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Early American Automobiles Automobile Bodies Built in Merrimac, Ma. Home Amesbury Body Makers MA Automobiles All Automobiles from 1861 to 1929 J.B. Judkins Co.
1898 Columbia The History of the Merrimac Automobile Builders has been copied and edited from Coachbuilt. In 1898, Flandrau & Company, New York distributors for the cars built by Colonel Pope's Electric Vehicle Company in Hartford, Connecticut, ordered twenty bodies for these new vehicles. The driver sat in a little open "balcony" behind the tall, glass-enclosed passenger compartment and steered using an early steering wheel. This was Judkins' first attempt at automobile bodies, but using the same high standards of craftsmanship as in their horse-drawn carriages and even similar lines - they turned out excellent bodies. The structural framework of the existing horse-drawn closed bodies was fully adequate to meet the needs of the new vehicle. The type of joint and method of reinforcement were altogether commensurate and in fact the early automotive bodies were almost exact duplicates of the brougham bodies Judkins built for horse-drawn carriages. Many of these twenty bodies were mounted on the chassis at the Judkins plant. These cars left the plant completely ready to run except that the heavy storage batteries were not installed until after the cars reached New York. Note: This is from my personal research on Riker Cars
The Columbia Taxicab and the Riker Demi-Coach are identical and were made in the same year. Because Currier, Cameron, and Co. of Amesbury was making bodies for his runabouts, he was very familiar with the coach work of Judkins in Merrimac and when Judkins began building bodies for Columbia,Riker also ordered the same bodies for his automobiles. For the next fifteen or twenty years, they built carriages and automobile bodies simultaneously, but in 1910 the last Judkins carriage left the shop. It is interesting to note that this is just about the same time Brewster made their last horse-drawn carriage. The beautiful coaches remaining in stock were stored in barns waiting vainly for buyers. Finally, when the space was urgently needed for motor car body operations, they were sold in a block at a price far lower than the cost of their solid rubber tires. By 1910, Judkins had built bodies for Locomobile, Peerless, White, Morse, Winton, Alco, Stevens-Duryea and others. A few of the bodies were open, but most were closed styles, custom designed and tailored for individual clients on large, expensive chassis such as Peerless, Pierce-Arrow, Mercer and Renault. From 1921-1939, Judkins produced a total of 5904 custom and series-built-custom bodies for Lincoln, more than any other custom body builder, although Brunn was a close second. 1931 Lincoln Model 31 Not all of Judkins' business, though, had to do with Lincoln. The company also built bodies throughout the teens and twenties for Cadillac, Duesenberg, Lincoln, Locomobile, Marmon, Mercer, Packard, Pierce-Arrow, Stearns-Knight, and Winton. During the early years of the Depression, Judkins built a fair number of Lincolns and an occasional body on Packard or other chassis, but their volume was nowhere near the 500 per year averages they enjoyed during the previous decade. However, by 1934, the volume was insufficient to pay the firms expenses, so they contemplated entering the aluminum casket business, but found that their competition was so firmly entrenched that they didnt stand a chance of breaking into that market. The next products they developed were more successful. Starting in 1934, they started manufacturing aluminum house trailers and sales demonstration trailers alongside their automobile bodies.
1912 Body |
