Brewster & Co.

Brewster is the most significant American coachbuilder in history, and one of the oldest, active from 1810-1937. Their first known bodywork on an automobile was in 1896, on an electric car, and a gasoline powered car in 1905, on a Delaunay-Belleville chassis. Eventually they would use chassis from a variety of makers. From 1915-1925 and 1934-1935 they produced their own line of opulent and expensive automobiles at their plant in Long Island City.

Fame
"You're the top! You're a Ritz hot toddy. You're the top! You're a Brewster body." The coachbuilder was immortalized in the Cole Porter song, "You're the Top" and is the only American to ever win the Gold Metal at the Paris International Exposition, a gathering of Europe's finest coachbuilders.

The manager of New York's National Horse Show, Edward King, was once asked whether he considered Brewster to be the Tiffany of carriage manufacturers: ''"My opinion is that Tiffany was the Brewster of jewelers." '' (indeed Tiffany was the younger company.)

Colonel Paul Downing for American Heritage Magazine, wrote in 1956: "However, it is doubtful that it can honestly be said that America took her place in the world of really fashionable carriages until the firm of Brewster & Company of Broome Street took the lead. It became a saying in the trade that a new style was of no value until it was established by Brewster."