PIEDMONT

Piedmont Motor Car Co. (1917-1922)

Lynchburg, Virginia

This is a Piedmont radiator emblem (c1917-1922)      mjs
Size: 83mm wide 63mm high     MM: None

The Piedmont story is complicated. The Piedmont Motor Car Company advertised that the Piedmont was not an assembled car but was built at its own factory in Lynchburg, Virginia. The truth was that the Piedmond was an ordinary assembled car. All the parts were made by other manufacturers, except for the bodies, which had originally been made by the Norwalk Motor Car Company and had been copied from a Hudson.

The Piedmont was available as 30hp four-cylinder or 42hp six-cylinder five-passenger open top touring models with the option of a hard top roof. 

The Piedmont story is further complicated by the fact that most cars built by Piedmont were sold under different names with different emblems for other motor car companies. The cars all looked very similar with almost identical bodies, except for the radiator and engine covers. 

The Piedmont Motor Car Company built cars for Bush (see Bush), Norwalk (see Norwalk) and Lone Star among others. Piedmont built up a large stock of parts and components in anticipation of increasing orders from other car companies but, in the event, the volume of orders did not meet expectations. Piedmont struggled to survive and was in receivership in 1922.

Emblems

In January 1917, Piedmont advertised it's forthcoming car and the enamel emblem it was to carry, see below:

This is an advertisement showing the planned Piedmont trademark (1917)  ms

The Piedmont radiator emblem actually used had a very similar design to that shown above but with a slightly different name ribbon, see white, black and red enamel example shown at the top of this post.

I believe that this Piedmont radiator emblem is original even though the words "Piedmont Motor Car Co.Inc" in the top half of the emblem are not evenly spaced. Other examples of this Piedmont radiator emblem, that I have seen, have been identical. Original Piedmont radiator emblems with this design are very rare.

This Piedmont radiator emblem is shown in subsequent Piedmont factory illustrations, see example below from an early Piedmont Six brochure:

This is a Piedmont Six illustration from a Piedmont brochure (c1918)  ms

It is interesting to note that the Piedmont brochure page shown above also has a Piedmont trademark shown in red. This Piedmont trademark is a different design to the radiator emblem. However, this trademark design was also made as an emblem, see the white, red and black enamel emblem shown below. This design may have been used as a radiator emblem on some early Piedmont cars but I cannot confirm this. This Piedmont emblem is very rare.

This may have been a Piedmont radiator emblem (date unknown)     mjs
Size: 72mm wide 62mm high   MM: Unknown

A larger version of this Piedmont emblem can be found. The example shown below has been painted.

This is a Piedmont emblem (c1920)    mjs
Size: 75mm wide 65mmhigh     MM: None

However, the emblem shown immediately above is most likely a hub emblem, which someone has painted, as it has the same dimensions as the brass hub emblem shown below. The Piedmont hub emblem shown below is scarce.

This is a Piedmont hub emblem (1917-1922)      dkc
Size: 75mm wide 65mm high

Emblem collectors should beware, as there are reproduction Piedmont emblems. There are different color versions of these reproduction Piedmont emblems but they are easy to identify due the the incorrect spelling of "LYNCHBURG" as "LYNCHRURG", see example below:

This is a reproduction Piedmont emblem   ms