In 1901, the automobile industry was in its infancy when Briscoe helped finance
David Buick's first car. In return for the finance, Briscoe gained a 97% interest in the Buick Motor Company. He sold Buick in 1904 to James H. Whiting (1842–1919), owner of Flint (Michigan) Wagon Works, and used the money to help found the Maxwell-Briscoe Motor Company, makers of the
Maxwell automobile. This was probably his greatest success in the industry. By 1909 they were the third-biggest American make, with 9,400 sales. The company was backed by
J. P. Morgan & Co. and Richard Irvin & Co., but in the
panic of 1907, Briscoe had the first of many bad experience with bankers and was forced to do his own financing. Briscoe conceived the idea of consolidating the four largest automobile manufacturers—
Ford Motor Company,
Buick,
REO, and Maxwell-Briscoe—into one company. His negotiations with
William C. Durant,
Henry Ford, and
Ransom E. Olds failed, so he proceeded to organize his own corporation along the broad lines he envisaged resulting in the
United States Motor Company. U. S. Motors continued production of the Maxwell and was soon also producing the
Stoddard-Dayton car, the
Brush Runabout (in which his brother Frank Briscoe was a principal),
Alden-Sampson trucks, and others. The firm continued to operate the old Maxwell-Briscoe plants and bought up such concerns as the
Columbia Motor Car Co., owner of many patents, including the
Selden patent. Briscoe had an option on the
Cadillac car at one time, but never exercised it, and it eventually went to Durant, who had organized the
General Motors Corporation. In 1910 bankers invested $6,000,000 in U. S. Motors, but the financing proved inadequate and the firm went into receivership in 1912. Briscoe was forced out and
Walter Flanders took over and reorganized the assets as Maxwell Motor Co. (Incorporated), which itself was later reorganized as the
Chrysler Corporation. A few months after leaving U. S. Motors, he and his brother formed Briscoe Frères at
Billancourt,
France, home of the
Renault, to design and build a car on the continent according to American methods. The result was the
Ajax. A year later the brothers brought out the
Briscoe car in America manufactured at Jackson, Michigan, but which they promoted as the first French-designed American car. When
World War I broke out, Benjamin Briscoe turned his manufacturing facilities over to war production and he never returned to the automobile business. His partners continued to manufacture Briscoe models until 1923. During World War I, he joined the
United States Navy with the rank of lieutenant commander. He saw service in both
Italy and France and received the
Navy Cross and was a member of the
French Legion of Honor. After the war, Briscoe and a group of others developed a new process for
refining crude oil. He then went to
Montreal, Quebec, Canada, as an executive in an oil company later taken over by the Texas Company (
Texaco). Later he was involved in gold mining and ore milling in
Colorado. About 1940 he retired to a plantation in
Marion County, Florida, where he experimented in growing
tung trees. Benjamin Briscoe died at age 78 in his home near
Dunnellon, Florida. ==References==