Karrier
Karrier Bantam c. 1952
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| Industry | Automotive industry (Commercial vehicles) |
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| Fate | purchased by Commer (Rootes Group) 1934 |
| Successor | Dodge (Chrysler) |
| Founded | 1908 |
| Defunct | 1979 |
| Headquarters |
Huddersfield, England Luton, England |
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Karrier was a British marque of motorised municipal appliances and light commercial vehicles and trolley buses manufactured at Karrier Works, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire by Clayton and Co Huddersfield Limited. They began making Karrier motor vehicles in 1908 in Queen Street South, Huddersfield. In 1920 H F Clayton sold Clayton and Co's Huddersfield business into public listed company Karrier Motors while keeping their Penistone operation separate and mechanical and electrical engineers Clayton & Co Penistone remains active in 2015.
Karrier produced buses as well as their other municipal vehicles and in latter years, especially during the Second World War, Trolleybuses, notably their Karrier 'W' model.
In 1934 Karrier became part of the Rootes Group where it retained its brand identity though the business was operated as part of Rootes' Commer commercial vehicle operation. The Karrier name began to disappear from products when Chrysler bought Rootes in 1967. It was finally dropped in the early 1970s.
Herbert Fitzroy Clayton (1857–1935), a prosperous chemicals manufacturer or drysalter and dyer, incorporated in December 1904 a company, Clayton & Co Huddersfield Limited, to own the engineering business he had carried on independently since 1899 when he had left his Dixon Clayton & Co partnership. In 1908, joined by his second son, Reginald Fitzroy Clayton MIAE (1885–1964), Clayton & Co began designing and making Karrier petrol driven motor vehicles and charabancs which became their main business. In 1920, keeping Clayton & Co Penistone separate and retaining control of this new company, Clayton & Co Huddersfield was sold to a newly incorporated public listed company which they named Karrier Motors Limited. At this time the products had been:
Karrier experienced financial difficulties and suffered substantial losses in the late 1920s.
A plan to amalgamate T.S. Motors Limited (Tilling-Stevens) with Karrier agreed in August 1932 was dropped a month later without explanation. The following August 1933 Karrier tardily announced that under difficult trading conditions they had made a substantial loss during that 1932 calendar year. At the beginning of June 1934 Karrier was put into receivership though it was also announced that business would continue while "negotiations" were completed. It was bought by Rootes.
Rootes Securities, through its partly-owned subsidiaries, acquired Karrier in August 1934 when employee numbers had fallen to 700. Rootes closed the Huddersfield operation and moved production to Commer's Luton works but trolley-bus manufacture was moved to Moorfield Works, Wolverhampton where the same Karrier designs were to be built alongside Sunbeam Commercial Vehicles' trolley-buses.
Tilling Stevens would eventually join the Rootes Group in 1950.
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Wikipedia