The Great Depression didn’t just cast a shadow. It swallowed America whole.
By 1933, the gloom was thick enough to choke on. People flocked to the Chicago World’s Fair trying to forget the misery. They saw three special autos there. One was a Pierce-Arrow. But the real headline wasn’t what was already on the floor. It was what was about to be introduced.
The 1933 Pierce Silver Arrow.
It was a glimpse of a future that didn’t exist for most. A dream machine for a broken economy.
The Math of Misery
You can’t understand the Silver Arrow without understanding the street outside.
1933 wasn’t a bad year. It was the bottom. Unemployment hit one in four nationally. In cities? Much worse. Banks were closed. Your savings were gone. Former millionaires begged for low-wage work just to eat.
There was no government safety net. No food stamps. No unemployment insurance. Just cold wind and empty pockets.
History debates whether FDR saved capitalism. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. But he gave something else back. Hope.
It took a world war to truly end the hard times. But in 1933? People just needed to believe tomorrow might be different.
The Auto Industry Bleeds
The car industry reflected the national misery.
In 1929, America built 4.5 million cars. A healthy number.
By 1932? Barely a million.
Ford, the king of volume, crashed from 1.8 million cars a year down to 335,000 in 1933.
Small manufacturers? Bankrupt. Merged. Desperate.
Luxury makes suffered the most. Their market nearly vanished.
Peerless and Marmon built beautiful Sixteens. Nobody bought them. Both companies were gone by 1933.
Even the survivors struggled. It wasn’t just that former Cadillac, Packard, and Lincoln owners couldn’t afford their cars. Many had saved their cash and insulated themselves. The ones who could afford it simply didn’t want to be seen in them.
Driving a luxury car in 1933 was a status symbol nobody wanted to display.
A Nation Putting on a Brave Face
After the Wall Street Crash, the country was stunned.
Leaders seemed powerless. The world had never seen this before.
But slowly, the spirit revived. The economy kept getting worse into 1933. Institutions put on a brave face. They feared nothing but fear itself.
They projected dreams. Dreams of a bright new future just around the corner.
Roosevelt signed the Federal Emergency Relief Act. An alphabet soup of New Deal programs followed.
Hollywood produced 550 films. One of the few entertainments people could still afford.
Robert Byrd began his second South Pole exploration.
Sir Malcolm Campbell broke the land speed record at over 270 mph.
The New York Giants beat the Washington Senators four games to one in the World Series.
And Chicago proclaimed a “Century of Progress” at its World’s Fair Exposition on Lake Michigan.
Auto manufacturers watched this with traditional enthusiasm. They tried to comprehend how to turn disaster into opportunity.
The Luxury Survival Guide
Luxury makers dealt with the crash in various ways.
Cadillac, sheltered under General Motors, cut back hard on production.
Lincoln’s output tapered to almost a halt. Then, in 1935, it was restored by the streamlined, medium-priced Zephyr.
Packard, proudly independent, sought salvation with the slightly lower-priced 1932 Light Eight. It failed.
So they planned a still-cheaper volume product. It emerged in 1935 as the company-saving One Twenty.
Luxury was being redefined. Or erased.
Pierce-Arrow didn’t wait for 1935.
They built the Silver Arrow in 1933. A car so advanced, so beautiful, it made the economic collapse seem irrelevant.
For a few brief moments.
But the Silver Arrow wasn’t just a car. It was a statement. A statement that didn’t sell.
The Last Stand of an Independent
The 1933 auto shows were a battlefield for prestige. Cadillac, Lincoln, and Packard rolled out their best show cars in Chicago. But the real story wasn’t just about who had the biggest grille. It was about who could survive the Depression. Pierce-Arrow, the old archrival to Packard, decided to fight back with hardware that still looked like the future.
For decades, Pierce-Arrow and Packard were the only true independents left standing. Everyone else had been swallowed by GM or Ford. They looked different—Pierce had those distinctive frogeye headlamps and the Tireur d’Arc radiator mascot—but underneath the sheet metal, their engineering DNA was surprisingly similar.
