street known for constructing bodies for the Barbarino Automobile (1923-1925) of NYC and Port Jefferson, NY, as well as a few other early chassis. Turned to After the mid-20s, they specialized in repairs and restoration work.

Hugo Pfau - The Custom Body Era

A small custom body shop which built the bodies on the Barbarino chassis (all nine or ten of them) in 1923-1925, and at least one town cabriolet on a Roamer. After the mid-20s they concentrated on repairs.

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As I mentioned in writing about him in connection with Locomobile last month, deCausse did not have an actual shop of his own, but had bodies which he designed built by one or another of the several small shops scattered around New York at the time.

R. L. Stickney, who was doing most of the designing for LeBaron at this time, had earlier worked for deCausse at Locomobile. He told me he had met deCausse on the street one day, and was informed he was just on his way to Chupurdy & Company, who were building a body for him. This shop had done some custom building earlier, but by the early twenties was engaged mainly in repair work, repainting and such. Their shop was small, but was located in the West 50s (W.53rd) convenient to deCausse's studio in the Fisk Building at 57th Street and Broadway.

Over the next couple of years there were more "Bodies by deCausse," special designs he had prepared. There are indications that some of these were built by Willoughby, whose location in Utica was not too far away from the Franklin factory in Syracuse.

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Chupudy Auto Coach in New York - made bodies for the BARBARINO - Brooklyn, New York - (1923-1925) - Salvatore Barbarino made cement blocks in Brooklyn and was a sometime automobile racer '<It served as a relief driver for Louis Chevrolet in the 1920 Indianapolis 500. 1923, when the Richelieu company of Asbury Park (New Jersey) folded, acquired what was left there, and set himself up in business as an automobile manufacturer at 21 Lenox Road in Brooklyn. He said at the time that he already spent six years developing his "Car in a Class by Itself." The Barbarino was powered by a four-cylinder 137-cubic-inch Le Roi engine that Bart revised to his own design. But he was most proud of his four-wheel brakes, which were equalized by cables, not the usual tie-rods: "This does away with (wearing parts and last, but not least, 'rattle." The wheelbase was 110 inc' with bodies built to individual order by Chupudy Auto Coach in New York.

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Salvatore Barbarino was an automobile designer, engineer and racer (1920 Indianapolis 500) who served as head of Advance Motors, the company that bought the assets of the Richelieu company in 1923 and set out to produce a high-grade automobile. The Barbarino Car included a four cylinder LeRoi engine of Barbarino's design, 4-wheel brakes, a high rounded radiator, wheelbase of 110" and bodies built to the customer's own order by H.R. Chuphurdy Auto Coach of New York City. After some legal problems, the car was finally produced in 1925 without Barbarino who had returned to his former profession, bricklaying. He later operated an auto repair shop in Flatbush.

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In contrast other now defunct companies like Barley Motor Car, manufacturer of the Roamer automobile,

The most ambitious car made in Kalamazoo was the Roamer, a high-line luxury car made from 1917-29. It was founded by Cloyd Y. Kenworthy in association with Karl H. Martin and Albert C. Barley. The grille was a copy of the Rolls-Royce grille and the name was suggested by Kenworthy's chauffeur, after a famous race horse of the day

The Roamer used Continental, Duesenberg and Lycoming engines and its slogan was "America's smartest car." Sales literature quoted Oscar Wilde and used such phrases as "a certain insouciance." Among its owners were Mary Pickford and Buster Keaton, but the company folded shortly before Wall Street crashed in 1929. The museum has 1920 Roamer Roadster and Touring Cars on display.
Albert Barley built and marketed a car with his name on it 1922-24. It was a middle-price car, filling a slot below the Roamer. The museum has a 1922 Barley Touring Car on display

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"America's Smartest Car", the Roamer was built in Streator,Illinois from 1916-1917. A 1917 model is pictured, right, and is showcase during Streator's Annual Roamer Car Show and Cruise Night held annually on Labor Day weekend

For more information please read:

Beverly Rae Kimes - The Classic Car

Beverly Rae Kimes - The Classic Era

Beverly Rae Kimes - Packard: A History of the Motorcar and Company

Beverly Rae Kimes & Henry Austin Clark Jr. - Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942

Richard Burns Carson - The Olympian Cars

Raymond A. Katzell - The Splendid Stutz

Marc Ralston - Pierce Arrow

Brooks T. Brierley - There Is No Mistaking a Pierce Arrow

Brooks T. Brierley - Auburn, Reo, Franklin and Pierce-Arrow Versus Cadillac, Chrysler, Lincoln and Packard

Brooks T. Brierley - Magic Motors 1930

Nick Georgano - The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile: Coachbuilding