A person can spend their entire life researching the incredible number of failed automakers in America. Most had good ideas to bring to market, but the realities of building enough cars to keep the doors open was too much for all but a few. Take for example Brewster and Company. This revered carriage maker turned automobile body maker tried to survive the Depression by building Ford chassis based town cars like this 1935 Brewster. Found on craigslist in East Windsor, Connecticut, this distinctive automobile was spotted by an eagle eyed reader who goes by the handle of Healydays. This marriage of an economical chassis and a body that screams wretched excess ended up being no match made in heaven. However, you can park this exceedingly rare full CCCA classic in your garage for a paltry $7,500.
Brewster and Company made a name for themselves in the 1800s by producing exceedingly fine crafted carriages for the upper crust of society. As the automobile began to replace the horse drawn carriage, the company branched out into body production for a few European firms. This lead to being called upon to produce coachwork for both European Rolls Royces and the vehicles produced by Rolls Royce America. When that enterprise folded, the company continued to produce bodies for cars shipped over from Rolls Royce in Britain. The economic conditions of the Great Depression made showing off wealth unpopular with the common folk, and the production of fancy automobiles and their ornate bodies fast became a losing proposition. To keep the company afloat, Brewster’s management purchased 135 Ford roadster chassis between 1934 and 1935. They built fashionable town car bodies on these chassis, but bankruptcy for the almost 130 year old firm was inevitable.
The Brewster we see here has obviously seen better days. While the body still seems to be original, the seller tells us that the Ford chassis was switched out for a 1940s Chrysler equivalent by the original builder. That must have been a neat trick, because Brewster and Company was bankrupt by late 1935 and the assets were completely liquidated by 1937. Regardless, putting an expensive coach built body on a newer chassis was not that uncommon in those days. It is just surprising that the switch would be done so late. By this time, town car bodies were as out of style as stove pipe hats and high button shoes.
Looking at the pictures of this Brewster leaves us with more questions than answers. The styling of these cars was dominated by a vertically elongated heart shaped grille. This design feature is nowhere to be found in the photographs or in the description. We also don’t have any pictures of the drivetrain or the interior of the rear compartment. What we can see in the blurry images is a car that would need a lot of bodywork by someone with a coach builder’s skill to get it back out on the road. Craftsmen of this caliber are hard to find and even harder to schedule.
Still, the car is a legitimate Classic Car Club of America full classic. That designation puts it in the same collectible category as marques like Bugatti, Duesenberg, Pierce-Arrow, and Rolls Royce. For a $7,500 admission price, that is rare company indeed. While the pictures and description point to this car being a pig in a poke, a closer inspection might reveal a diamond in the rough.
My guess is that this Brewster is worth investigating further. What do you think?
Listing already gone
Wow, what a steal!! Very cool. Somebody got a spectacular bargain.
That car has been on my local CL for a very long time. As in months, maybe even a year or more. I have been tempted to check it out but the chassis swap stops me.
I hope someone saves it. Maybe the BF exposure finally prompted a sale.
– John
Wow, a year? Folks usually search out the oddballs and this one was one. Parts would have been impossible to collect and build the car back to what it once was. Glad it found a home…
As a car nut teenager I worked at a garage in the summer in a southern Connecticut town. Every day on my way to work I passed a cherry 1935 Brewster Ford parked at another garage. The heart shaped grill was very distinctive and the carriage like passenger compartment was very stately even on a relatively short wheelbase. This one will take mucho dinero to restore and not being on the original chassis I’m not sure of its worth. I wonder if this is the one I saw all those years ago
Picture of what it was originally just for grins and giggles.
Worst photos ever for a car listed at $7500, even for a CL seller. Really why even use those in the ad? I was photographed next to one of these at Hershey back around 1971-73 and thought it was the goofiest thing ever. Now it kind of grows on me. I was eight or nine years old at the time.
in the early 1970s there was a Brewster Ford town car in the wealthy Washington DC suburb of Chevy Chase, MD. It was available for years, but it was in a garage that was 100% filled with junk, so by looking thru the garage door windows, no one could see anything but the front fender peaks of the car.
I was interested in the car, but friends talked me out of buying it, because “it was only a lowly Ford in Lincoln clothing.” I heard years later it wasn’t a Brewster Ford, it was a Brewster Buick, but never did know what year it was, or what happened to it [a rumor said it was scrapped by the subsequent property owner].
Could have bought it for [at most] a couple of hundred Dollars.
Where was your shop, Bill? You might have been in the area where I grew up. Other side of the Beltway, in Alexandria Virginia. Used to go to Hershey every year from the 1960’s to around 1979. Not to mention Laurel, Rockville and Mount Airy Maryland antique car shows.
Alexander,
My shop was in Silver Spring, then up near Mt. Airy, MD. Before that, in the late ’70s I worked for Jack Dobler’s “Cars of Yesterday” on West St. in Falls Church, as the chief restoration mechanic.
Used to do the same local shows as you, started with the Rockville show when I was about 10. Only missed it one year when I was in Europe. Until about 10 years ago I had 3 indoor spaces at Carlisle [opposite the Souvenir store], also had 6 spaces at Hershey until 2016, now I make more $ from eBay sales than the shows, without the expenses.
Hello Mr McCosckey, my dad was Fred Hagy, the body shop manager for Jack Dobler’s Cars of Yesterday in the late 70’s. Are you the big black headed guy with the beard that was in th as t 1978 Fairfax Journal article with my dad?
Yes, that was me!
I have fond memories of your father, he taught me a lot about metal working while I was there.
I know that photograph well, I have a copy framed in my office to this day!
Jack also taught me a lot about running a vintage car business, something I ended up doing for 25 years before retiring.