Ruxton
St. Louis, Missouri
& Hartford, Wisconsin
(1929-1930)

1929 Ruxton

During the late twenties, William Muller was working as an experimental engineer at Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company (producer of automobile bodies in Philadelphia), Muller persuaded management to allow him to develop a front-wheel-drive prototype. The idea was to sell the design to some manufacturer and provide the bodies by Budd. The prototype was completed by the fall of 1928. Joseph Ledwinka was the designer of the body and they used a Studebaker six engine. The wheel base was 130 inches and the car was a little bit over 63 inches high, when most cars were 10 inches higher. Archie M. Andrews a free-wheeling promoter and financier became interested. Andrews, who held several board of directorship in company's included Budd and Hupp Motor Car Corporation but he could not convince Hupp to build this new car. Andrews decided to do it himself and in April 1929 organized the New Era Motor, Inc. with the headquarters at 17 East 45th Street in New York City, but no factory. Without a factory he went out to search for a manufacture of the Ruxton. In his search he approached three company's Peerless, Gardner, and Marmon, which all three declined. With all of the turndowns it appear that he would not be able to produce the Ruxton, but that was not true. In November 1929 an announcement came from the Moon Company would build the Ruxton. No doubt the Moon people viewed the car as the perfect vehicle to lift their company out of a sales doldrums it had been in for the past few years. The Moon people did not count on losing their company and president in the process, but that's precisely what happened. Archie Andrews the canny promoter of the Ruxton, managed to obtain controlling percentage of Moon stock in exchange for the Ruxton design and patent rights. C.W. Burst and officers barricaded themselves in the Moon's St. Louis plant until Andrews, Muller and his gang broke in with court order in hand. Muller had been appointed president of the Moon Company. The entire matter of Moon control went to court thereafter, with suits followed by countersuits. But, by June of 1930 the Ruxton had joined the Windsor on the assembly line in St. Louis, Missouri and the Kissel Company of Hartford, Wisconsin. Andrews had also, maneuvered a deal with Kissel brothers. Instead of suing Andrew, in mid-September, rather than allow their company to fall into his hands, George and Will Kissel decided requested receivership. All Ruxton's transmissions and final drive assemblies were being produced Kissel. Because of this it stymied production in St. Louis. In any case the Ruxton venture had depleted the Moon Company's treasury. The factory's doors were closed on November 10th, following by receivership on November 15th. A total of aprox. 500 cars produced were in the Moon plant, with only about 25 cars assembled at the Kissel plant which included two special phaetons for the Kissel brothers. The majority of the Ruxton's were roasters and sedans. The roadster bodies were by Raulang and the sedan bodies were by Budd. They were good cars, and strikingly handsome, especially the sedans provided those wild multi-colored striped paint schemes. Most of them had cat-eyes Woodlites headlights and no running boards which where unseen during the early thirties. On the radiator, tire covers and large hubcaps was a beautifully stylized rendering of a griffin, the half-eagle, half-lion monster of classic mythology. Archie Andrews jumped from Ruxton, Moon and his now-bankrupt New Era Motors to Hupp Motor Car Corporation where he assumed the chairmanship of the board, until the courts and angry stockholders took it away from him. Andrews died in 1938 at age fifty-nine.