By the late 1920s, Packard was winning the war of sales. Being based in Detroit gave them an edge. Their management was sharper, more aggressive. Pierce, stuck in Buffalo, New York, was playing catch-up. In 1929, Packard’s lead was mathematically impossible to close. Yet, if you looked at the cars themselves, Pierce wasn’t losing. In terms of build quality, refinement, and pure snob appeal, a Pierce-Arrow sat at the very top of the American automotive food chain. Few had the money. Even fewer had the taste.
Studebaker’s Prestige Play
When the Crash hit, Pierce-Arrow had a safety net. Studebaker had bought them in 1928. Why? Albert Erskine, Studebaker’s president and former accountant, wanted a halo brand. He knew Studebaker made good wagons and trucks, but he needed a luxury badge to complete his empire.
Pierce kept running as its own entity. Arthur J. Chanter managed operations in Buffalo. Erskine handled the corporate strategy. Studebaker engineers designed the 1929 Eight. It was a marriage of convenience that actually worked for a few years.
Sales jumped after the takeover. 1929 was a banner year: 9,700 cars sold. Then the depression bit hard. 1930 sales dropped to 6,795. Still, that was the second-best year in company history. They were bleeding, but not dying.
The V-12 Gamble
Chief engineer Karl M. Wise looked at the market and saw one thing: cylinders. The industry was moving to multi-cylinder engines. Packard had the Straight-8 and the V-12. Pierce needed something big.
Wise designed a sidevalve V-12. He announced it in 1932. Timing was everything. He just happened to pick the worst possible moment in economic history. Nobody knew how bad it would get. But once the Wall Street fiasco happened, the luxury market evaporated.
The V-12 came in two sizes initially: 398 cubic inches and 429 cubic inches. The smaller engine was dropped after 1932. It didn’t outperform the straight-eight. It was just more expensive to build.
For 1933, Pierce upped the ante. They introduced a 462-cubic-inch version. It made 175 horsepower. The 429 made 160. The straight-eight? A modest 135. It was a horsepower race, and Pierce was trying to stay in the lead.
Salt Flats Validation
You don’t prove a car’s worth in a showroom. You prove it on the salt.
Ab Jenkins, a test driver for Pierce, took a stock 462 V-12 to the Bonneville Salt Flats in September 1932. The car had already logged 33,000 miles. It wasn’t a race car. It was a standard production vehicle with a few mods.
Jenkins drove for 24 hours. He covered nearly 3,000 miles. The average speed? 112.9 mph.
He didn’t stop to admire the view. He installed the fenders, windshield, and road gear, then drove 2,000 miles back to Buffalo. That kind of endurance wasn’t just impressive. It was a statement. The car was built to last, not just to look pretty.
Engineering Simplicity
Classic-car historian Maurice D. Hendry had high praise for the Pierce Twelve. He compared it to the legendary Model J Duesenberg. Duesenberg used double overhead cams, superchargers, and racing DNA. It was complex. It clattered. It demanded constant attention.
Hendry argued that the Pierce was superior in its essential simplicity and smoothness. An unblown Duesenberg probably couldn’t have matched the Pierce’s 24-hour endurance record. The V-12 didn’t need forced induction. It didn’t need exotic valvetrain tricks. It just worked.
Pierce threw in other innovations during this era. The 1932 line featured eight-point engine-mount bushings. This reduced vibration to a near-imperceptible level. The frame was strengthened to resist twisting. Standard shock absorbers were fingertip-adjustable. Body styles were conservative. Tasteful. Old-money quiet.
By 1933, they added skirted fenders. The styling became sleeker. An automatic choke arrived. Hydraulic valve lifters reduced maintenance. Power brakes became standard.
It was a lot of technology for a car that cost more than a house. Was it worth it? In 1933, probably not. But for the people who bought them? They didn’t care about the bottom line. They cared about the ride.
When we consider Duesenberg’s double overhead camshafts, supercharger, general racing car design, plus the mechanical clatter and greater attention required by same, the Pierce shows up very favorably.
The Silver Arrow project was next. A dream car. A prototype that never made it to production. But that’s a different story.
The Silver Arrow’s Unlikely Origin
By autumn 1932, the Silver Arrow project had its genesis. The Great Depression was crushing American industry. Pierce-Arrow and Studebaker were bleeding out. Erskine’s Studebaker kept paying dividends from capital reserves while sales plummeted. The company entered receivership in 1933. Erskine resigned. He then killed himself.
