Anchor Buggy Company. The Anchor Buggy Company was an American buggy manufacturer in Cincinnati, Ohio from 1886 to 1917. After 1917, it operated as the Anchor Top and Body Company till 1927.

The Anchor Carriage Company also had a short-lived automotive branch called the Anchor Motor Car Company (1910—1911).

History

Anchor Buggy Co. 

The Anchor Buggy Co. was founded between 1886 and 1887 by Alfred F. Klausmeyer and Anthony G. Brunsman.

Herman H. Uckotter was an inventor for the company, who invented a steering device called "the fifth wheel". The company had successfully applied a new principle in fifth wheels and attachments for carriages, with the gear being known to the trade as the "patent anchor fifth wheel and king-bolt".

Anchor was one of the largest carriage building companies in the region, and at its peak in 1897, manufactured 125 buggies, surreys and phaetons a day.

In later years, Anchor shared its production line with the Lion Buggy Co.; the combined firm was one of the first carriage manufacturers to set up a production line with each worker performing only one task. The firm is also credited with being the first to develop a process for painting wheels using centrifugal force.

Advertising 
An 1890 advertisement for the Anchor Buggy Company featured the "My Wife and My Mother-in-Law" optical illusion; when viewed one way the image looked like a young woman, when viewed another way the image looked like an old woman.

In the late 1890s, Anchor built, what was claimed to be, the “Largest Buggy in the World”, to advertise their buggies at various fair and expositions across the Mid-West.

Anchor Motor Car Company 

In 1910, Anchor was formally incorporated as a stock company, and the Anchor Motor Car Company was set up as an independent automobile division.

The first automobile made by the company was Anchor-35, a 5-passenger "touring car of modern design", with a 35—40 hp (28 tax hp) 4-cylinder engine, and a price tag of $1850.

But in 1911, after the death of Anchor's co-founder and president Anthony G. Brunsman, the series production of the automobile was shelved. While the automobiles were manufactured only from 1910 to 1911, they continued to be sold till at least 1916.

Anchor Top & Body Co. 
In 1917, as buggy sales declined, Anchor began selling tops with windshields for Ford cars, and later for Dodge, Olds, Buick, and Oakland.

The company remained in business as the Anchor Top & Body Co. till 1927.

Anchor Buggy and Carriage Company 
In 1958, Samuel W. Levinson, founder of the Stuart Manufacturing Company– that made children's night lights and toys– retired from his company, and established another one called the Anchor Buggy and Carriage Company.

From 1958 to 1964, the company created exact miniature plastic carriage models based on the carriages and buggies made by the original Anchor Buggy Company. Levinson had acquired permission from Anchor in 1935 to use their name.

References

External links
Anchor Buggy Co. price list to apply to 1908 catalog at Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library

Brass Era vehicles
Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of the United States
Motor vehicle manufacturers based in Ohio
Defunct companies based in Cincinnati
Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1910
1910 establishments in Ohio
Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1911
1911 disestablishments in Ohio
Highwheeler
1910s cars