Peerless

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Peerless

Peerless was a United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
automobile produced by the Peerless Motor Company of Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland, Ohio

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Peerless was a United States

United States

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the most populous county in the state. The municipality is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately 60 miles west of the Pennsylvania border....
. The company was known for building high-quality, precision luxury automobiles. Peerless' factory was located at 9400 Quincy Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio.

Established in Cleveland in 1900, Peerless Motors began producing De Dion-Bouton

De Dion-Bouton

De Dion-Bouton was a France automobile manufacturer and railcar manufacturer operating from 1883 to 1932. The company was founded by Comte Albert de Dion, Georges Bouton and his brother-in-law Charles Tr?pardoux....
"machines" under license from the French Company. At the time, Cleveland was the thriving center of automotive production in the United States. Peerless employed Barney Oldfield

Barney Oldfield

Berna Eli "Barney" Oldfield was an automobile racer and pioneer. He was born on a farm on the outskirts of Wauseon, Ohio. He was the first man to drive a car at 60 miles per hour on an oval....
as a driver of its Green Dragon racecar; in early speed races Peerless proved the durability of the product and setting world speed records. Peerless was noted for its use of flat-plane crankshafts in its engine designs.

As the Peerless evolved, it, along with makes Packard

Packard

Packard was an United States luxury automobile marque built by the Packard Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan, and later by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of South Bend, Indiana....
and Pierce-Arrow

Pierce-Arrow

Pierce-Arrow was an United States automobile manufacturer based in Buffalo, New York, which was active between 1901 and 1938. Best known for its expensive luxury cars, Pierce-Arrow also manufactured commercial motor truck, Fire apparatus, camp trailers, motorcycles, and bicycles....
, became known as the "Three-Ps of Motordom" (premium vehicles) in the United States.

Peerless' downfall was in its quality. In the 1920s, the company was producing conservatively-styled vehicles that would last for ten or more years. Current Peerless owners held onto their cars, which ran very well; new buyers of luxury cars were attracted to LaSalle

LaSalle

The LaSalle was an automobile product of General Motors and sold as a companion marque of Cadillac from 1927 to 1940. The two were linked by similarly-themed names, both being named for explorers — Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac and Ren?-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, respectively....
, Packard

Packard

Studebaker President

The Studebaker President was the premier automobile model manufactured by the Studebaker Corporation of South Bend, Indiana during the 1926 to 1942 model years....
series.

In 1930-31, Peerless commissioned Murphy Body Works of Pasadena, California

Pasadena, California

Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, California, United States. Famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl Game American football game and the Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home of many leading scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet Propulsion Laboratory ,...
, to design what the company envisioned as its 1933 model. The task was assigned to a young Frank Hershey

Frank Hershey

Frank Hershey was an American automobile designer and student of General Motors Corporation Vice President of Design Harley Earl. Hershey is best known for his 1932 Peerless V-16 prototype, 1949 Cadillac tailfins and the 1955 Ford Thunderbird....
. Hershey's design for Peerless was a remarkably clean, elegant vehicle, powered by the company's planned V16 engine

V16 engine

A V16 engine is a v engine with 16 cylinder s. Engines of this number of cylinders are uncommon in automotive use.A V16 engine is perfectly balanced regardless of the V angle without requiring counter-rotating balance shaft which are necessary on large Straight-4 or counterweighted crankshaft like the 90? V8....
.

Just as the car was ready to be shipped back to Cleveland, the Board of Directors pulled Peerless out of the automobile business and reöriented the company to brew beer under the Carling Black Label

Carling

Carling is the name of a brand of lager in Canada, Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom.Carling brands are currently owned by the Molson Coors Brewing Company....
brand.

Hershey's prototype was walled up in a room at the Peerless factory where it sat until the end of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
. Hershey's prototype is now owned by the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum

Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum

The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum, in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, is part of the Western Reserve Historical Society, and was founded by industrialist Frederick Coolidge Crawford of TRW and opened in 1965....
in Cleveland.

Today, Peerless vehicles are hard to find.

External links

entry from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History