Ringside Seats for the Automobile Salon

A Rebellion in the Exhibitors' Ranks

GEORGE W. SUTTON, JR.

DO you like a good fight? If so, there is an exceptional opportunity to witness one at the ringside of the annual display of the most expensive and most luxurious automobiles available in the United States. You will have an opportunity to talk with the various fighters, but you will probably not know that they are engaged in anything but the peaceful occupation of displaying and selling the world's finest examples of motor coachwork and chassis engineering.

For nineteen years the Annual Automobile Salon has marked the very peak of American motoring affairs. Inaugurated in 1904 on the top floor of Macy's department store, as an exhibition of purely foreign cars, the event gathered great momentum up to the outbreak of the European War in 1914. Then it became impossible to import automobiles from the warring nations, and it was necessary to admit to the sacred precincts of the Salon a selected few of the more costly and elegant American machines. This innovation proved so successful that, when the war came to a theoretical end in 1918 and European automobiles were again available, the Salon continued, becoming probably the best display in the world of the custom body work of all countries where automobile manufacture is an industry of appreciable importance.

For the past few years, there have been rumblings of discontent on the part of some of the exhibitors. These have reached a climax this year in the withdrawal of several very important concerns, whose presence at previous holdings of the Salon contributed much to distinguish it. These firms have formed an organization of their own, and will conduct the first Foreign Motor Car Show, at the Hotel Astor, during the week beginning November 4th. An advance account of this Show is given elsewhere in this issue of Vanity Fair.

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The politics and grievances which have actuated this insurgent movement do not concern us here. Only the result is important. This means the holding of two splendid exhibitions of exceptional coachwork and highly modern automotive engineering. It represents a real treat for the person who studies automobile affairs from the connoisseur's viewpoint, and likes to keep abreast of what is newest, best and most interesting in the automobile world.

A Prognostication of Delights IT is but natural that this upheaval among exhibitors should spur the management of the Annual Automobile Salon to the greatest efforts of its long and successful career. It is a little early yet to give a complete description of every car the Salon will reveal. Some of them, at this writing, are hardly beyond the blueprint stage. Others, including some of those presenting the most interesting novelties, arc being held back until the actual opening of the Salon, but, after an exhaustive course of investigation, interviewing and picture collecting, we are able to state that this year's Salon will surpass all others in the unusual new features of the cars on display, in the luxury, beauty and ingenuity of the body work, and in the presentation of interesting mechanical ideas and features in the various American and foreign chassis.

It will be, in the best sense, an international exposition. Most of the American cars of the finer types will be exhibited either by various body builders or by their own makers. At least nine different coachmakers, including some of those most distinguished in America and Europe, will reveal the progress of the past year in body fittings, lines and color schemes. Five of the highest types of Continental European cars will engage the visitors' attention. The Salon will be held in the grand ballroom of the Hotel Commodore, from November nth to 17th.

The New Models

THE list of American cars, which will be seen at the Salon in entirely new models, includes Cunningham, Cadillac, Lincoln, Locomobile, Marmon, Packard, Peerless, Lafayette, and the American Rolls-Royce. Among the foreign cars will be the Isotta-Fraschini, Lancia, Minerva, Renault, Voisin and at least one spectacular new European car, with a special body, built in Paris from designs by LeBaron, of New York. This machine is being guarded as a close secret.

The American body builders, to date, include Fleetwood, Holbrook, LeBaron, Hume, Dietrich, Brunn, Judkins, Healey and the Merrimac Body Company. Most prominent among the exhibits of foreign coachwork will be those of the famous firms of Kellner and Rothschild, both of Paris, whose artistry will be seen on Renault and Voisin cars.

There is room here only for a bare mention of some of the high spots of the exposition. Next month we shall give a detailed account of the cars on display.

Among the most interesting of the new models will be a large number of Locomobiles, designed by LeBaron. The LeBaron studio is now supervising the body design of all the cars manufactured by the Durant organization. This means that Locomobile, Princeton, Flint, Durant, Eagle, and even the little Star, have in prospect some radical and artistic changes in appearance. We have before us pictures of eight of the new LeBaron Locomobiles, and they are a pleasure to see. In addition, LeBaron will create a remarkable innovation at the Salon. For the first time in the history of the Salon, or American motoring for that matter, there will be exhibited a number of custom bodies built abroad by American designers for the American motoring public. LeBaron has opened a Paris office, and is having a number of bodies built from its own designs by some of the finest European coachmakers for importation to America. Some of these will be on exhibition at the Salon, including the "dark horse" already mentioned, built by DTeteren Freres of Brussels; while Locomobiles of LeBaron design will be shown with bodies built by Paul Ostrook & Company, Demarest, and the New Haven Carriage Company.

One of the most distinguished names in American coach building is that of Holbrook. At the Salon, this company will specialize in closed bodies on the Packard Single Eight, Packard Single Six, and Cadillac Type 63 chassis. The Cadillac, which is the new model with four-wheel brakes and other radical improvements, will be a 7-passenger sedan limousine. Two of the Packard Single Eights will be a sedan-limousine and a 5-passenger sedan, while the Packard Single Six will be shown as a dainty solid-quarter brougham.

Brunn is a newcomer to the Salon, but is well known to the motoring public for its graceful designs on Lincoln, Packard, Hispano-Suiza and other fine chassis, the two former of which will be seen at the Salon in some striking town car models.

The Foreign Cars

NO foreign car has made greater progress in this country during the past few years than the Italian IsottaFraschini. At least four of these luxurious machines will be seen at the Salon. One of these will be a dignified sedan-limousine, by Fleetwood. One will be a fully collapsible square-cornered Salamanca cabriolet, by LeBaron. There will be, likewise, a LeBaron sport type convertible runabout. The fourth IsottaFraschini is one which Captain D'Annunzio, son of the famous poet-statesman, and American representative of the IsottaFraschini, is now having completed in Italy. Its details are being withheld until the Salon opens, but it is stated to be an exceedingly novel car.

Fleetwood has long been famous for its special bodies on Packard chassis, ard this year's Fleetwood display at the Salon will reveal this company's latest handiwork on the new Packard Single Eight, as well as on the Lincoln chassis. Judkins, the New England coachmaker whose work has such a delicate and distinctive touch, will likewise show a number of interesting new bodies on the Lincoln and Packard Single Eight chassis. Hume, of Boston, is another body builder of the finest type, whose work is easy for the expert eye to distinguish, especially on account of the peculiar, gentle curves at the rear of the tops of its enclosed cars. Hume has more or less specialized on bodies for the Marmon chassis, and some of these, in sedan, brougham and coupe models, will speak for themselves at the Salon.

Rolls-Royce, in addition to being shown by some of the body builders, will, as usual, have a very comprehensive display of its new standard models. Some surprising innovations in conservative town car bodies will be exhibited for the first time by Cunningham. This car, which has for the past few years revealed such interesting combinations of colors, upholstery and cabinet work, particularly in its closed cars, will be present this year withsome surprising but tasteful creations.