Early Locomoblie show room photo

[db34]

I'm not sure when this photo was taken, I'm guessing it was around 1920, Daryl

[West Peterson]

The car in the foreground looks to be a 1920 Model 48 dual-cowl phaeton with coachwork by Farnham & Nelson (Boston). An almost identical car still exists in Illinois.

Edited December 14, 2010 by West Peterson (see edit history)

[Guest De Soto Frank]

When did Loco switch to drum headlights ?

Fantastic photo !

The Locomobile "48" is my "car of cars"... (sigh)...

[West Peterson]

1917

[CPadgett]

The light colored car in the backgound has front wheel brakes, which Locomobile began offering in 1923 or '24. All the cars seem to have Lovejoy shocks and front bumpers, which would also be characteristic of that period.

As West said, Locomobile started offering drum lights in the teens, but the earlier style octagonal headlights (with built-in parking lights) remained available for quite a while. I had a '23 model 48 touring equipped with those. They probably preferred the more stylish drums lights for an auto show, which is where the photograph was taken.

[Layden B]

On the very left with half a radiator showing is what seems to be another Loco. What body style would have had flat fenders flaired up like that? Above it looks to be a Pierce, probable from the adjacent company display.

[CPadgett]

I've run into this old photo in the past, and often thought I'd like to see the rest of that particular car. Under the guidance of J. Frank de Causse, Locomobile turned out some great custom coachwork in those days. If you look at their literature of the teens and twenties, you see a mixture of very formal enclosed cars with older, carriage style elements as well as modern roadsters and pheatons with external exhaust pipes and long rakish fenders.

It looks like most of Locomobile's cars for that show were customs, so I would assume the one to the left is no exception. I guess the plowshare style fenders of this car created a "retro" look at that time, harkening back styling of 17 or 18 years prior.

Along those same lines, Locomobile also continued to offer brass trim well into the twenties, when it was well out of vogoue. As I understand it, their clientele may have been a more conservative crowd, in general.

[West Peterson]

Bob Joynt, owner of a 1920 version of the dual cowl phaeton, has this to say about the photo:

"I suspect this was taken at the 1924/1925 Locomobile display at the New York Salon held in the Ballroom of the Commodore Hotel. This location is further confirmed by the proximity of the 2 Pierce Arrows in the far left hand side of the photo.

"While the Dual Cowl Phaeton in the center appears to be similar to my 1920 model, it is actually a completely different body. This new style was probably introduced at the 1924 Salon and was probably a replacement style . Locomobile referred to this design in their literature/advertising as a Special Double-Cowl, which is also one of the many ways they referred to the car's body style.

"All body designs for Locomobile came from their internal Custom Body Design Department established in 1914 under the direction of J. Frank Decausse, formerly design head of Kellner of Paris. The first dual cowl body was built in 1916 as a one-off for department store magnate Rodman Wannamaker. The second was built at the request of his brother, John. Over the next 10 years, approximately 25 more dual cowls were built, coachwork by Farnham & Nelson and then LeBaron. Each of these cars were essentially one-offs as they varied in several different ways. The overall design is extremely advanced for its time and featured a very low profile, sensual compound body curves offset by stylish flat fenders. My car cost $9,600 in 1920, which represented a substantial premium over the cost of the standard Sportif phaeton style.

"The dual cowl in the salon photo differs in many ways from the earlier style including flatter, more squared off sides, signifigantly higher windshields, standard fenders, less rakish cowls, higher trunk, etc. It is a magnificent car in its own right, but not as flamboyant as the earlier design. To put these differences into perspective, the windshield on our car at the center point is only 8" high, which is quite radical compared to the Salon car."

Edited December 14, 2010 by West Peterson (see edit history)