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H&M Body Corp. - 1919-1925 - Racine, Wisconsin |
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In 1919 a mid-summer strike at C.R. Wilson & Co., their largest body supplier, left the Hupp Motor Car Corp. with a backlog of orders. Wilson had been supplying Hupp with approximately 1,000 bodies per month, and a sudden loss of that many bodies caused a corresponding drop in Hupmobile production and sales. To ensure that it wouldn’t happen again, Hupmobile and the Mitchell Motor Co. of Racine, Wisconsin joined forces, establishing the H&M Body Corp. on September 14, 1919. A plant was acquired on Sixth Street in downtown Racine and bodies were forthcoming within a few short months. While Hupp continued to purchase special bodies as needed from outside coach builders, most of their production bodies would be built at H&M Body who would ship them “in the white” to their Detroit plant where a staff of 300-400 would paint, trim and mount them to waiting Hubmobile chassis. A few bodies were made for other manufacturers, most notably, the Detroit Electric Co. for which they built production bodies between 1918-1920. The arrangement suited Hupp so well that on August 1, 1921, they bought out Mitchell’s interest in the H&M Body Corp. and devoted the entire Racine factory to the production of Hupmobile bodies. 1922 production was slated at 10,000, but increased sales of Hupmobiles caused the order to be increased to 20,000. Unfortunately, that was more than the H&M plant could handle, so additional production bodies were sourced from the Auto Metal Body Corp., a subsidiary of the Springfield Coach Works of Springfield, Massachusetts. As their body plant was located almost 400 miles away in Racine, Wisconsin, the Detroit-based Hupp became interested in establishing a satellite assembly plant in Racine. They tried to purchase the factory of the Mitchell Motor Company at their 1924 bankruptcy auction, but were outbid by Charles Nash, so another plan was devised. Their former body supplier, C.R. Wilson had just been re-organized into the Murray Body Corp., so they approached Murray’s new president, Allan Sheldon, with a proposal. Hupp would sell the H&M Body Corp. to Murray at a great discount, providing that Murray would guarantee to supply Hupp with all of the production bodies they required over the next five years. It seemed to be a good idea at the time, but Murray soon discovered that the H&M body plant was located too far away to be managed effectively, and when combined with the added costs of transporting the bodies 400 miles to Detroit, the plant never turned a profit and never produced bodies for anyone other than Hupmobile. © 2004 Mark Theobald - Coachbuilt.com
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For more information please read: Bill Cuthbert - The Hupmobile Story: From Beginning to End 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 Brooks T. Brierley - There Is No Mistaking a Pierce Arrow Brooks T. Brierley - Magic Motors 1930 Nick Georgano - The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile: Coachbuilding John Gunnell - Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975 James M. Flammang & Ron Kowalke - Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1976-1999 Daniel D. Hutchins - Wheels Across America: Carriage Art & Craftsmanship Marian Suman-Hreblay - Dictionary of World Coachbuilders and Car Stylists Michael Lamm and Dave Holls - A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design Thomas E. Bonsall - The Lincoln Motorcar: Sixty Years of Excellence Fred Roe - Duesenberg: The Pursuit of Perfection Arthur W. Soutter - The American Rolls-Royce John Webb De Campi - Rolls-Royce in America Hugo Pfau - The Custom Body Era Hugo Pfau - The Coachbult Packard Griffith Borgeson - Cord: His Empire His Motor Cars Don Butler - Auburn Cord Duesenberg George H. Dammann - 90 Years of Ford George H. Dammann & James K. Wagner - The Cars of Lincoln-Mercury Thomas A. MacPherson - The Dodge Story F. Donald Butler - Plymouth-Desoto Story Fred Crismon - International Trucks George H. Dammann - Seventy Years of Chrysler Walter M.P. McCall - 80 Years of Cadillac LaSalle Maurice D. Hendry - Cadillac, Standard of the World: The complete seventy-year history George H. Dammann & James A. Wren - Packard Dennis Casteele - The Cars of Oldsmobile Terry B. Dunham & Lawrence R. Gustin - Buick: A Complete History George H. Dammann - Seventy Years of Buick George H. Dammann - 75 Years of Chevrolet John Gunnell - Seventy-Five Years of Pontiac-Oakland
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