1930 Body Production

G

ghford

Member
I'm just full of questions today as restoration nears completion and wondering if anyone knows how many bodies were manufactured by each of Murray and Briggs in the 1930 Sedans. Mine is the Murray Standard Fordor and I have talked with a couple of experts on this who indicate total production for the pair of makers to be 41,113. Problem is the number is stated as being for Murray but with all the Briggs included. Who knows the breakdown with a number assigned to each maker?

Many thanks,

Greg
 
If I remember right, Murray got the bulk of the orders for the fordoors. Briggs was making other bodies as well as the fordoors. So Briggs bodied fordoors are relatively rare compared to Murrays. Numbers-I don't know off the top of my head.


Mike
 
If you poke around various "Model A" websites, you'll find several with scores of detailed statistics in which you may come upon specific numbers you're searching for.
 
ghford said:
I'm just full of questions today as restoration nears completion and wondering if anyone knows how many bodies were manufactured by each of Murray and Briggs in the 1930 Sedans. Mine is the Murray Standard Fordor and I have talked with a couple of experts on this who indicate total production for the pair of makers to be 41,113. Problem is the number is stated as being for Murray but with all the Briggs included. Who knows the breakdown with a number assigned to each maker?

Many thanks,

Greg
Click to expand...

Greg,

If I am not mistaken, I think the numbers you are seeking were destroyed unless one can go to the Ford Archives and maybe you can find them there in one of their 1000's of boxes of archive data.

Yes, it truly would be nice to know.

Unfortunatly, the numbers on the Assembly Record Type documents which tell us the total number of production of each body style...all bodies provided by Briggs and Murray were all grouped together as one.

The only other way that I know is if the body has the original Body Tag on the body itself...that will tell you what number body of that particular body style was assembled either at Briggs or Murray.

Knowing the last number of each and totaling them would more than likely give you the answer you are seeking.

But for now...we just have the total of the combination of each.

Pluck
 
Greg: Steve is correct. Going to the Benson will not produce any other info at this time. Either this info was lost OR remains to be found in the many-many boxes in the Archives. This would require many hours of your time and a very helpful Benson employee. Best regards, Jim Langley...
 
Thanks so much guys. I know you are right that for practical purposes this is all lost. My tag is gone and my goal is/was to be able to approximate the number of mine. Maybe the best hope is to one day happen to stumble onto one like mine with original engine number very close and with original body tag to get me ballpark.

Thanks again,

Greg
 
That method would only have accuracy if the cars were assembled at the same plant. Bodies and body parts as well as engines & frames were sent out to branch plants in limited quantities depending on rail road or shipping capacities at the time. Complete assembled bodies were shipped all over the place as well as the components to build up bodies. Some branch plants were limited in what they could fabricate & assemble so they needed more complete bodies and then others even had limited stamping capability along with near full assembly capability. Most of this info about the branch assembly plants is available at the Benson Ford Research Center. Ford didn't build up the fordors but they needed to sell them in all the different dealer agencies so most of them were completed bodies shipped out from Murray and Briggs to all the locations needing them.
 
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