Pierce-Arrow fared no better. They lost $3 million on just $8 million in sales. Volume dropped to 2,692 units. They had misjudged the economic winter.
Enter Roy Faulkner. A dynamic former Auburn president, he became sales vice president. He arrived in Buffalo. A young stylist named Phil Wright called him immediately. Wright proposed a Pierce supercar. Faulkner had no other options. Nothing else worked. He said yes.
Wright was in his twenties. He had worked for Union City and Murphy coachbuilders. He also spent time at General Motors. His Silver Arrow concept came from GM’s Art & Colour Section. Harley Earl ran that department. It was an era of “futuristic design” exercises. Gordon Buehrig was there. John Tjaarda was there. Tjaarda’s ideas would become the Lincoln-Zephyr. Buehrig would later design the Cord 810.
Budget cuts forced Wright out of GM. He took his concepts to Pierce-Arrow. Earl approved the move. Wright worked from home. He built a 1/8-scale clay model. He brought it and concept drawings to Faulkner.
Faulkner loved it. He pitched it to Studebaker management in South Bend. They agreed to handle development. Both companies were at rock bottom. Studebaker, however, had more design talent. Wright recalled this later.
The shape was revolutionary. Strother MacMinn called it a styling landmark for Road & Track in 1955. He wrote that the Silver Arrow was ahead of its time. It was the first American car with slab-sided styling. It suffered from compromises. The frame was high. It shared this trait with many pioneers.
Engineering Compromises
James R. Hughes led development. He was Studebaker’s chief body engineer. He made a drastic change immediately. Wright had based the clay model on a 147-inch wheelbase. Hughes selected a 139-inch Pierce-Arrow chassis instead. He requisitioned these chassis from Buffalo.
Relocating the rear seat over the rear axle became necessary. The roofline had to rise. Wright noted this. It likely improved proportions. The car looked more close-coupled.
Hughes added his own ideas to the rear. He borrowed from a rejected design. That design was for a fastback 1933 Commander. Studebaker stylist J. Herbert Newport created it. The new rear featured an inset backlight. The rear fenders tapered to a point. The Silver Arrow was one of the first cars where the rear mattered as much as the front.
Why the Silver Arrow Matters
The Silver Arrow stands as a critical example of 1930s automotive design evolution. Its slab-sided aesthetic challenged the boxy norms of the era. The collaboration between Pierce-Arrow and Studebaker highlights how manufacturers adapted to economic hardship.
Key design elements include:
– The 139-inch wheelbase chassis adaptation
– The inset backlight and pointed rear fenders
– The close-coupled body proportions
This project demonstrates how talent persisted despite corporate failure. Wright’s vision survived the economic collapse. It influenced future American car design. The Silver Arrow remains a significant case study in automotive history.
Continue reading for more details on the design specifics.
Rushing the Silver Arrow into existence
The deadline for the 1933 Pierce Silver Arrow was laughably short. Like most concept cars chasing a dream, this one was built on a schedule that defied physics. The target? The New York Automobile Show in January 1933.
Hughes didn’t ask for perfection. He just said get it done by January 1. Worry about the rest later.
It worked. Pierce ended up building five of them.
Paul J. Auman knew the grind. He had come from Fisher Body and was running Studebaker’s prototype department when he took the job. Thirty years later, he wrote about the chaos.
“Working with us were about 30 men and helpers, all skilled craftsmen with years of experience. Not only were they good, but they were fast. The work went on around the clock.”
They moved fast. By the last week of October, the full-size body draft was complete. That’s three weeks before the show.
The team started making pine models for parts immediately. Then they translated those into hardwood hammer forms. All steel panels were formed over those forms.
The roof was the biggest challenge. They hand-hammered it out over a maple form. Every steel panel was welded together by hand.
No automation. Just muscle, skill, and panic.
The Silver Arrow didn’t just look different. It looked like it belonged to a different era entirely.
Strip away the iconic bow-and-arrow mascot and those distinctive fender-mounted headlights, and you’re left with a machine that defied standard Pierce-Arrow design language. It wasn’t just a luxury sedan. It was a statement.
Headlamps That Defined the Silhouette
The lighting setup alone tells you this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill town car.
