Coachbult.com - James M. Quinby & Sons - often misspelled as Quimby



James M. Quinby & Sons - 1834-1874 - J.M. Quinby & Co. 1874-1917 - Newark, New Jersey - New York, New York - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - J.M Quinby & Co. Inc. - 1923-1929 - East Orange, New Jersey

James M. Quinby (18??-1874) began making carriages in Newark, New Jersey starting in 1834. Slow and steady progress was made, and his firm soon became not only the largest in the state, but one of the largest in the country, with a large factory at 326 Broad St. in downtown Newark. From the 1820s through the Civil War Newark rivaled New York City as the nation’s carriage building center and as many as twenty factories employed from twenty five to one hundred men each. Quinby’s factory had always been the largest, employing around 200 hands in 1857.

Towards the end of the century a new modern 4-story factory was built at 21-39 Division St. in Newark, and a Manhattan showroom established at 620 Broadway in New York City.

Quinby was a leading citizen of the community and served as Newark’s mayor from 1851-1853 and from 1861-1863 served as Essex County’s State Senator. When Quinby died in 1874, control of the firm passed to his sons. However, after a number of years in business, they decided to sell the business to Newark’s Ogden family. William W. Ogden became Quinby’s president and his brother Henry, vice-president.

Walter C. Yelton served as Quinby’s chief draftsman and superintendent through the transition from carriage-building to automobile body building. At the age of fifteen Yelton moved from his native Kentucky to Oneida, New York, where he apprenticed at the shops of J. L. Spencer & Co. Subsequent positions were held with R. M. Bingham, in Rome, New York, the Oneida Carriage Works, in Oneida, New York and the Cortland Wagon Co. in Cortland, New York. In 1893 he attended the Andrew F. Johnson Technical School and went to work for Quinby in July of 1895. Yelton remained Quinby’s chief designer until he left to work for John B. Judkins Co. in 1916.

Another noted Quinby delineator was Emerson Brooks, who joined the firm soon after Yelton. Brooks was also an early automotive enthusiast and was an early member of the Automobile Club of America – the predecessor of the modern-day AAA. Quinby sponsored the talented Brooks went he studied design in Europe during 1902 and he would later form the New York coachbuilding firm of Brooks-Ostruk Co. in 1917 with Demarest’s chief designer, Paul Ostruk.

The March, 1899 issue of Horseless Age reported: "It is an unfailing sign of the times when one of the oldest carriage-building firms in the country, noted for more than half a century for the excellence of their product, embarks in the manufacture of electric carriages."

A stillborn scheme with entrepreneur James E. Hayes to build electric delivery vehicles for the Newark brewer J. Herbert Ballantine made headlines, but in reality only a handful of Quinby Electrics were actually delivered, and those few were built to order using components sourced from the Riker Electric Vehicle Co. of Elizabethport, N.J.

Herbert T. Strong, one of Quinby’s talented designers, patented a process for making composite aluminum over wood, automobile bodies in 1902, and this innovation helped launch their body-building business. Quinby’s tulip phaeton became quite popular, and served as a major influence on the much more ornate Roi-des-Belges open tourers which became quite popular in Europe during the early 1900s. The Roi-des-Belges was named after the topless limousines favored by King Leopold II of Belgium, the Belgian Monarch who had a much celebrated affair with the notorious Parisian dancer and post card pin-up Cléo de Mérode.

In 1903 Quinby enter into negotiations to body the proposed American Panhard which was to have been assembled by Panhard’s American distributors Smith & Mabley, but Panhard supposedly axed the scheme due to pressure from US Customs who feared the loss in anticipated revenue.

Emerson Brook’s long association with the Automobile Club of America led to the firm’s decision to exhibit a Decauville limousine at the December 1905 New York Automobile Show. The following year Quinby’s stand included handsome French-influenced designs on FIAT, Mercedes, Panhard, Renault, and Simplex chassis. A Quinby display with many of the same vehicles was held a few weeks earlier at the competing 1906 Licensed Automobile Manufacturer’s Importer’s Automobile Salon which was held at Herald Square Exhibition Hall during much larger ALAM’s exhibit at Madison Square Garden. The following year it was decided to exclude imported chassis at both the ACA and ALAM New York shows and to exhibit the foreign chassis in a third, totally separate event which would be held at Madison Square Garden following the two American shows at the end of December.

