I traded some years ago for this pair of early, big car quarters. One has what looks like a golf club door opening (sadly no door). I'm thinking early 30s but could be a bit older. Any thoughts on who built cars with this feature? I'll add pics tomorrow.
The higher end cars seemed to favor them. These days it would be a good place to stash an AR50 or a belt-fed.
A lot of those high-end cars would have been coachbuilt. Manufacturers would farm out bodywork in total to independent coachbuilders. The relationships between chassis manufacturers and coachbuilders was often complex, with manufacturers trying to keep control over the image the bodies impart by selecting approved coachbuilders, or having coachbuilders work to the chassis manufacturer's designer's instructions, etc., while other coachbuilders were keen to make a big splash with dramatic designs, because in that market you couldn't really deny a customer a bare rolling chassis. That's why you got the most rakish Duesenbergs, for instance, like the Bohman & Schwartz and Fernandez & Darrin cars, later in the '30s when ACD weren't in a financial position to dictate coachwork. But that's where, a decade or two earlier, the golf club door came from. Bespoke coachwork could have all kinds of quirks incorporated as a result of the customer's hobbies, passions, or eccentricities. Think of the cars built for Indian nobility, specially equipped for hunting; or the Esders Bugatti T41, which lacked headlights because it would never be driven at night. For a keen golfer, having a car specially adapted for golfing trips would certainly be an exhibition of conspicuous consumption; though as a golf-bag compartment is useful for a lot of stuff other than golf bags, the golf club door subsequently became a pretty much painless status symbol. Hence that feature making it into upper-mid-market factory coachwork.
1930 Packard. HRP I believe only the socially elite could afford they type of cars that offered perks like golf doors. HRP
Any pics of your quarter panels? I have always wanted to build a roadster with a club door...and a V12.
The 1934 Pierce Arrow convertible at the collection I work for has a golf club door. Most high end coupes, roadsters, and convertibles in the late 20's and 30's had them.
My pal Willis in Sacramento restored classic '30s Chryslers mostly, he had a Cabriolet and a roadster (both Chryslers) with golf club doors. He found a '28 Plymouth roadster that was 'next', and it had a golf club door. I asked about the door (in a Plymouth!) and Willis said it was obviously a retro addition. Very professional job, and dated by its inner wood framing.
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