“Even the headlamps were a combination of tradition and innovation, being mounted high, their line flowing up and back past the doors and sweeping down to the tail.”
Those lights weren’t just for seeing the road. They sculpted the car’s profile. The housing started high, arched over the doors, and dipped down toward the rear. It created a continuous visual line from front to back. No sharp angles. No breaks. Just smooth, flowing metal.
Storing Spares Behind Long Fenders
Space was at a premium.
The baggage compartment was tiny. Not spacious by modern standards, not even by 1930s luxury standards. The solution? The front fenders.
They were unusually long. Why? To hide the twin spare wheels.
These weren’t just sitting out in the open. They were tucked into special lockers. You didn’t have to crawl under the car to swap a flat. Remote controls in the dashboard opened the compartments. A level of convenience that would have seemed futuristic to drivers used to pulling over in the dirt.
Early Aerodynamics Done Right
Aerodynamics was still a baby science in the early 30s. Most engineers ignored it. The Pierce-Arrow team didn’t.
They understood that drag killed efficiency and noise killed comfort. So they hid it.
- Horns were buried under the hood. No protruding grilles disrupting airflow.
- Parking lights were integrated. They sat directly inside the headlamp and taillamp shells. No extra bulbs sticking out.
- Rear fender skirts were flush-fitting. Smooth metal covered the wheels. No turbulent air getting caught in the wheel wells.
- Door handles were recessed. Pull-type handles sat flush with the body. No protrusions to catch the wind.
These weren’t aesthetic choices. They were functional. Every inch of bodywork was designed to slice through the air, not push it.
A Design Ahead of Its Time
Look at a modern electric sedan. The flush handles. The hidden lights. The smooth underbody.
You’re seeing the same philosophy. Just refined by decades of wind tunnel testing.
Pierce-Arrow got there first. Not by accident. By necessity. The Silver Arrow had to be fast. It had to be efficient. And it had to look like the future, even when the past still had a hold on the market.
The result was a car that didn’t just drive well. It looked like it was already there.
The fenders and frame sat a bit high. MacMinn didn’t love it. But that geometry forced the floor well below the side members. It was a structural necessity disguised as a styling choice. Hudson would coin the term “Step-down Design” fifteen years later. They didn’t invent the concept. They just gave it a name.
The windshield was vee’d. Sharp angles led into a smooth roofline. It cut forward and ended abruptly. The rear window was notched. Slit-like. An afterthought in the best way. It obstructed visibility. You couldn’t see much out back. Good luck reversing.
Paul Aumun described the side windows. Metal molding framed them. It flowed from the outer edge of the windshield. It ran the entire length of the car. Past the trunk lid. Down to bumper level. On both sides.
This wasn’t just for looks. It stiffened the panels. Structural rigidity in an era of floppy bodies. It also facilitated the two-tone paint. The beltline was the divider.
Originally painted tan. A specific shade. The darker shade sat above the beltline. The lighter tone below. Clean separation. No messy blending. Just hard lines.
The Silver Arrow vs. The Tucker: Reality Check
Look down at the Silver Arrow from directly above and you might catch a ghost. The silhouette shares DNA with Preston Tucker’s infamous “48.” Both were flying saucers before the term became a cliché. But while Tucker’s dream was a financial black hole—impractical to engineer and forbiddingly expensive to build—the Silver Arrow was grounded in reality. It rode on a conventional chassis. It used a production powerplant. Sure, the engine was exotic, but it existed. It wasn’t a science fiction prop.
It was a Pierce-Arrow, after all.
Luxury in the Rear Compartment
Inside, the cabin didn’t skimp. Pierce-Arrow didn’t do cheap. The trim was luxurious, defined by diamond-pattern broadcloth. Leather covered the heavy-wear surfaces. Curly maple was hand-finished to perfection.
The rear compartment was a command center for the backseat passenger. It included an auxiliary speedometer. A clock sat nearby. A rear radio speaker provided entertainment. Pierce’s traditional fixed center armrest completed the setup.