For the next few years Quinby’s Salon exhibits consisted of a variety of open and closed body styles on various imported chassis - Benz, Daimler, Decauville, FIAT, Isotta-Fraschini, Lancia, Mercedes, Minerva, Panhard, Renault, and Rolls-Royce. But due to the unwarranted expense of exhibiting at all three shows, Quinby – and others – decided to focus their attention on the Importer’s Salon, where they displayed their creations on both imported and domestic chassis. Subsequent Salons included Quinby creations on the following American made /assembled chassis: American FIAT (assembled in Poughkeepsie, NY), American Mercedes (assembled in Long Island City, NY), American S.G.V. (Charron, Giradot and Voight - assembled in Rome, NY), Crane-Simplex, Jennis, Locomobile, Lozier, Matheson, Packard, Pennsylvania, Pierce (Great Arrow), Pierce-Arrow, Scott, Singer, Simplex, Smith & Mabley and Wick.

The 75^th Anniversary 1909 J. M Quinby & Co. Aluminum Body catalog offered 27 different styles of bodies for the discriminating customer and a satellite showroom was established in Philadelphia at the corner of Walnut & 12^th Street. Quinby also became a distributor for Isotta-Fraschini as well as a distributor and exclusive body-builder for the Bryn Mawr-built Pennsylvania automobile.

Advertising for the Pennsylvania car emphasized that its bodies were made by Quinby, "recognized and accepted as America's best." However, in August of 1911 Quinby sued the automaker alleging that Pennsylvania had reneged on its 1909 contract before the full delivery of bodies ordered. The action led to the Bryn Mawr firm’s involuntary bankruptcy in 1911.

Emerson Brooks was now Quinby’s vice-president, as well as serving as treasurer for the Automobile Club of America, a position that undoubtedly brought in additional revenue for the firm. Brooks continued to have a hand in the firm’s design work introducing a novel angled footboard on a Simplex chassis that offered the driver additional comfort on long journeys.

Two additional Quinby satellites opened in rapid succession, a Simplex and Isotta-Fraschini showroom on Pittsburgh’s Grand Blvd in 1910 followed by another at 1849 Broadway in Manhattan that was headed by H. M. "Deacon" Strong.

In January, 1912 the New York Times reported on two imported Benz chassis seen at the Importers Auto Salon with Quinby coachwork:

“The most striking model is a 30 horse power chassis-de-luxe equipped with a gorgeous special Quinby coronation limousine body painted in rich royal purple striped in gold – all mounting and fittings being in gold. Carved mahogany woodwork covered in gold leaf decorate the upper portion of the interior of the limousine, which is elaborately upholstered in rich mauve broadcloth. The color scheme of the interior harmonizes with the exterior in that all fittings are in purple and gold. Electric dome and lights illuminate the interior, while the lamps are specially crown deigned. The crown of the King of England replaces the usual monogram on the doors. A new type of oval extension top with a round back, fitted over an aluminum cap, imbedded in the upholstery of the top covering is a decided innovation.

“Another purple and gold exhibit is a special Quinby coronation torpedo on a 250 horse power chassis. The purple leather for the upholstering was specially imported.”

Despite the fact that Isotta-Fraschini opened their own New York City showroom in 1912, many of the automaker’s chassis displayed at subsequent Salons were still exhibited with Quinby coachwork which was due in no small part to Captain Ugo d’Annunzio, the I-F’s branch’s flamboyant manager who was the son of the infamous Italian Nietzschean poet, black magician, anarchist and aviator, Gabriele D'Annunzio.

Quinby's Manhattan showroom eventually moved to 232 Fifth Ave. from it original location at 620 Broadway. When they closed down in 1917, its manager, H. M. "Deacon" Strong, became sales manager for New York’s Wm. Wiese & Co., a major supplier of upholstery for the custom body industry.

Quinby, along with Burr, Demarest, Hollbrook and Locke were well-represented at the January, 1913 Importer’s Auto Salon which took place once again in the Hotel Astor’s Grand Ballroom.

Quinby's 1914 New York Salon exhibit consisted of 9 Isotta-Fraschinis; 2 polished I-F demonstrator chassis, one a 120-130hp, the second a 45-55 hp model, a 120-130 hp Isotta-Fraschini Inside-drive "social limousine, a 120-130 hp I-F runabout, a 70-80 hp I-F collapsible touring, a 35-45 hp I-F collapsible touring, a 25-35 hp I-F special touring, a 25-35 hp I-F limousine and an 18-25 hp I-f inside-drive coupe, all with Quinby coachwork.

The 1915 Auto Salon marked the first time in over 10 years that an official Quinby booth was absent from the event. The only European chassis displayed were from Lancia and Peugeot as the Great War in Europe greatly reduced the availability of imported chassis. Italian manufacturers were busy producing chassis for the Austro-Hungarian/German War effort and transportation bottlenecks prevented other chassis from crossing the Atlantic. The only Quinby bodies in evidence were located on the Simplex stand.

