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Hayes built vehicle on BAT

There is a sedan on BringATrailer with a Hayes built body like some of our cars. A 1929 Marmon model 78 with a straight 8. Some similarities in styling with our cars (although a lot of cars from the era where close in looks). Photo #107 shows a Hayes body tag from the Grand Rapids factory. Also at at the end of the pictures shows what looks almost identical to a Stromberg U2 from the 30-31 Durants(only backwards). A nice looking car.

Where Are You From? Orygun

Do You own a car built by Durant? 1930 6-14

Re: Hayes built vehicle on BAT

Took a bit of looking to find the Marmon.

http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/h/hayes/hayes.htm

During the mid-twenties, the two Hayes-Ionia plants employed 3,000 producing over 120,000 bodies per year with a value of $30 million. The Ionia, Michigan plant covered eleven acres, with three hundred and fifty thousand square feet of floor space, while the Grand Rapids factory included over five hundred thousand square feet of manufacturing capacity. By the mid-twenties, their customers included Chevrolet, GEM, Maxwell, Oldsmobile, Paige, Reo, and Willys-Overland. A 350,000 sq. ft. Indianapolis, Indiana Hayes-Ionia plant was also established in the mid-twenties to supply Marmon with closed bodies.

Another Hayes organization appeared in November 1922, this time in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The Hayes-Hunt Corp. purchased a 500,000 sq. ft. plant to supply the Elizabeth, New Jersey and Long Island City, New York Durant Motor Co. factories with closed bodies. Hayes-Hunt built over 400 bodies per day for the various Durant marques which included the Durant, Star and Flint automobiles. Hayes-Hunt is also listed as production body builders for Marmon, Reo and Graham.

H. Jay Hayes was president of the firm and even established an office in nearby New York City to oversee his small body-building empire. In a surprising move, the faltering Durant Motors purchased the entire Hayes-Hunt operations outright on May 24, 1928.

In the early Depression era, many manufacturers shared bodies to help reduce. The Peerless Custom Eight and Marmon Big Eight shared the same Hayes-built body between 1930 and 1932, and the 1932 Marmon 8-125, 1932-34 Reo Flying Cloud 6S and 1933-34 Franklin Olympic shared a different Hayes design. Automobile customers rarely compared the actual bodies, and addressed their attention to a vehicle’s front end, which could be easily disguised using a different grill or front fenders. General Motors started doing it at the same time, and the practice continues today.

During the early thirties, Hayes built bodies for Checker, Chrysler, Continental, DeVaux, Franklin, Graham, Hupp, Marmon, Packard, Peerless, REO, and Willys. However, as the decade went on many of their customers succumbed to the long-term effects of the Depression. The Marmon Motor Car Company went into receivership in 1933 and Hayes’ Indianapolis plant followed soon after, and their Ionia, Michigan plant was in not much better shape. The only Hayes plant with any business to speak of was in Grand Rapids, and even that facility was running far below capacity. In order to keep their remaining 1,000 employees busy, they produced sheet-metal sub-assemblies for General Motors and refrigerators and coolers for Coca-Cola, Kelvinator and Norge.

Where Are You From? Ottawa Ontario Canada

Do You own a car built by Durant? 1932 614 sedan made by Dominion Motors

 

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