The Cost of Speed
The aerodynamics weren’t just for show. Evidence suggests the 1933 Silver Arrow was every bit as fast as its sweeping, teardrop shape implied. Consider the numbers. Curb weight sat at a staggering 5,700 pounds. That is heavy by any standard. Yet the factory claimed a top speed of 115 mph. Historians haven’t argued this was a massive exaggeration. The engineering held up. The speed was real.
There was a catch. A big one. The price tag hovered around $10,000.
To put that in perspective, that amount could buy three or four suburban bungalows in 1930. You weren’t buying a car. You were buying a statement. The Silver Arrow served as inspiration for dealerships, not inventory. It was Pierce-Arrow’s contribution to the nationwide obsession with better times a-coming. The Great Depression was biting hard, but the company wanted to project confidence. A sleek, fast future that most people could never afford.
Why It Matters Today
Looking back, the 1933-1934 Pierce Silver Arrow stands as a monument to automotive ambition during economic despair. It answers the question of how manufacturers maintained prestige when sales were drying up. The answer was spectacle.
Key Specifications
- Production Years: 1933-1934
- Curb Weight: 5,700 lbs
- Top Speed: 115 mph (factory claim)
- Original Price: ~$10,000
- Manufacturer: Pierce-Arrow
The car remains a symbol of pre-war luxury and aerodynamic experimentation. It wasn’t just a vehicle. It was a dream on four wheels, priced out of reach for everyone but the ultra-wealthy.
Where to Find More
For enthusiasts diving deeper into automotive history, several paths lead forward.
- Classic Cars: Explore the broader spectrum of vintage vehicles beyond the Silver Arrow.
- Muscle Cars: See how American performance evolved decades later.
- Sports Cars: Compare the Silver Arrow’s early aerodynamics with modern track-focused designs.
- Consumer Guide New Car Search: See what today’s buyers consider premium.
- Consumer Guide Used Car Search: Track the market for remaining historic vehicles.
The Pierce Silver Arrow isn’t just a footnote. It’s a benchmark for what was possible when money and engineering collided, regardless of the economic climate. The question remains whether any modern car carries that same weight of symbolic value. Probably not. But the speed? That’s still real.
The Legacy of the Silver Arrow: Survivors and Short-Term Gains
James Hughes and his design team didn’t rest on their laurels. The 1933 Pierce Silver Arrow had cleared the initial hurdle, but the goal was immediate: an improved design for the 1934 model. The first iteration was a sensation in New York, but the rollout was frantic.
Car two hit Buffalo on the 12th. Car three shipped to Chicago on the 26th for the “Century of Progress” fair. Cars four and five eventually reached Buffalo in February.
One of those cars has a story worthy of a mob drama. Number three was rescued from a junkyard in Cicero, Illinois, by collector Henry Austin Clark, Jr. He found bullet holes in the trunk. He assumed the car had belonged to the Capone syndicate. At least two other survivors exist today.
We shouldn’t spend too long debating the logic here. It was an age of supercars and super dreams. Building a car that cost the price of three houses in rock-bottom 1933 seems insane. But Pierce wasn’t alone.
Cadillac built an aerodynamic special for Chicago. Packard created the famous close-coupled Dietrich sedan, dubbed the “Car of the Dome” at the fair. Maurice Hendry noted decades later that none of these concepts would have survived the postwar decade. Except the Silver Arrow.
“The only design among all these that would have stood a chance as a concept in the postwar decade would be the Silver Arrow.”
The car did boost morale. Briefly. Twelve-cylinder sales jumped 200 percent in January 1933. February saw a 130 percent rise. Through October, sales were 55 percent better than the previous year.
Then the strikes hit. Tool-and-die makers walked out. A lack of available cars cost Pierce-Arrow 300 to 400 sales in November and December. Studebaker absorbed those losses before going bankrupt in early 1933.
The company was forced to sell. By August, it stood independent again. A new group of businessmen and bankers reorganized the firm. The goal was simple: break even at 3,000 cars a year.
1933 sales fell short of that mark by a third. Total volume: 2,152.
Adjustable rear seats. Draft-free ventwing windows. Radiators tilted with a rakish angle that screamed speed. The 1934 Pierce-Arrow lineup wasn’t just a refresh; it was a refinement. These were made-to-order machines, specifically the high-end V-12 1240 Salon and 1248 Custom series. They didn’t just offer luxury; they curated it.
