The 1928 Dodge Victory Six marked a turning point in automotive history

[Perpoff]

I just had an article on the importance of the Victory Six published by Hemmings.

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2020/12/31/it-may-not-look-like-much-but-the-1928-dodge-victory-six-could-be-the-most-important-car-in-the-history-of-coachbuilding

I hope you enjoy the read.

Comments and corrections are most welcome.

I am working on an expanded version of the article. Any information or pictures you have would be much appreciated. I am particularly interested in pictures if cars under restoration, and even more particularly in pictures of the bare frame, the design of the thresholds and the way the body is joined with the chassis.

 

[Bob Zetnick]

Very interesting article. I had no idea early all-steel bodies were so problematic.

[nearchoclatetown]

Some of those pictures come from the DBC John Parsons collection posted on the DBC website. There are more pictures of Victories there along with about 3600 other pictures from the Budd factory. DB claims to be the first all steel body but I think from the Budd book that Oakland was actually the first in 1911 also made by Budd. DB used all steel bodies from Budd starting in 1914. Some touring bodies were not all steel though and were made by Wilson. But after advertising how good all steel bodies were the very first body built by DB was a wood bodied sedan. What they didn't tell you in the Hemmings article was that Budd invented the spot welder, something almost every body shop has today.

Edited January 9, 2021 by nearchoclatetown (see edit history)

[Perpoff]

As far as I know the first all steel body was the 1912 Hupmobile. The bodies were engineered and built by Edward G Budd, Joseph Ledwinka and their team at Hale & Kilburn in Philadelphia. The Hupp manager Emil Nelson came to Hale & Kilburn in 1909 because no shop in Detroit would take on the job. When Hupp got new management they went back to composite bodies for the 1913 models.

According to Coachbuilt the first major contract Budd got for his all steel bodies was an order for 2000 bodies for Oakland. I don’t know that led to follow up orders from Oakland. John Willys ordered 2500 bodies for Garfield, which was building trucks. Willys thought a passenger car would be good addition. It wasn’t. Garfield went bankrupt and I don’t know how many, if any, actually were sold. The Dodge Brothers were the only ones that went all in (almost) for all steel bodies.

The development of welding and paints are of course important, but the focus of this article was on the new thinking and engineering that went into the Dodge Victory Six. It is possible that Wolseley in England were using this technology before Dodge did, but only about 500 Wolseleys if this type were built over a period of six years, which was far from the numbers necessary to make all steel sedans profitable. The Wolseley bodies were made by the English subsidiary of Budd’s, Pressed Steel. A fun fact is that a modified version of the Wolseley body was used for the Ruxton. 

 

 

Edited January 10, 2021 by Perpoff
Soelling and correction of facrs. (see edit history)

[nearchoclatetown]

I think you are correct in there only being one batch of bodies for Oakland. BTW, the DB bodies were shipped with no paint, not even primer, by railcar to Detroit for assembly. I'm thinking a touring body with doors was $42. It's been a while since I read it. 

[Mattml430]

It’s a great article I read it the other day Pete sent it to me. 
It’s just mind blowing how they made such huge tooling to accomplish what they did. 

[JACK M]