Following his graduation for the Andrew F. Johnson Technical School in 1914, a young John Dobben was hired by Quinby as a delineator. He had previously worked in the body shops of the Pope-Hartford Co. where he studied design using Andrew F. Johnson’s correspondence course. In 1913 he decided to personally attend Johnson’s classes at New York’s Mechanics Institute.

In a conversation with coachbuilding historian Hugo Pfau, Dobbin recalled that in those days, they had no chassis blueprints to work from in laying out the body. He often went into New York City or perhaps out to Long Island to measure a chassis they were to build a body for. This meant not only the superficial items such as wheelbase, but the exact contour of the chassis frame, the shape of the kick-up over the rear axle, the location of each body bolt hole. Then he also had to check such items as the location and size of brake drums, differential housings, and other points for which clearance would have to be allowed when building the body.

This was a process that could take many hours of careful measurement, jotting down notes and making small sketches which would later be redrawn in full size before the body draft could be started.

Dobben worked at Quinby from 1914-1917, when he left to work for the John B. Judkins Company in Merrimac, Massachusetts, where he was to remain for the next quarter-century. He recalls that the Quinby’s offices were at 342 Broad St, but their advertising still used the factory's 21-39 Division St address.

Right before Dobben left, the Ogdens (two brothers who were the majority stockholders of Quinby) were considering the manufacture of another Quinby car, this one gasoline powered. A 1916 trade journal reported that "from its position as one of the leading makers of custom bodies in the East," Quinby was planning to "expand into larger existence as a car maker."

Among the principals behind this effort was William O. Houck, former vice-president and sales manager for Keeton, and the plan included a stock offering in order to increase its capitalization from $200,000 to $2.1 million. Apparently there was a third Ogden brother who passed away at the same time. He had made a fortune on Wall Street and left a huge trust fund for his two brothers, the principal of which they could not touch. Surprisingly, the plans for the new venture were scrapped and the Odgens decided to retire from the bodybuilding business.

Quinby was notably absent from the 1916 Importer’s Auto Salon and a late 1916 NY Times article stated that “J.M. Quinby & Co. of Newark, New Jersey, one of the oldest carriage and automobile body builders in the country, will sell its plant and retire from business.” A subsequent news item in March of 1917 announced that, the large Quinby factory in Newark was on the market for $400,000 and a July 2, 1917 auction disposed of what remained of the firm’s equipment and inventory.

Apparently the Ogden brothers sold the name separately from the building, as a new J.M. Quinby Co. emerged in April of 1923. The new firm specialized in buses and commercial bodies, and was located just a few short miles away from the original Quinby plant in the former Jephson-Scott Body Co. plant in East Orange, New Jersey. The new enterprise was headed by Ernest Kay, a former director and treasurer of Quinby and Richard H. Long, the last owner of Jephson-Scott.

To finance the new enterprise, the pair formed the Long, Kay & Company, a brokerage house whose sole business was the sales of shares in the “new” J.M Quinby & Co. Inc. for which they raised $200,000 through a sale of preferred stock. Although it would be illegal today, the pair pocketed $40 for ever $85 they placed in the Quinby coffers, a practice that was common in the years before the strict regulations that were made necessary by the stock market crash of ’29.

The reorganized J.M. Quinby & Co. Inc. prospered for a short period, but within the year its business took a turn for the worse and Long took over as president to protect his investment. He reduced the workforce and by the end of 1925 its outlook had greatly improved. Unfortunately the firm’s output never exceeded 25% of capacity and dividends were never paid out to its shareholders, so they took Long and Kay to court over the matter in 1926. The judge found that no wrongdoing had been committed and rejected the shareholders’ petition. The firm lasted for a couple more years but didn’t survive the decade, going out of business for good in 1929.

Quinby’s original Division St. factory was torn down in 1998 to make room for Newark’s Riverfront Stadium which opened in 1999.

For more information please read:

Greg Dobben - A Moment of Elegance - A Time of Pride, Custom Craftsmanship Gave the Auto Industry Its One Supreme Moment of Refinement and Classic Grace - A 1966 3-part article in the Rochester Courier (NH) - (September 1, 1966 September 8, 1966, September 16 1966 issues)

Brooks T. Brierley - Connecting Quinby and Brooks-Ostuk - Automobile Quarterly - Vol. 46 No. 2

Hugo Pfau - Judkins - Cars & Parts, September 1971

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