County man is Bantam car expert
CENTER TWP — Bob Brandon, the owner of four Bantam-era vehicles and local expert on the tiny Butler-made vehicles of the late 1930s, recalls attending the 1960 Veterans Day Parade when he was 13 years old with his father.
A monument to the Jeep's origination and manufacture in the county was being dedicated in Diamond Park that day, so he asked his father about the proceedings.
His father told him what he knew about the Jeep's design and production in Butler.
“Gee, I just felt ... like a vibration go through my body,” Brandon said. “I said 'Wow, Butler is famous for something.'”
Fast forward to 1980, when Brandon attended a Bantam reunion at a hotel banquet room in Butler. Brandon marveled at the itty bitty Bantam cars assembled inside the banquet facility and soon learned that the cars were manufactured in the same factory before the Jeep took over.
The feeling hit him again, and he has been a Bantam enthusiast ever since.
Brandon is now restoring a 1940 Bantam Riviera, which is unusual because it is a rare four-seater Bantam product, and a 1939 Bantam Roadster.
He has two American Austins, a 1933 Roadster and a rare 1934 American Austin pickup truck.
“I only know of five or six of those that are still in existence,” Brandon said.
He explains the two makes' connection by starting at the beginning of the story of cars manufactured in Butler.
The Standard Steel Car Company produced the Standard 8, a huge eight-cylinder beast, beginning in 1910 at a factory located behind what is now Pullman Plaza. The smokestack and part of the building still stand.
The hulking automobiles were made at the factory until the early 1920s, when the Standard Steel Car Co. — the predecessor of Pullman-Standard — got out of the car business, Brandon said.
The factory sat empty for several years until Butler banker Elias Ritz heard that the creator and manufacturer of the English Austin automobile, Herbert Austin, was looking for a site in the U.S. to build the American Austin.
Ritz and Austin met in Butler in 1929 and Ritz got a look at the old Standard factory.While he considered Butler for his venture, Brandon said, Grand Rapids, Mich., tried to steal the Austin operation away. Butler residents raised $100,000 in pledges to ensure Austin come here, which was quite an undertaking in the year of the great stock market crash.Austin settled on the Butler factory and the first American Austin rolled off the old Standard assembly line in May 1930, Brandon said.Herbert Austin was to receive a $7 royalty for each American Austin that was produced, but got nothing because of the stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression.Butler's Austin plant ceased production in 1933 or 1934 Brandon said, but the nation's largest American Austin dealer, Roy Evans of Atlanta, refused to accept the demise of the car.“He came to Butler and negotiated with the debtors and took over the operation for $5,000” Brandon said. “He assumed all the debt for the American Austin enterprise.”Evans knew he would owe Herbert Austin a fortune in royalties if he used the Austin name, so he changed it to “Bantam” because the small, two-seater car reminded him of the small but mighty bantam rooster.“So the transition from the Austin Car Company to American Bantam was very seamless,” Brandon said.Evans redesigned the car when he got the factory up and running in 1937 to include more modern rounded fenders, different headlights, much smaller wheels and tires and a few other modifications, but the length and width remained the same, Brandon said.
While American Austin cranked out some 28,000 vehicles while in Butler, American Bantam manufactured just 7,500 because the company's design of the Jeep for the Army took over the entire company just before World War II.“They manufactured civilian cars up until about July 1940,” Brandon said.He estimates there are between 1,500 and 2,000 Bantam cars in existence today.Brandon said the progression of vehicles made at the factory can be viewed at the annual Jeep Heritage Festival, where a Standard 8, American Austin, Bantam car and Bantam Jeep are lined up each year.He said the market for the Bantam vehicles is sour today, as young people are largely uninterested in wrenching on old cars.The ones who are, Brandon said, favor the classic muscle cars of the mid 20th century and not pre-1940 models.Hence, prices for the Bantam are down from their peak in value in the 1990s.“A lot of these older guys who have put their money into (early) cars are resigned to the fact that they'll never get the money out of them that they put in,” Brandon said.“I plan to keep mine in the family and have some fun with them and maybe the day will come when some museum will want to buy them.”Brandon takes his vehicles to local car shows and events like the Jeep Heritage Festival, and dreams of a day when the scruffy little Bantam will see a resurgence in interest by car enthusiasts.“Hopefully there will be some younger guys to jump in after I'm out of steam,” Brandon said.
