The story of the Chandler Motor Company is one of remarkable success. In the 17 years of production from 1913 to 1929, Chandler cars were some of the most popular in America.
Frederick C. Chandler was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1874. By 1890 he was working for H. A. Lozier & Co, a Cleveland manufacturer of sewing machines and bicycles. When Lozier moved into the manufacture of luxury cars in Plattsburgh, New York, Chandler became its sales manager. By 1911 he was Lozier’s General Manager.
In 1913 Chandler, four other senior Lozier executives and one Lozier engineer left to set up the Chandler Motor Company. The Lozier was one of the most expensive cars of its day, but the Chandler car achieved many of the same attributes at a much lower price.
Production began on 1 July 1913 at a newly built factory in Cleveland. The six-cylinder car attracted much attention at the September Chicago Automobile Show for its low price of $1,785 and advanced features such as enclosed valve springs, multiple disc clutch and a Westinghouse electric starter. Chandler was determined to manufacture in quantity: the company made 550 cars in the rest of 1913 and 1,950 in 1914, enabling a reduction in price to $1,595. The building was expanded in 1915 to more than double production capacity, and Chandler built 7,000 cars in 1915 and 15,000 in the following year.
Chandler aimed for 20,000 cars in 1917, but was limited to the 1916 level by World War I. It still made a healthy profit, partly from a contract to Holt 10-ton artillery tractors for the US Army, one of the largest war contracts in the city of Cleveland.
In 1920 Chandler had a range of six cars. Our Snapshot shows its four-passenger roadster, unusually fitted with wire wheels that in the USA were normally only found on its sportier ‘Dispatch’ car. The clue to this change is that this is a right-hand drive version imported to the UK by the concessionaires H. G. Burford & Co. of Regent Street in London. Henry George Burford had a distinguished career in the British motor industry, in such positions as engineer and managing director of the Milnes-Daimler Company, a director of the Humber Company and then as director of his own company manufacturing motor lorries. He was president of the Institution of Automobile Engineers in 1923-1924.
Chandler’s best production year was in 1927, when it sold 20,000 cars. But overexpansion in 1928 saw the company over half a million dollars in debt, and in 1929, Chandler Motor Company was purchased by its competitor Hupp Motor Car Company for its factory and manufacturing facilities, and the Chandler marque disappeared.
Image courtesy of The Richard Roberts Archive: www.richardrobertsarchive.org.uk
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