Dietrich Inc.

The Dietrich Inc. was an American manufacturer of automobile bodies, of Detroit was a resident from 1925 to 1936 and produced bodies for chassis from Lincoln or Packard. A successor company named Ray Dietrich Inc. existed from 1949 until 1953.

Company History

The Dietrich Inc. was founded in summer 1925 by Raymond Dietrich. Dietrich had since 1913 gerarbeitet as a draftsman and stylist for coachbuilder Brewster & Company in 1921 before he participated in the founding of his own company called LeBaron Carossiers. After initial successes, he left LeBaron and founded with financial and logistical support Edsel Ford, the company Dietrich Inc. The decision had been made to him was simple. Dietrich had met in December 1923 during the New York Auto Salon Edsel Ford. A year later, Dietrich designed bodies for Lincoln, whose chief Edsel Ford was. This was eager to work more closely with Dietrich. He led in December 1924 Allan Sheldon, president of the major Ford supplier Murray Corporation, which built a big part of the bodies for the Model T to buy LeBaron. This failed because of the financial needs at LeBaron. Then Murray Dietrich offered to finance their own company with 50 % (the other half of them held Dietrich ), own production facilities and a private designer and draftsman office. As a bonus, there was a supply contract for Lincoln bodies of Edsel Ford

The deliberate positioning operation in Detroit should be close to Ford, but also other major automobile manufacturers increase the U.S. and thereby promote the opportunities for expansion of the company. The company should on the one hand to act as a design consultant leading manufacturer eg. Lincoln or Packard; Franklin and later the Studebaker offshoot Erskine were added. Furthermore, special bodies originated either as individual pieces ( "Full Custom" ) or in small series for the respective manufacturer ( " semi-custom " ) were built. A successful design was often included in the special catalogs of manufacturers. Lincoln ordered such constructions tranches 5 to 10 units. Packard thought this was similar. In this area, Dietrich Inc. was in constant competition with other special operations such as Brunn, Derham, Holbrook, Judkins, Locke, LeBaron, Rollson, Waterhouse or Willoughby. LeBaron was eventually replaced by Murray's main competitor, the Briggs Manufacturing Company taken over. This led to the situation that Murray Lincoln built bodies which Ray Dietrich had designed for LeBaron before this company was controlled by the rival Briggs. This was particularly dreifenstrige Sedan and zweifenstrige Victoria coupe.

Business was not good from the start. Dietrich Inc. started with a working capital of U.S. $ 150,000 - and lost almost as much in the first year.

Dietrich Inc. worked from 1925 in different areas. On one hand, Dietrich developed the design of whole series of different manufacturers, on the other hand designed and made ​​it according to customer individual structures for high-quality chassis.

The first company that had designed a whole series of Dietrich, was Packard. End of 1925, Dietrich was awarded the contract to produce a series of special bodies for Packard, which were first shown at exhibitions. This resulted in 325 orders. They formed the basis for a long -standing relationship between Dietrich and Packard. 1927 Dietrich designed the model range, which specializes in aircooled cars company Franklin and the first series of the newly established automobile manufacturer Erskine. Here Dietrich limited to the designs of bodies; the construction of the vehicles in each case at other manufacturers.

For individual structures Dietrich soon became the greatest coachbuilders of the United States. In the late 1920s emerged with Dietrich up to 25 customers vehicles per week. The designs were often standardized and produced in 25 to 50 copies per year. In the late 1920s, Dietrich offered to bodies that fit on different chassis. The Dietrich Convertible Victoria 1929 about could be connected to both a Packard as well as a Lincoln chassis. In addition, Dietrich experimented with an observation car concept called the Briton Peter Jones. A Packard 645 Deluxe Eight Sedan sedan received a new rear end with additional bent to 90 ° certificates in the roof edge and a rear door with window crank and integrated Auszugtischchen. In addition, the rear seat could be rotated 180 °. Packard was interested but there were not enough orders together to design in the catalog record.

Dietrich but was not too bad even for commercial vehicles. Probably for cost reasons have been built only a few. One gave the commander of the Detroit Fire Department, Paxton Mendelssohn, in 1927 his firefighters: a combination of clinic and staff car based on a Packard Six 433

From 1929, sales plummeted. From some body types, only half were up one-third of the calculated, based on experience, quantity ordered. After the stock market crash end of October 1929 ( "Black Friday " ) became Dietrich Inc. in serious problems. The Murray Corporation, in turn, according to corporate miscalculations since 1926 under new management, Raymond Dietrich dropped. He had to give up the presidency of his own company in September 1930. His successor was L. Clayton Hill, by then assistant sales manager at Murray. In addition, many irreplaceable experts were dismissed with Dietrich Inc..

1931 Dietrich Inc. was merged physically and organizationally with the Murray Corporation. Dietrich lost thereby increasing its autonomy. The bodies sold in the 1930s under the name Dietrich matched stylistically increasingly those of Murray; the difference was mainly in the fact that higher-quality materials were used for the Dietrich versions.

Packard used the 1929, designed by Dietrich bodies until 1934. Till then the designs experienced only minor modifications. The increasingly outdated design was a major reason that Packard in the early 1930s put down less and less cars. This only changed with a new design, which was introduced in 1935. The 1935er Packards were attributed to Dietrich; but in fact had neither Raymond nor the Dietrich Dietrich Inc. something to do with these designs. Packard had only acquired the right to use the name Dietrich for this self-designed bodies.

1936 sale of Dietrich bodies was abandoned.