Dorris for sale
For much of its production life in the early 1900s, the Dorris Motor Car Company's slogan was "Built up to a standard, not down to a price." Quality was indeed key for this company, which made hand built cars in Saint Louis, Missouri, but that high quality also kept the price of its cars high, which was a ultimately a contributing factor to the company's demise.George Preston Dorris began his career as an automaker in 1896 in Nashville, Tennessee, when he built an experimental gasoline car in his family's bicycle shop. From there, he moved to Saint Louis, where he joined up with John L. French to form the St. Louis Motor Company. Just a couple years later, in 1906, the two split and Dorris began a new company, the Dorris Motor Car Company, at the site of the previous company's factory.
The first production vehicle, a 4-cylinder with a 101-inch wheel base, was a big hit at the New York Automobile Show in 1906. In the following years, the engines became more powerful, increasing to six-cylinders, but Dorris always maintained the same engines and chassis on its vehicles but offered different body styles. While quality was excellent, Dorris cars were priced at over $2,000, more than double the price of other cars of the day and more than four times the cost of a mass produced Ford Model T.
Dorris himself was a dedicated engineer. He is credited with at least 9 patents for automobile innovations, including the float-carburetor, which was used up until the late 1980s when it was replaced by the electronic fuel injection system. Dorris is also credited with inventing the first power unit connecting the engine, clutch and transmission.
Around 1911, the Dorris Motor Car Company began making trucks. Many companies in the St. Louis area purchased them, including the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper, which bought 16 one-ton trucks for newspaper delivery. Dorris went on to build buses that carried roughly 25 people, and built engines and chassis for buses as well.
In 1920, Dorris acquired one of its St. Louis competitors, Astra, and reorganized as the Dorris Motors Corporation. In 1923, there were rumors that Dorris would merge with two other companies, but the merger did not come happen and instead Dorris faltered in the poor economy, eventually going bankrupt in 1926. Throughout its years in business, Dorris built only about 3,100 cars and some 900 trucks.
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