VANDERBILTS AND ROCKEFELLERS FLEXED IN THIS 1934 BREWSTER TOWN CAR

Brewster History

Ignore the olive-shaped headlights and imaging yourself smoking a Cuban in the back of this sleek and luxurious 1934 Brewster as your butler drives you to the casino. Brewster and Company started building horse-drawn coaches in the early 1800s for just this purpose, hawking them to members of wealthy families before moving from horse power to internal combustion in 1915. The new Brewster line of automobiles were built for the children of these wealthy families in its Long Island City factory from 1915 to 1925, using four-cylinder engines and a variety of beautiful coach-built bodies.

brewster and rolls-royce

When Rolls-Royce entered the U.S. market, Maxwell was initially contracted to build bodies for the company. In 1925, Rolls Royce purchased a controlling interest in Maxwell and began producing coach-built Rolls-Royce bodies in Springfield, Massachusetts. Rolls-Royce struggled after Black Thursday in October, 1929 and during the subsequent Great Depression. The company was reorganized as the Springfield Manufacturing Corporation to protect Rolls-Royce and continued to produce small numbers of bodies at that location.   

1934-1936 brewster

By 1934, Brewster had returned to building custom vehicles, this time primarily using Ford V-8 chassis and engines and a unique heart-shaped grille. The asking price was $3,500 for any model. By 1936, the company was in trouble again and the liquidation of the Springfield Manufacturing Corporation was ordered. Brewster closed its doors in 1937 and the assets were auctioned off on Wednesday, August 18, 1937, at the Brewster and Co., plant in Long Island City, New York.

the vanderbilts and rockefellers

Today, it is believed there were between 100-300, 1934-1936 Brewsters built at the Springfield factory (the proclaimed number is 135), and more built at the original Long Island City plant into the late 1930s under Jack Inskip using various chassis and coach plates. The Brewster pictured here is chassis number 9019, a 1934 Brewster Town Car that has been stored in the Sibley Museum since the mid-1990s. According to the original ownership files provided by Peter Zage, a New York Rolls-Royce dealer, it is a Springfield Brewster with an original purchase date of August 17, 1934, by Mrs. Elsie Rockefeller. She kept the vehicle for a year before it was sold to Mrs. Consuelo Vanderbilt in 1935, then to George W. Kavanaugh. All three were descendants of the barons of the Gilded Age in America. Despite the economics of the early to mid-1930s, the Brewster Town Car was viewed as a status symbol of the wealthy with a promise of practicality and low ownership cost. Owners included the social elite of the Northeast, philanthropist Florence Guggenheim, and entertainers like Cole Porter and Al Jolson.

the end of the coach-built era

The Springfield Brewster Town Car used a Ford chassis with its familiar transverse leaf springs and I-beam front axle and a frame that was cut and extended 10-15 inches. The drivetrain was also from Ford, featuring an 85hp 221 cu.in. Ford flathead V8, a three-speed transmission, and a spiral-bevel rearend. Inside, the Brewster included innovations like roll-up window cranks in place of the strap used at the time, leather upholstery, and rear armrests. The passenger area of the Brewster featured small lamp-lit enclaves for makeup storage and a mirror to prepare the occupants for the Paparazzi. Outside, the Brewster was set apart by the large heart-shaped grille, flared fenders and split bumper. Both the Ford Model A/B/T and the Great Depression killed cars like the Brewster and sent manufactures like Rolls-Royce back to their home countries. But, for a short time at the turn of the century, hand-built coachwork was king.

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2024-07-29T19:44:35Z