Then there was the 840 Eight. More humble. A step down in prestige but not in engineering. April 1934 brought the 836A models. Even cheaper. They dropped the wheelbase to a modest 136 inches. Swapped the regular 385-cubic-inch engine for a 366-cubic-inch unit. Prices started at a manageable $2,195.
Most of the other 1934 Pierces ranged from $2,795 to $4,495. A significant gap. A statement of intent.
The Real Silver Arrow Controversy
Among the roster was a fastback two-door. It carried the name Silver Arrow.
It looked nothing like the showstopping 1933 four-door dream car. Some critics called it a betrayal. A loss of the pure, original concept. They argued that slapping the name on a production car diluted the magic.
This argument has existed since the first concept car rolled off a drawing board. It’s inevitable. Purity is a myth. Evolution is reality.
Styling That Actually Worked
Pierce styling from 1934 to 1935 was beautifully evolved. Streamlined. It benefited directly from the lessons learned with the Silver Arrow. The lines flowed. The proportions worked. It wasn’t just a concept anymore. It was a car you could buy.
The Silver Arrow was available as an Eight or a Salon Twelve. Both sat on a 144-inch wheelbase. Long. Low. Wide.
“Anyone who owns a ‘production’ Silver Arrow has one of the Classic era’s most splendid cars.”
It’s not just about the badge. It’s about the execution. The 1934-1935 models took the theoretical and made it tangible.
To learn more about the 1934-1935 Pierce Silver Arrow, continue on to the next page.
For more information on cars, see:
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Classic Cars
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Muscle Cars
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Sports Cars
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Consumer Guide New Car Search
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Consumer Guide Used Car Search
The Final Slide: Why the Silver Arrow Couldn’t Save Pierce-Arrow
The Pierce Silver Arrow looked like the future. It had the V-12 muscle, the hand-built luxury, and a shape that made other cars look like horse-drawn carriages. But styling alone doesn’t pay the bills.
By 1934, the math was brutal.
Chanter, the former general manager recalled by new owners, watched the numbers bleed out. The company posted a $681,000 loss. Not a typo. A massive hole in the balance sheet.
He tried to patch it. He tapped into the Buffalo community and scared up loans from New York banks. He raised roughly $1 million. It wasn’t enough. To stay afloat, Pierce-Arrow had to sell off its retail branches. That’s a death knell for a brand that lives on dealer goodwill.
Sales were already cratering.
1,740 registrations in 1934.
The company reorganized in May 1935. Hope was high. Orders? 875.
Half the previous year’s volume. The trend line was vertical.
Pierce didn’t just try harder for 1936. They tried smarter. The Silver Arrow was gone, replaced by a revised lineup that boasted more power and fresh styling. But the real news was under the metal.
Pierce introduced the industry’s first vacuum-assisted brakes. Standard overdrive with automatic freewheeling. Over thirty improvements across the board. Engineering that should have moved units.
It didn’t.
Sales dropped to 787.
Rumors of mergers flew. Stock issues bubbled. Another reorganization loomed. The market didn’t care about superior braking systems.
Then came 1937.
The changes were minimal. The results were catastrophic. Only 166 cars sold.
Money sources vanished. The banks closed the door.
In December 1937, Pierce-Arrow declared bankruptcy for the final time. This wasn’t a temporary pause. It was the end.
They had just announced 1938 models. An estimated 17 units were built. Then the factory went silent.
A Ghost Car
The original Silver Arrow failed to reverse the maker’s fortunes. It couldn’t do what the Avanti tried to do for Studebaker thirty years later. One hero car doesn’t save a sinking ship.
But the tragedy lies in the potential.
The Silver Arrow was billed as “The car of 1940 — in 1933.”
Think about that timeline. It was ahead of its era. If Pierce-Arrow had survived, or found a corporate savior like Lincoln did decades earlier, what would the 1941 model look like?
Look at the Packard Clipper. Styled in 1939, announced in 1941. It looked modern even after WWII ended. It aged well.
A 1941 Silver Arrow? Designed by Phil Wright and James Hughes? Built on those same enlightened, streamlined concepts?
It would have stood a equal chance. Almost certainly.
History moved on. The factory closed. The dream of a Pierce-Arrow that evolved into the
