Maxwell 1904-1925 - "Good Maxwell"
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Summary
There were around 10,000 car brands and designers - most of them have disappeared. Another brand that has long since disappeared is Maxwell. With the necessary "know-how" from his time at Oldsmobile and Northern, designer Jonathan Maxwell founded the Maxwell-Briscoe Motor Company in New York in 1903. 4 years later, the brand became a household name with the help of the doctor's car "Dr. Maxwell" and clever advertising increased sales. In 1917, the deeply indebted Chalmers brand was taken over and from then on things went from bad to worse.
Estimated reading time: 3min
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The Maxwell-Briscoe Motor Company, founded in 1903 in Tarrytown, New York, was initiated by the designer Jonathan D. Maxwell and the financier Benjamin Briscoe. Maxwell put the expertise he had gained at Oldsmobile and Northern into his small, fine two-cylinder model. A four-cylinder model was added in 1906, and the "Dr. Maxwell" (Opel's "Doctor's Car" from 1909), specially designed for the doctor's tour in 1907, became a household name. Clever advertising and races increased sales to over 20,000 cars in 1910, and Maxwell overtook Reo as No. 3 (behind Ford & Buick). With the aim of taking over other brands, Ben Briscoe founded the United States Motor Co. in 1910 as a counterweight to General Motors, but it went under again in 1912. J. Maxwell continued production of his cars from 1913 with the Maxwell Motor Co. in Detroit, and in 1914 GM founder W. C. Durant took over the plant in Tarrytown for Chevrolet production. Briscoe founded his own brand in Jackson, Michigan, in the same year.
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