1914 Premier Z2 Touring

[KLF]

I recently purchased this car and I'm hoping to get some history and information on it. My car is a 6 cyl T-head, 7 pass. touring that was restored prior to 1971. It was purchased back then by Dick Phillipi from somebody in the east and shipped to Downey, CA. Dick toured the car for several years and kept it until he passed away about 18?? years ago. His son inherited it and had it until he died about 10 years ago. It went to Oregon then and that's where I bought it. It was obviously  a complete original car that someone was fortunate to find and restore. There appears to be minimal wear on the drive train so I don't believe there is a lot of miles on it. So does anyone know who restored this car back in the 60's??

I'm also looking for any original manuals, pictures and advertisements from 1914 showing this model.

My Premier is looking pretty shabby these days. New paint is in the future. The only items that I know I'm missing are the top rests for the 5 bow top. These are the type that are hinged and clamp the bows securely.

In searching the internet Jay Leno has the same car but that's the only other one I can find.

Ken Findlay

[jeff_a]

Hi KLF,

   Good to see someone post about Premiers on the Premier Forum besides me, who doesn´t even have one. Have you talked to Tom from Ohio? He has a later Premier he has gotten recently, too. He uses the Forums under ¨tomwallace¨.http://content.invisioncic.com/r277599/monthly_2017_08/IMG_7645.jpg.cca595ef6ca5dc003192a97be016feed.jpg

 

The linked photo is from an 8/31/17 discussion on the General Discussion Forum and shows a 1921.

 

I´ve heard of Dick Phillipi. Years ago he wrote a nice article about the Peerless car in the HCCA Gazette. Maybe he had other cars besides Premiers. I have some old 1895-1930 car ads in a book by Digest Books, 1971, so I´ll go see how many Premier ads are in it. I like to look at the term orphan differently than most. Many liken it as a negative...one of the weird brands that didn´t make it for some reason. All cars are orphans, pretty much. Look at the American makes in your Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1805-1942: 5000 manufacturers and all of ´em went broke or switched to something else except Ford. Hudson absorbed by Rambler, turned into AMC , they & Jeep absorbed by Chrysler, Chrysler was taken over by Daimler-Benz, then by some Wall Street operators, then by Fiat. And GM went bankrupt in 2009, despite building a large number of units*. Many car builders like Pierce-Arrow, Peerless, Locomobile, Stutz, Duesenberg, Marmon, Winton, and Premier got out of the trade partly because they would not make the switch from hand-built to mass-produced. Yep, their quality was too high. There was also some monopolization  going on.

 

Nice car, by the way! A barber or a teacher probably could´t afford one. The rad shell reminds me of a Winton.

 

* Almost half a billion by then. The bankruptcy wasn´t all bad: I can put on my resume that I made more money than General Motors in 2009.

Edited November 27, 2017 by jeff_a (see edit history)

[KLF]

Hi Jeff

Thanks for the info. I haven't so far talked to any other Premier owners. I'll touch base with Tom.

I never knew Dick Phillipi but I understand he had a number of cars including a Stanley and a 13 Rolls. There is an article in the HCCA Gazette Nov 1975 on my Premier when Dick owned it.

I tend to like the orphan cars as well. I have a few to go along with my Model T. The Premier is very well built. It runs and drive great. I'm looking forward to the good weather  so I can test it out!  I would have to agree it's very unlikely a barber or a teacher bought this car new. Not when it was the same price as a new house!

Ken

[jeff_a]

Thanks for responding, Ken.

I´m back home from the diner I posted from earlier, actually looked in the book Wonderful World of Automobiles by J.J. Schroeder.......and found ads from 1910 & 1913. One was memorable because a train of 12 Premiers drove across the country as a reliability test. Instead of a couple dozen grease monkeys and mechanics, they stressed that the people onboard were all bankers, merchants, professional men, etc., with their wives and families along. There was also a short guide to Premier serial numbers and models, 1912-1920.

 

I had never looked at the Wikipedia or Standard Catalog write-ups on the firm before, and see the latter has a lot of detail and the former mentions 3 in museums.  Looking at the AACA forums search for ¨Premier¨, I found mentions of survivors from 1907, 1909, 1916, 1920, 1921, 1923 in about 20 minutes.

---- Jeff

Edited November 27, 2017 by jeff_a (see edit history)

[paul55]

There is a 9.5" X 13.5" full color illustration ad from 1913 in The Poster book of Antique Auto Ads published in 1974 by Howard Garrett. The ISBN is 0-8065-0492-7.

[KLF]

Thanks Paul. I've found a few pictures of 13's but no 14's have shown up. The occasional info I've found for 14's picture a 13 car! The 14's were completely restyled from the 13's. The company was in financial trouble that year. On October 15 1914 they went into bankruptcy. I expect their advertising budget was non existent hence the lack of info today.

Ken

[tomwallace]

Ken,

 

I sent you a pm today concerning our great Premier automobiles.

 

Thanks

 

Tom Wallace

 

Dayton, OH