1925 Chalmers

edited by David Barth, 15 March 2009.
Courtesy Antique Car Museum of Iowa at 860 Quarry Road, Coralville, Iowa, 52241 USA.
Photos were taken in March 2009.

In the beginning, the Chalmers-Detroit was simply the Thomas-Detroit. When Howard Coffin and Roy Chapin, who had the idea for the Thomas-Detroit, decided they preferred running their own company instead of being told what to do by Erwin Ross Thomas in Buffalo, New York. They talked Hugh Chalmers of Detroit into buying out their New York sponsor, Thomas.

Chalmers could afford to do this because, as a vice-president of the National Cash Register (NCR) Company, he was earning $72,000 a year in 1907. In late 1907, Chalmers resigned his NCR vice-presidency and got out of the cash register business and into the automobile business.

In July 1908, the Chalmers-Detroit Motor Car Company was created to produce vehicles costing $1,500 to $2,800. The first cars were made in 1908 and were marketed as 1909 models. Chapin and Coffin were considering marketing a car costing under $1,000. Coffin designed a 20 horsepower, four-cylinder car to be priced under $1,000.

Hugh Chalmers was only mildly enthusiastic with the new design, so Chapin and Coffin persuaded Detroit department store magnate J. L. Hudson into making a financial investment in the car in exchange for naming the car for him.

By the end of 1909, the first 1,000 Hudsons had been sold. The Hudson group bought out Hugh Chalmers with stock and cash in which Chalmers retained Chalmers-Detroit.

Chalmers-Detroit had distinguished itself in racing, taking five first places, a second place, and a third place in six premier light car contests during 1908 and 1909.

The Vanderbilts and Rockefellers owned Chalmers-Detroit cars. John Herreshoff of America's Cup fame also owned one, as did the superintendent of inventions for the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, Jesse G. Vincent, who soon joined Packard and became one of its greatest chief engineers.

Late in 1910 Chalmers-Detroit was reorganized into the Chalmers Motor Car Company, and thereafter, all cars made by the company were known as Chalmers. For more than a decade, they were among the most popular automobiles in America.

A Chalmers won the Glidden Trophy in 1910. In 1912, a six-cylinder model was introduced, and after 1915, all cars had six-cylinder engines.

Annual sales during the 1915 era were in the 20,000 range. The Chalmers' famous exhausted-heated, curved manifold was called "The Rams Horn with a Hot Spot."

Chalmers cars with six cylinder engines won in class at Pikes Peak and won overall in a 24-hour marathon at Sheepshead Bay.

The recession that followed World War I caused Chalmers sales to sag, and receivership became a possibility.

Hugh Chalmers noticed that the Maxwell company across town was surviving. He leased part of the Chalmers property to Maxwell, but differences arose over an accounting under the terms of the lease, and it was cancelled in mid-1921. However, Maxwell merged with Chalmers in 1922 when Chalmers was sued by creditors and experienced a mortgage foreclosure. Maxwell bought the Chalmers property for $1,987,000 and assumed Chalmers' debt.

The Maxwell-Chalmers merger didn't improve the financial condition of the combined company. An outside investor, Walter Percy Chrysler, took control of the company. The last Chalmers manufactured were 1924 models built in late 1923. Maxwell production ceased in 1925. In January 1924, the new Chrysler was introduced.