Inside Cleveland's Crawford Auto Museum

The Peerless Motor Company, founded in 1900 and located at 9400 Quincy Avenue, was a producer of high-quality motorcars. Originally, a producer of clothes wringers and then bicycles, the Peerless name became synonymous with quality. With Packard and Pierce-Arrow, they became known as the "Three P's of Motordom", the "P" indicating Premium cars. It was, ultimately, that quality which led to the auto manufacturing company's demise. The car lasted on the average of ten years, far longer than their competitors' cars. Then, after the stock market crash of 1929, many fewer people had the funds for such cars. The Peerless brand lasted until 1932, when the company transformed itself into a brewery, producing Carling's "Black Label" brew well into the 1970s.

The car pictured above, "Roi de Belges" or "King of Belgium", was the middle of the 1905 line. It retailed for $3500 (a small fortune in 1905).

^{(Last updated on 11-09-07)}