Spotlight on Collections: The Wills St. Claire Automobile

Take a glimpse back into the history of the Amesbury auto-body building business. Just look at the IHC collection of photographs taken during the early 1920s. They’re fascinating! The automakers aren’t about assembly line manufacturing. The devil is in the details and Amesbury auto bodies were known for their high-quality details.

Even in 1920, when Ford’s assembly line was pumping out 940,000 basic Model T Fords a year, there was still a market for the kind of high quality, more luxurious automobile bodies that Amesbury made, about 30,000 auto bodies a year into the 1930s.

The following photograph shows teams working on various stages of the body as they did with carriages. These auto body builders at the Witham Plant on Water Street are building wooden frames, which are then covered with aluminum panels that have been hammered into the proper shape.

The car body in the photograph is for the “Wills Sainte Claire” automobile whose chassis are being built in Marysville, MI.

Go to our Collections webpage and find out why this photo's inscription says "Will Synclair" car! And see what the finished automobile looked like.