At the end of a 1917 Chandler Motor Car Brochure is this statement; 

“THE CHANDLER MOTOR CAR COMPANY, believing that the policy of incorporating changes in models only at annual periods to be wrong and desiring to make changes in designing, equipment and construction at any time that in its opinion will result in the improvement of the car, hereby expressly reserves the right to make such changes, additions, or alterations from current models as illustrated and described in this catalog, without notice at any time as such changes, additions, or alterations may seem desirable.” 

We, as caretakers of these now one-hundred-year-old automobiles (in most cases) have a great desire to pin down specific details about our car. In fact, your local department of motor vehicles insists that you provide them with the year of manufacture of your car when you title it.  To complicate matters further many states and less knowledgeable state employees often stated the year on your paperwork as the year when the car was originally sold. Our own Model 15 Chandler, for many years was mis-titled as a 1915, more on that at a later time. With the statement above from the factory just trying to nail down the year of manufacture based on factors like body style or appointments can be tricky.

So, for the purpose of creating an accurate record of surviving cars I defer to the work that James H. Lackey provided us his authoritative compilation of the history of the Chandler and Cleveland marques, The Chandler Automobile. If you don’t have a copy of this book published in 2018 by McFarland & Company, find a copy and immerse yourself in the history of these two great marques.

What follows is a breakdown by serial number of each of the models produced and the factory available body styles available. James Lackey assembled this information all from factory literature which as we know did not always account for changes that may have happened later in the model year. In providing this information here I hope to help you clearly identify your car in the hope that you will then correctly describe it for the Chandler-Cleveland Registry. In thus doing so we can update our records and provide a detailed summary of the surviving population. For some, you may be left with just a frame or a body that in its long life has now evolved into a style all its own. For these we’ll just have to make notes of current state.

Chandler Motor Cars

Cleveland Motor Cars