| Oscar C. Graff was born in
Naperville, Illinois in 1864 to two German immigrants, Lewis and Mary
(Price) Graff. His father had passed away sometime prior to the 1880 census
which lists his mother, Mary (43yo saloon keeper and boarding house
operator) and four siblings: Ida (19yo), Clara (17yo), Edwin (13yo), and
Albert (10yo).
After completing his public education he took a job with the C.P. Kimball
Company in Chicago as an apprentice carriage builder in 1884. He married
Rosa Kaiser of Chicago in 1887 and during the next two years attended night
school at the Bryant & Stratton Business College where he took courses in
business and mechanical drawing.
In 1889 his blessed union with Rosa produced a son, Walter W. Graff, and
soon afterwards he began working in the Kimball drafting department. Just
after the turn of the century Kimball began building automobile bodies, and
between 1906 and 1910, Graff was awarded three automobile-related patents,
two for windshields and the third for a novel shock absorbing fender (aka
bumper).
Kimball severely curtailed their operations at the start of the First
World War providing Graff with an opportunity to form his own body-building
firm, the Graff Manufacturing Company which commenced operations in early
1917 at leased quarters located at 2909 Indiana Ave., Chicago, Illinois.
Graff specialized in closed bodies and soon developed a working
relationship with the Chicago branch of the Packard Motor Car Company.
Graff is also known to have bodied a Rolls-Royce, a few Cadillacs and was
also a custom coachwork supplier to the Chicago Marmon distributor.
Graff was listed as a Marmon custom coachbuilder (along with C.P.
Kimball, Larkin, Brewster, Brunn, New Haven Carriage Co., Rubay and Hume) in
a 27 page catalog called “Specially Constructed Bodies… for the Marmon
Chassis by America’s Master Coach Builders” put out in 1920 by the Marmon
Chicago Co.
The November 8, 1922 Salt Lake Tribune included the following paid
article/advertisement for Western Motors, the Salt Lake, Utah Packard
distributor:
“Western Motors Company Exhibits Last Word in Excellence in Automobile
“Here is a sedan that is grace and elegance itself. It is no more an
automobile, as automobiles go, than a Rembrandt is a "sketch." This handsome
Packard is the peer of all excellence in manufacture; it is custom made.
"Custom made means that this majestic coach is hand fashioned, as is the
hand tailored suit of clothes. Its lines are so formed as to attract at once
the admiration of all. Individuality and exclusiveness are its features. The
body was constructed by the Graff Manufacturing company of Chicago, builders
of exclusive custom bodies. It is mounted on a standard Packard twin-six
chassis.
"The body is of Willey's sedan blue with gray stripings and black
moldings. The upholstering, which is the last word in appearance and
comfort, is Laidlaw cloth over Marshall cushion springs. In the roof are two
ventilators, and the appointments are complete even to a cigar lighter. In
the lavish interior are two hassocks, for foot rests. A smoking set may be
placed in the rack at the right, while on the left is a lady's five-piece
vanity case. Twenty-three coats of the best paints have been applied
skillfully to the all aluminum body. Interior footings and the twelve-inch
lamps are of sliver plate.
"The interior is spacious, the driver having every convenience of room
and ease of operation. Seven passengers may be comfortably seated. This
elaborate and distinctive machine is on display in the salesroom of the
Western Motors, Incorporated, at 457 South Main Street.”
Graff’s work was regularly shown at the annual Chicago Auto Salon and at
the January 1924 Salon the Chicago Rolls-Royce dealer displayed a
Graff-built Silver Ghost.
An attractive 4-passenger Club Sedan was built in 1924 for Stanley Field,
the nephew of the founder of Chicago’s Marshall-Field & Co. department
store chain. The rear compartment was separated by a glass divider and a
porthole was provided for communication between master and servant.
In addition to building there own bodies, Graff also modified standard
Packard coachwork to suit the needs of the customer. In 1924 they offered a
rumble seat coupe that was built using a standard Packard rumble seat
roadster (runabout) body to which they added a padded leather faux cabriolet
permanent top. The design proved popular and was subsequently used on
factory built Packards.
As the quality and variety of factory-built coachwork increased, Graff
turned to the manufactured of bus bodies to help pay the bill and in 1922
reorganized the firm as the Graff Motor Coach Company. Custom bodies
continued to be produced in small numbers but by 1925 the firm devoted all
of its energies to the motor coach.
Both long distance inter-city and pay as you enter metropolitan coaches
were produced on a variety of chassis for the regions emerging private and
municipal transit companies.
The firm survived until 1935 when its founder, Oscar C. Graff decided to
take an early retirement.
© 2004 Mark Theobald - Coachbuilt.com
|
