Click here to see a list of downloadable free graphics for this project

Ruxton 1929 to 1930

The Ruxton Time Line

  • 1926, William Muller, an experimental engineer working for the Budd company, is given Mr. Budd’s permission to build an experimental front wheel drive prototype car.

     

  • 1928, Late this year, the experimental prototype car is finished. Subsequently, it is discovered by Budd board member Archie Andrews. Andrews is very interested in getting the car into production.

     

  • April, 1929, Andrews having failed to get Hupp on board to produce the car, decides to go it alone and creates “New Era Motors”. Work starts on the first production prototypes.

     

  • August, 1929, the first production prototypes are finished and promotion begins in earnest with showing at both New York and Chicago Automobile Salon shows. Still no luck finding a car company willing to build and distribute the production cars.

     

  • June 1930, after extensive negotiations with the likes of Hupp, Peerless, Gardner, and Marmon the lowly Moon Motor Car company has agreed to build and distribute the Ruxton. Kissel Motor Car company will build the transaxle and later an agreement is reached with Kissel to become a secondary production source for the Ruxton.

     

  • Mid September, 1930, Kissel Motor Car Company, having only built 25 Ruxton cars, goes into receivership.

     

  • November 10th, 1930, lacking the transaxle built by Kissel, Ruxton production at Moon ends and Moon shuts it’s doors.

     

  • November 15th, 1930 Moon Motor Car Company files receivership

     

  • December, 1930, New Era Motors files for bankruptcy and the Ruxton is history.

     

  • Generally accepted early production estimates indicated that about 500 cars had been produced. However recent creditable research puts the actual number at 96. Only 19 cars have survived. 

Epilogue:

I found the articles about the creation and production of the Ruxton automobile quite interesting, as I have a fetish for those rare and often overlooked classics from yesteryear’s.  The Ruxton story was interesting enough for me to research where I might find one to photograph, prompting a trip to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg auto museum in Auburn, Indiana.

It was not until the “Pebble Beach Contours d’Elegance “ of 2014 that the Ruxton was reintroduced to the public.  Following that, a series of articles appeared in a number of national publications.  As I read them, I came away with a sense that Archie Andrews was a really bad guy.

Then I came across an article written by Ralph Kalal in Automobile Chronicles, September 21st, 2019.  Kalal seems to refute much of what was written shortly after the Pebble Beach Contours, so now the subject requires more research.

It was then I discovered the information found in Automobile Quarterly, Volume 8, No. 2, Fall of 1969.  This publication contains two articles about the Ruxton.  The first was written by the renown automotive designer, author, and historian, Jeffrey I. Godshall (1941 to 2019).  The second was written by William Muller, who actually designed the Ruxton.  In this article Mr. Muller reminisces about the Ruxton years.  As I read these two articles I felt the information to be highly reliable.

With regard to Mr. Andrews, while he may have been a ruthless business man, he seems genuinely interested in the Ruxton.  With regard to the charges that he caused the demise of the Moon Motor Car Company, the Kissel Motor Car Company, and the Hupp Motor Car Company, there is little proof.

Moon Motor Car Company:

Founder, Joseph Moon and the Moon Motor Car Company established a reputation for quality and attractive coachwork that firmly established it as a value leader in the medium-priced field.  1923 would mark Moon’s high point, with only two models in production, Moon could concentrate its efforts at meeting its increasingly sophisticated clientele’s expectations for a variety of coachwork and accessories, resulting in production of nearly 6,000 cars.  However, this would be the beginning of the end as Moon’s factory was sub-standard at best, leading to an increasing failure to meet dealership orders.  According to William Muller, by 1929 when he was manufacturing the Ruxton the factory was in very poor condition. When the Ruxton folded, so did Moon.
 

Kissel Motor Car Company:

Kissel was another car company founded on the principle of custom cars.  While the period from 1906 to 1918 was one of expansion for Kissel, the 1920s were a continuing struggle.  Severe recessions devastated Kissel production.  1921 (793), 1922 (561) and 1924 (898).  Better in 1925 (1,406) and peaked 1926 (1,972).  Than began a continuing and relentless slide towards oblivion.  Kissel tried to stem the slide in sales with an increased emphasis on professional vehicles in 1927.  A series of elegant hearses and limousine ambulances, plus some busses and trucks were produced, trying in vain to survive.  In 1928 Kissel build elegant National-Kissel funeral cars; in 1929 they began building taxicabs, busses and trucks for Bradfield Motors.  In 1929, Kissel passenger cars were redesigned and an eight was introduced, called Kissel White Eagle, a name used in 1928 for a special trim line, still lower year-over-year sales of 701 cars and 198 professional cars and trucks was disappointing.  By 1930, Kissel was involved with Moon and New Era Motors to build the Ruxton.  For Kissel the end came on September 19, 1930, when Kissel ceased production and went into voluntary receivership.  Ref. “The Kissel Motor Car: Keeping The Memory Alive” By Lynn Kissel.

Hupp Motor Car Company:

Sales had steadily increased, reaching 65,000 units in 1928, but then in a strategy to make the Huppmobile a larger more expensive car, Hupp had moved away from it’s roots, turning it’s back on the established clientele.  This was a fatal mistake, many other medium priced car makers would make during the same period.  This new market demanded they offer many different models and with Hupp’s low production volume, no model could be produced in quantity to achieve economy of scale.  Steady declines in volume ended Hupp by 1939.  Ref. Wikipedia

It should also be noted that limited production methods employed by many of the higher end low volume automakers of the 1930’s would ultimately cause their failure anyway.  They simply would not be able to compete with the much more automated lines like Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Lincoln, and Chrysler just to name a few who were beginning to offer quality and luxury just as good as the hand built car made by the above named company’s.  Also, in the Muller article, he mentioned that Gardner, Marmon, Jordan, Stutz, and Peerless were all, at one time or other, contacted as potential car companies that might have produced the Ruxton.  Archie Andrews had no known leverage or relationship with any of these car manufactures, but they all folded up in nearly the same time frame as the three companies he supposedly ruined.

In the end, the Ruxton story is truly best described in Jeffery Godshall’s title “A superb automobile that never had a chance.”