The Automobile Salon and Its Beautiful Cars

Europe and America Contribute Their Best Motor Handiwork

GEORGE W. SUTTON, Jr.

THE Salon is here again. To lovers of fine motor cars there is no more important event in the year than this annual exhibition of the world's finest work in coach building and chassis construction. This season the Salon is occupying the entire second floor of the Hotel Commodore, New York, from November 14th to 21st and there are more new and interesting styles of automobile bodies for the visitor to examine than ever before in the history of this brilliant show. There is no separate display of accessories this year; the number of cars being shown is almost double that of any previous year and there are approximately twice as many custom coachwork exhibits.

Early in January the Salon will be repeated in its entirety at the new Drake Hotel in Chicago, which has a grand ballroom large enough to accommodate the entire exhibit. Heretofore restricted space has limited the annual Salon in Chicago to little more than a miniature of the affair in New York.

As we progress slowly through the large spaces of the Commodore's ballrooms, we notice the changes which are apparent in this year's exhibition. We find that Packard, Pierce-Arrow and Winton are here for the first time and that our old friends from overseas—the PanhardLevassor from France and the Minerva representing Belgium— have returned after an absence of several years. We find the Wright - Hispano aeronautical engine occupying a little niche of its own. Among the rest of the exhibitors we meet many old friends in the form of completely factory-built cars and gorgeous custom-built bodies on well known American and foreign chassis.

England is particularly well represented by some of her finest cars, including the Sunbeam, the Lanchester, the Napier and the Rolls-Royce, which last is being shown by the American Rolls-Royce organization. The Italian car makers are having troubles at home, so only one car, the Lancia, is present from that temporarily unhappy land. There is a surprising scarcity of French cars at the Salon, as, aside from the famous old Panhard, we can find only the remarkable Delage and one example of the illustrious Renault family.

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Included in the Locomobile display is a stunning double cowl four-passenger touring car. As for the rest of the Locomobiles present, it is hard to choose between them. There are half a dozen of them with the smartest kind of closed bodies built by Locke and Company, each more attractive than its brother.

Three of the custom built Packards are particularly worthy of mention, the brougham by Farnham and Nelson in deep blue, a sedan-limousine with a Holbrook body in dark red edged with gold and a very attractive cabriolet by Fleetwood in grey with nickel-plated radiator.

Last year, the Meteor exhibit consisted of one rather spectacular roadster. This year, a greatly improved roadster is supplemented by a most attractive four-passenger touring car and a smart new brougham, both of which carry out the pointed design of radiator, windshield and other characteristic parts of this very fast car. A new feature of the four passenger Meteor is that its V-type nickelled windshield has individual right and left window adjustments and that the front seats are adjustable. These seats slide on brass rails and can be clamped tight in the desired position. The roadster has a completely disappearing top.

The Daniels is shown in four models and a stripped chassis. The most attractive of this group is a big landauletlimousine with a collapsible rear roof and inlaid mahogany doors. A fourpassenger marine roadster with mahogany fittings is also unusual and highly desirable.

Five majestic Porter cars demand attention. The landaulet, the cabriolet, and the sedan are fitted with brand new Brewster bodies while the seven and four-passenger open cars are a tribute to the skill of the Blue Ribbon Body Co. Pierce-Arrow is represented by some stunning custom bodies, while Winton maintains its well earned prestige with its new standard seven-passenger sedanlimousine in Arabian grey and black, its four-passenger sport car in thistle green, a four-passenger sedan and a beautiful seven-passenger touring car.

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To me one of the most attractive cars in America is the Cunningham and in the Cunningham display at the exhibition it appears to its usual advantage. Open and closed cars and the new little Cunningham speedster are exceedingly good to look upon.

Albert Collins is showing a newly designed chassis embodying a number of original ideas.

Among the foreign exhibitors we find the Lancia with a very pretty brougham by Locke and the newly designed Lancia 4-cyl. 35-hp. chassis, just arrived from Italy. The Delage, a beautiful car in appearance and in mechanical arrangement, has for our inspection a brougham by Driguet et Cie., of Paris, a duplicate of the car which attracted such attention at the last Paris Salon. A Delage cabriolet with a Brooks-Ostruk body is particularly effective, as is a dignified Holbrook Delage brougham. Other models of this distinguished visitor are seen in the displays of Brooks-Ostruk and Locke and Company.

Four closed Sunbeams with BrooksOstruk bodies invite our serious attention, together with the two sizes of Sunbeam chassis in four and six cylinders. The only Renault in the Salon is a beauty, a little brougham displayed by the United Auto Body Company.

The Rolls-Royce has a real display this year, including an exact duplicate of the sedan-limousine of the Prince of Wales, a smart little coupe and a long, lithe Victoria touring car by Barker & Co.

In the displays of the well known body builders we find a newcomer, C. P. Kimball and Co., of Chicago, with some open and closed bodies of great originality on different standard chassis of the better type. The Fleetwood Metal Body Co., whose straight line bodies have added so much to the appearance of many gatherings of fine cars, shows its 1921 ideas on several Packards of rare beauty, including a light blue cabriolet, a brougham and a four-passenger sedan in a new shade of grey. In the Holbrook exhibit one inspects five open and closed Packards which are a pleasure to look at, a luxurious Delage brougham and two enclosed PierceArrows. The Packard touring car by Holbrook is probably the most original car in the show, having a sunken panel all the way around the body and clear through the hood to the radiator.

Leon Rubay, most of whose time is spent in designing bodies for the makers of stock cars, has returned to us with three spectacular examples of his skill, all mounted on Pierce-Arrow chassis. One is a low, two-passenger roadster with a disappearing top, deep pillow-style cushions, individual steps and yellow colour scheme. Another is a small close coupled cabriolet, while the third is an unusual four-passenger touring body with individual chairs in the rear and divided front seats.

No Salon would be complete without the Brewster, a leader in body building since early carriage days. Brewster is showing half a dozen ultra smart cars on the Brewster chassis and one or two of other makes. In addition to having various bodies of its manufacture exhibited by Sunbeam, Rolls-Royce, Delage and Minerva, the Brooks-Ostruk Co. shows a Salamanca cabriolet on a Rolls-Royce chassis, a four-passenger sporting trap on a Delage and a Sunbeam limousine.

It is the truth to say this is the largest and finest exhibit of high priced cars ever held in the United States. Interest in high grade cars and custom bodies is increasing, but originality is not as evident as in some previous years. Enough progress has been made to render this exhibition worth visiting.