Retrospect: The rise and fall of the Preston Motors Corp. Premocar

One of the earliest Alabama-made automobiles was the Premocar

President Warren G. Harding and his party rode through Birmingham in a specially made, all-white Premocar in October 1921. Photo courtesy of Birmingham, Alabama, Public Library Archives.

One of the earliest attempts to manufacture automobiles in Alabama came in 1919 with the creation of the Preston Motors Corp. in Birmingham. The luxury vehicles made a splash on the local business scene and played a part in commemorating Birmingham’s 50th anniversary. But the car company’s fall was more sensational than its rise. 

Its namesake was Preston Orr. The Tennessee native arrived in Montgomery in 1914 and lent his name to several unsuccessful business efforts, including the Non-Erasable Ink Co. and the Pep-To-Lac Bottling Co.

In 1917, he relocated to the Magic City determined to build an automobile factory. Two years later, Orr announced the creation of the Preston Motors Corp., with $1 million in capital stock and plans to build a large factory in North Birmingham. Orr served as secretary and treasurer.

Two key members of the company had Detroit car-making roots — its president, R. A. Skinner, and sales manager, the appropriately named James T. Driver.

The company’s first demonstration model was a four-cylinder soft top called the Preston, to be sold for $600.

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As plant construction began, Skinner expressed confidence in their endeavor. There was “no reason in the world” Birmingham could not produce cheaper cars than other parts of the country. All of the raw materials were close at hand. Locals espoused similar faith in the company, purchasing a reported $500,000 in early public stock, most a few dollars at a time.

The economical Preston never went into production.

By the time the plant opened, the company had shifted gears to an automobile with more luxurious furnishings and a new name: The Premocar. It sat on a steel frame with a carriage body made of kiln-dried wood and iron joints. The car sported a six-cylinder engine and a three-speed manual transmission.

Preston Motors Corp. executives riding in a Premocar at the company’s plant. Photo courtesy of Birmingham, Alabama, Public Library Archives.

No expense was spared. The Premocars featured the best available battery, gears and wheels, along with a Klaxon horn with its unmistakable “AHH-OOH-GAH” sound. Maroon with cream-colored tires was the standard, eye-catching color.

Eventually, six different models were made, including several touring cars, a coupe, sedan, roadster and even a truck.

The cost of a standard Premocar was a steep $1,295 (about $21,000 today), more than double the price for Ford’s basic Model T. Still, executives hoped local pride would override price concerns. James T. Driver announced that the first six months’ worth of inventory was pre-sold.  

As production sped along, praise poured in from beyond the Magic City. A Tulsa dealer pronounced the Premocar the “best buy on the automobile market today.” A Florida enthusiast on a three-state road trip reported his Premocar averaged a whopping 18 miles per gallon.

Sales gimmicks, yes, the Premocar had a few. Engineers tested the vehicles along the curves and hills of Oxmoor Road on Shades Mountain. A racing version of the Premocar broke a speed record at the Birmingham Fairgrounds track, clocking a 54-second mile. A few months later, famed dancer and silent-movie star Doraldina was photographed balancing atop a running Premocar’s radiator cap, a means of demonstrating the car’s smooth engine.

The Premocar played a key role in the Oct. 26, 1921, commemoration of Birmingham’s 50th anniversary. When President Warren G. Harding and First Lady Florence Harding arrived for the festivities, they were met at the train station by a specially made Premocar. It was painted white and sported a white, kid-leather interior. “I wondered then what on earth would become of the beautiful all-white car,” one observer later recalled. “Birmingham back then was a smoke-laden city. Plenty of soot.”

But there was no soot to be seen on that anniversary day. Like the vehicle that paraded the president through the streets, Birmingham was clean and glistening. A crowd of 100,000 lined the parade route. After his speech at Capitol Park, the president and his party were treated to a Premocar-powered tour of the city. Thereafter, the white vehicle sat in the Preston Motors showroom and was used on occasion to ferry important guests about the Magic City.     

Then, in the spring of the company’s fourth year, everything went wrong — stunningly, quickly and perhaps even criminally wrong. Despite initial zeal, despite impressive public stock purchases and despite presidential publicity, Preston Motors was losing ground. Orders did not keep pace. Costs soared. Parts suppliers went unpaid. In March 1923, several New York-based creditors sued in federal court for a combined indebtedness of $8,000. Legal proceedings revealed Preston’s unmet bills to be far higher, nearly $200,000.

Silent-movie star Doraldina at the Preston Motors Corp. plant. Photo courtesy of Birmingham, Alabama, Public Library Archives.

The Birmingham car company was thrown into involuntary bankruptcy and saddled with a court-appointed receiver to settle debts.

Though Preston Motors executives initially planned to fight the receivership, they soon reversed course. Whatever public confidence remained in the company vanished.

Soon the state came calling for its pound of Premocar flesh. The Alabama Securities Commission and attorney general secured almost two-dozen indictments against Orr, Skinner and Driver for violations of the state’s “Blue Sky” law, which protected investors from fraudulent activities.

The indictment included a cold accounting of the company’s troubled history. Over the past four years, the company produced fewer than 450 Premocars. Only seven of 38 dealerships received all the models they purchased. A second stock offering in 1922, announced as an effort to expand the business, was actually used to pay down debts totaling nearly half a million dollars. Purchasers of those bad stocks included some 650 Jefferson County residents, none of whom was compensated in the bankruptcy proceedings.

Imprecision written into Alabama’s rambling “Blue Sky” law kept Preston Motors executives out of jail. Released of their indictments, they promptly left the Yellowhammer State never to return. The next session of the Alabama Legislature strengthened the laws overseeing public securities. The saga of Preston Motors, called “the most sensational bankruptcy case” of 1923, was at an end. 

The Holcombe Textile Equipment Co. purchased the sprawling Vanderbilt Road plant that once built Premocars. Despite a 1926 fire, most of the structure still stands. Today, it houses a multi-tenant manufacturing and wholesale facility.

No Premocars are known to still exist.

Historian Scotty E. Kirkland is a freelance contributor to Business Alabama. He lives in Wetumpka. 

This article appears in the October 2024 issue of Business Alabama.

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