Biddle and Smart

Carriagemakers The town of Amesbury, Massachusetts, was a centre of carriage-making. Biddle and Smart began trading either in 1870 Automobile bodies In 1905, By March 1926 its Amesbury holdings had grown from nine shops to 41 shops and the output had grown to 400 bodies manufactured a day. Peak shipments came in 1926 when the firm delivered 41,000 bodies to Hudson. An inability to stamp steel meant that their products were made using aluminium. ==Demise==

In 1926 Hudson opened a brand new 10 million dollar body plant in Detroit. By the end of 1926 all steel-bodied Hudsons were being built at the new plant, and because of the inability of Biddle and Smart to produce steel bodies, production for Hudson dropped by 60%. Hudson continued with the aluminum bodies from Biddle and Smart, advertising them as "custom-built" bodies even though they were exactly the same as the steel body models built at the Hudson factory. Hudson produced a range of cars designed by Walter M. Murphy Co. of Pasadena, California after 1927 and these were built by Biddle and Smart, advertised as "Design by Murphy." Production continued until 1929. 10 Hudson body styles were sold in 1929 with Biddle and Smart producing two, Detroit-based Briggs Manufacturing Company producing three, and Hudson producing the other five models inhouse. At the end of December 1929 Hudson declined to renew its yearly contract. The beginning of the Great Depression saw car prices decline and transport costs from Massachusetts to Detroit become cost prohibitive. Hudson had to resort to local producers such as Briggs Manufacturing Co. 1930 was the last year of Biddle and Smart production for Hudson, leaving the company with no customers by the end of the year. After a failed attempt at marketing aluminum boats the company went out of business in 1930. ==References==