Nineteen-Twenties, But Not So Roaring
In 1922, Charles Schwab acquired control of Stutz for pennies on the dollar after its stock had collapsed. He fired the bankrupted Ryan and rescued Stutz from the brink, but the company limped along as a wounded warrior in a postwar recession. Between 1921 and 1926 Stutz lumbered on, selling only 1,000–2,000 units per year.
Charles Schwab in the 1920s. image courtesy Wikimedia
Anemic sales telegraphed the need for change by the early 1920s, yet Stutz’s design continued to lag the market in several areas. Stutz stubbornly held onto its four and six cylinder engines, while the competition—other luxury brands— developed trendy new eights and 12s. The Stutz exterior remained old fashioned long past its time; flat, vertical windshields and large, imposing, flat faced radiators were emblematic of Stutz’s out of date styling.
1924 Stutz Speedway Four Bearcat. By the mid-twenties, speedsters and their kind were sporting racier lines that anticipated the coming aero and streamlined movements. Stutz hadn’t yet received the memo… image courtesy AACA Library
The rest of the car echoed this passé look. Other companies had long since gone to racy, vee shaped windshields and radiator grilles in synch with aerodynamic design trends coming from Europe; Stutz innovation was frozen. Styling sells, and somehow the old fashioned Stutz board of directors hadn’t noticed that.
Instead, they produced a broader selection of models in a vain attempt to increase market share. Inconsistent front office leadership and dated styling accentuated the aftereffects of the recession, and customers bought elsewhere.
White Knight Rides Once More
At the midpoint of the Roaring Twenties, the Stutz Motor Car Company was far from roaring. Sales continued to dwindle, and Charles Schwab, its chief investor and benefactor, stepped in again, this time hiring Fredrick E. Moskovics as president of the company, in 1925.
Frederick E. Moskovics 1920s. image courtesy Detroit Public Library
Like Harry Stutz before him, Moskovics had an impressive string of accomplishments in various automotive establishments, including Daimler of Germany, Continental Tire, Allen Kingston, Remy Electrics, and Marmon. He had experience as a race driver, had helped promote Ralph DePalma’s early racing career, and co-developed the Playa Del Rey racetrack outside Los Angeles in 1910.
Playa del Ray autodrome, 1910 postcard.
Moskovics brought along a loyal team of engineers and designers from Marmon automobiles and began to reshape Stutz.
The Safety Stutz Era
Moskovics recruited new dealers, trained existing sales staff, and increased advertising. Moskovics also released an updated engine for the Vertical Eight series of cars. The engine design came from Charles Greuter, who had developed an inline eight cylinder for Excelsior Motor Car Company that was inspired by the famous Peugeot L3 racing voiturette from 1913. The L3 had revolutionized engine design using an overhead cam and hemispherical combustion chambers, influencing Excelsior, Duesenberg, and a host of others. Stutz’s Challenger engine cherry picked the L3’s best ideas, producing an immediate hit that revved up buyer interest for 1927.
1928 Stutz Challenger engine. With a bore and stroke ratio of 3.25 X 4.50 and displacing 299 CID, the initial output of this SOHC engine was 115 bhp at 3600 rpm, with potential for plenty more. Very stout! image courtesy AACA library.
A new line of models, including speedsters of various seating capacities in standard and custom styles, and mounted on 131 inch and 145 inch wheelbases, helped send 1926 sales through the roof.
1927 Stutz Four-Passenger Speedster. Some of the body lines were changing and incorporating more curves, but there was still room for improvement when compared to the competition of other luxury brands such as Marmon and Packard, or Wills Sainte Clair and Kissel. image courtesy AACA Library
Unit sales, estimated at about 5,000, had more than doubled from the previous year! Moskovics had hit a home run with his redesign initiatives and marketing strategies. Now it was up to his management team to continue the successes and win more market share.
One needed improvement was a steady supplier of bodies as sales numbers demanded greater production, and 1926 had demonstrated that need in spades. Anticipating this need, Schwab purchased Hale & Kilburn (American Auto Body) of Philadelphia and moved it to Indianapolis to supply production bodies for the new Vertical Eight series.
Enter the Black Hawks (introduction)
Frederick Moskovics, like Harry Stutz, was an auto enthusiast who believed that competition improved the breed and provided great publicity for the brand. The Stutz line did not currently have a competitive speedster from which to derive a race version and campaign. A new car was needed, and competitive events such as the Stephens Challenge (mentioned below ) created an opportunity for one.
Moskovics introduced a concept speedster at the annual Stutz dealers’ convention in December 1926. He demonstrated it at the nearby Indianapolis Speedway, and its open, sporty, standard chassis body clocked a healthy 87 miles per hour!
LeBaron built several prototypes at its Bridgeport plant, and these new spec speedsters appeared early in 1927. a special Black Hawk speedster brochure was created to highlight this model in 1927. Priced to sell for less than $5,000, the Black Hawk had a racy look that convinced Schwab to hire LeBaron as design consultants for Stutz’s whole model line.
LeBaron modified the Black Hawk somewhat for limited production but kept the straight horizontal bodylines flowing from an upright Stutz radiator to the radical boat tail. Along with the relatively low body, this made for a very dashing look. Robbins Body Corporation in Indianapolis was contracted by Stutz to build two “catalog custom” bodies to LeBaron specs: a racy two seat speedster and a larger four seater. The 1928 Stutz standard catalog listed two types of speedsters: the Robbins made Series BB; and the racier looking Series BB Black Hawk speedsters constructed by Millspaugh & Irish. Out of the 12 body styles offered in this catalog (which were constructed by four coachbuilding firms), five examples were speedsters!
1928 Stutz Black Hawk Speedsters. catalog image courtesy AACA Library
This era saw the rise of aeronautic influences in car design, and competition rules were changing as well to support classes for passenger cars and four seat bodies. Developments beginning in 1926 emboldened Moskovics to employ Frank Lockhart, a gifted driver of the era, to engineer and race a custom Black Hawk speedster in the 1927 Stevens Challenge, a 24 hour endurance race held at the Indianapolis Speedway. Stutz won trophies with a standard closed car averaging over 68 miles per hour and with a boat tailed speedster averaging over 71 miles per hour. The boat tailed Black Hawks would go on to win every stock car race they entered that year, earning the AAA Stock Car Championship for 1927!
The complete Stutz story, as well as a biography of a famous owner of a Stutz Bearcat, is included in my book, Classic Speedsters. This piece has been excerpted from that chapter.
We’ll pause the Stutz story here and pick up with more of the Stutz Black Hawk (as well as the “Blackhawk”) in the third era of the Stutz dynasty. Until then…