The C R Wilson Body Company with its plant located at

Milwaukee Junction Milwaukee Junction is an area in Detroit, Michigan, east of New Center. Located near the railroad junction of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad's predecessors Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railway and the Chicago, Detroit and Canada Grand T ...

, Detroit, Michigan was incorporated in 1897. Early customers included Cadillac, Ford, Oldsmobile, and many other now forgotten brands.

Foundation

It grew from Wilson brothers' blacksmith and wagon repair shop which soon began to manufacture wagons then carriages. The brothers split the business by products and Charles R Wilson formed the C R Wilson Carriage Company followed by a new incorporation, C R Wilson Body Company.Mark Theobald -
Coachbuilt.com
' accessed June 10, 2017 Cadillac 1907 Model M Coupe

Cadillac

Wilson built Cadillac's first closed production body.

Ford

Wilson provided the first bodies for Ford's

Model T The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relati ...

Alumni

Former employees included the Fisher brothers who founded Fisher Body Company.

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...

appears in a photograph of Wilson staff dated around 1900.

Murray Body Corporation

On the sudden death of Charles R Wilson in 1924 a merger was negotiated with the owners of

J W Murray Manufacturing Company J, or j, is the tenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual name in English is ''jay'' (pronounced ), with a now-uncommon varia ...

, Towson Body Company and J C Widman Body Company under the name Murray Body Corporation.

References

Coachbuilders of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Michigan Companies based in Michigan Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1897 1897 establishments in Michigan Economy of Detroit {{auto-company-stub