Rollston Company was an American

coachbuilder A coachbuilder or body-maker is someone who manufactures bodies for passenger-carrying vehicles.Construction has always been a skilled trade requiring a relatively lightweight product with sufficient strength. The manufacture of necessarily ...

producing luxury automobile bodies during the 1920s and 1930s readily acknowledged to be of the very highest quality.Rollston at coachbuilt.com
/ref> After bankruptcy in 1938 some of the same owners began a very similar business under the name Rollson.

History

Harry Lonschein was 16 when he became employed by

Brewster & Co Brewster & Company was an American custom carriage-maker and automobile coachbuilder founded by James Brewster in 1810 and active for almost 130 years. Brewster began in New Haven, Connecticut and quickly established a reputation for building ...

. He would found Rollston Company together with his partner Sam Blotkin in 1921. The business began as a repair shop at 244 West 49th Street in Manhattan.''Automobile Quarterly'', 2005 Their first factory was in a building on West 47th Street later expanding to all its four floors, 48,000 square feet. Rollston built bodies for chassis supplied by

Bugatti Automobiles Ettore Bugatti was a German then French manufacturer of high-performance automobiles. The company was founded in 1909 in the then- German city of Molsheim, Alsace, by the Italian-born industrial designer Ettore Bugatti. The ca ...

Buick Buick () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American marques of automobiles, and was the company that established General ...

Cadillac The Cadillac Motor Car Division () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM) that designs and builds luxury vehicles. Its major markets are the United States, Canada, and China. Cadillac models are distributed ...

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automot ...

, Cord,

Duesenberg Duesenberg Automobile and Motors Company, Inc. was an American racing and luxury automobile manufacturer founded in Indianapolis, Indiana, by brothers Fred and August Duesenberg in 1920. The company is known for popularizing the straight- ...

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

Hispano-Suiza Hispano-Suiza () is a Spanish automotive–engineering company. It was founded in 1904 by Marc Birkigt and Damian Mateu as an automobile manufacturer and eventually had several factories in Spain and France that produced luxury cars, aircraft en ...

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, Lincoln,

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, Packard,

Peerless Peerless may refer to: Companies and organizations * Peerless Motor Company, an American automobile manufacturer. * Peerless Brewing Company, in Birkenhead, UK * Peerless Group, an insurance and financial services company in India * Peerless Reco ...

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Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated ...

Stearns-Knight F. B. Stearns and Company, later known as F.B. Stearns Company was an American manufacturer of luxury cars in Cleveland, Ohio marketed under the brand names Stearns from 1900 to 1911 then Stearns-Knight from 1911 until 1929. History Frank Bal ...

and Stutz. Rollston closed in April 1938.

Rollson Inc

Rollson Inc was formed in September 1938 by four partners; Lonschein, Holm, Sever, and Creteur and continued to make bodies mainly for Packard chassis at 311 West 66th Street and West End Avenue. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Rollson Inc. switched to small components for ships and fuselage sections and nose-cones for aircraft. A contract for

Liberty ship Liberty ships were a ship class, class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost constr ...

cowl ventilators, toilet fixtures, life boat food tanks, storage bins, galley equipment, ship's doors, Pullman beds, berths and furniture. After the war, Rollson did not produce car bodies but fitted out luxury ships, yachts and private aircraft in Plainview, Long Island, New York. In 2022 Rollson Inc. is listed as a marine hardware manufacturer operated by Rudolph Creteur.

References

{{Reflist Coachbuilders of the United States Vintage vehicles 1920s cars 1930s cars Pre-war vehicles

History

Rollson Inc

See also

References