I rather like this latest quest. I've mentioned my grandfather several times in this blog, and one of his hobbies was collecting and learning about vintage and antique cars. He and I were very close; I have fond memories of attending various car shows with him as a child. So I think he would have enjoyed this one.
As I mentioned last week, I had a recent road trip to Lititz in Lancaster County. Because my husband is a rather indulgent sort (which my longtime readers have probably noticed), we veered a bit off course on the way home in order to catch a marker in Berks County. Fleetwood is a small, unassuming community not far from Kutztown, where I attended the university back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, but it's had quite an impact on the automotive industry.
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| The marker stands at the intersection of North Richmond and West Locust Streets in Fleetwood. |
Not one to simply take this lying down, Harry banded together with a handful of his friends and former coworkers to form a new company. They acquired some property in the small Berks County community of Fleetwood and established the Fleetwood Metal Body Company, doing just the kind of work Harry had previously done for the Reading company. The success of the venture seems to have been almost immediate; by 1912 they had to move into the former headquarters of the Reading Body Plant because they needed more room. This was destroyed by a fire in 1917, but they quickly replaced it with a four-story factory built for their needs. Even this new facility - 60,000 square feet with nearly 400 employees - could not keep up with the demand by 1919, and the company had enough orders on the books to keep them busy for the next two years. They actually had a bidding war on their hands, because they were able to be so selective about taking new orders.
Naturally, the rich and famous didn't show up in person on the streets of Fleetwood (at least, not usually - keep reading). They would instead place their order with the well-known names of the day. Domestic makers who used Fleetwood bodies included Packard, Cadillac, and Pierce Arrow; if the preference was to buy a Fleetwood car of foreign make, some of the options were Rolls-Royce, Fiat, Mercedes, and Bentley. The client would order and purchase the car's chassis, wheels, and motor from the builder of their choice. This would be shipped to Fleetwood, while a company designer met with the purchaser at Fleetwood's New York sales office. Together, they worked out a blueprint of exactly what the client wanted for their new vehicle - the color of the body, the fabric for the upholstery, and whatever bells and whistles the future owner chose to add. The plans were then sent to the Fleetwood factory, where the hundreds of employees worked their magic to turn the disparate elements into one unique work of automotive art.
Who bought Fleetwood cars? According to the historical society's website, some Presidents of the United States - and indeed, the Presidential cars of the early 20th century were purchased from Pierce Arrow and Cadillac, so they almost certainly were Fleetwood products. Other well-to-do customers included the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, and Andrew Carnegie. Various foreign leaders and royalty were also partial to the Fleetwood cars, and so were many of the Hollywood upper crust. In fact, film star Rudolph Valentino was so in love with the things that he personally visited the factory in Berks County to design his car to his exact specifications, including Moroccan leather for the interior and his signature cobra mascot on the radiator. (Out of curiosity, I went through some newspaper archives, hoping to find an article about him being there. It seems that his visits were well concealed from the media at the time, though years later some former Fleetwood employees recalled them.) He was thrilled with the purchase, but sadly never got to actually drive it, as he died while the finishing touches were being made to the paint.
Things were going well for the company - in fact, they were going perhaps a little too well. Fleetwood cars were so in demand that they simply couldn't keep up with the orders. Despite having a workforce of some 700 people, by the mid-1920s they were struggling to deliver. In 1925, Harry Urich sold his golden goose to the Fisher Body Corporation, a subsidiary of General Motors. This alleviated some of the pressure; the money from the sale enabled them to enlarge and modernize the factory, which improved efficiency. The sales office was moved from New York to Detroit, but meanwhile Fisher added a few buildings to the Fleetwood complex to increase production even more. For the next few years, manufacture continued in the small hamlet where it had all begun.
But it all coasted to a halt as the 1920s drew to a close. Fisher Body built a new plant in Detroit exclusively for Fleetwood body production in 1929, and the following year, operations were moved to that plant and to another one in Delray, Michigan. Harry Urich retired, and the final bodies assembled at the factory in Fleetwood rolled out the door in late 1930. Though General Motors continued to use the name "Fleetwood" on many of its most prolific vehicles, the Pennsylvania branch of the business was no more.
The factory was sold; the most recent company to occupy it was GST Auto Leather, which closed their operations there and relocated to Mexico. Part of the complex burned in 2006, at which time it had been up for sale and slated to be demolished if a buyer could not be found. The 1917 building survived the fire and has since been restored. As far as I can tell, it has remained empty, and I'm guessing it's maintained by the local historical society. (If you can confirm or correct this, please let me know.)
For a fun bit of postscript, the Fleetwood name remained significant in automotive design for a long time after the actual Fleetwood factory closed. Many GM cars still had Fleetwood bodies and had the Fleetwood crest and/or script on their exterior. From 1965 to 1972, Cadillac had a Fleetwood subseries. Then, in 1976, it rolled out two new vehicles known as the Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham and the Cadillac Fleetwood Limousine. Starting in 1985, they began a line of cars simply known as the Cadillac Fleetwood, continuing to exalt the name as a hallmark of quality in automotive design. The Fleetwood line was retired in 1996, although in 1998 and 1999 they put out a sort of special edition model known as the Fleetwood Limited. Not a bad way to celebrate 90 years of automotive history.
Sources and Further Reading:
Fleetwood Auto Body by the Fleetwood Area Historical Society
Fleetwood Metal Body Co. at Coachbuilt.com
Beiswinger, George. "The Glory That Was Fleetwood." The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 29, 1975.
Schild, James J. Fleetwood: The Company and the Coachcraft. Auto Review Books, January 2001.
Reed, Terry Scott. "History Up in Smoke: Fleetwood body works buildings destroyed." Autoweek.com, January 29, 2006.
Strohl, Daniel. "Historical marker honors Fleetwood's original factory." Hemmings.com, November 27, 2017.
Fleetwood Metal Body Company at the Historical Marker Database
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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