buffaloEx-Pat

Pierce Arrow
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Romancing the Arrow

I had wandered into the gallery at Buffalo Big Print on Allen Street, on a recent trip back home. Two framed Pierce-Arrow posters caught my eye. I had forgotten about Pierce-Arrow. Once reminded, I had to have those posters. It is the ex-pat disease, such compulsions: the need to obtain and surround oneself with Buffalo icons; especially relics of past greatness. 

I tend to feel nostalgic about things I don’t even remember, never experienced, but wish I had, can picture myself in. I like to think that had I lived in Buffalo during its heyday, I would have owned a Pierce-Arrow, would have been part of the scene on Delaware Avenue, maybe cruising in my Silver Arrow, tipping my hat to beautiful ladies as I passed. I imagine myself living in the Butler Mansion, with my Silver Arrow parked under the veranda.


The more I indulged this fantasy the more I realized the posters wouldn’t cut it. I needed more than an old sales placard. I needed the real thing. I needed the car.

The point about the Pierce-Arrow is that it was the head of a class of luxury automobiles in its day, and it was made in Buffalo. The company was owned and based in Buffalo. Nowadays the words “Buffalo” and “luxury” are oxymorons; all the more reason to find a way to travel to a place in time where they inhabited the same reality.

Near the turn of the previous century, Pierce Motor Company was building bicycles and motorcycles in Buffalo. Around 1900 they made a failed attempt at a steam-powered motor car. In 1903, owner George N. Pierce decided to build a luxury car for the upscale market. This proved to be his most successful venture. (Pierce Arrow factory building below.)
The high end models were advertised as “The Great Arrow.” In 1908 he renamed the company Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company. The “archer” hood ornament and headlights mounted on fenders were two distinctive features of the brand, the latter being patented.

Pierce-Arrow quickly became a status symbol, becoming the first official automobile of the White House, when William Howard Taft ordered two of them to be used for state occasions. An open-bodied Pierce-Arrow carried Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding to Harding’s inauguration in 1921. Pierce-Arrows were owned by Hollywood stars, corporate tycoons and foreign royalty. The brand was one of the luxury car triumvirate at the time known as the “Three P’s of Motordom” (Packard, Peerless and Pierce-Arrow).

Artistic design was a hallmark of the Arrow, both in advertising (artistic, understated posters pictured elegant settings, with the cars themselves in the background, only partially shown) and in the lines and features of the vehicles. Herbert M. Dawley, who would later become a Broadway actor and director, designed nearly ever model built between 1914 and 1938.


All Buffalonians and ex-pats can be proud of the gold-standard in quality, luxury, design and durability for which the brand is still known. It was the Great Depression that did the Pierce-Arrow in. Lagging demand after the Crash weakened the company and despite of or because of a buy-out by Studebaker, the company was bankrupt by 1938.

The Silver Arrow, first built in 1933 with a MSRP of $10,000, is the most modern and I would say most beautiful of Pierce’s creations. For me it was love at first sight. I knew I must own one. So the search began. It was a short-lived. It only took a minute on Google to discover that only three Silver Arrows survive, and only one is for sale. The price: $2.5 million.

Undaunted, I then searched for a die-cast model. It appears that even toy Silver-Arrows are hard to come by. I searched several model-car sites. Each was sold out. Finally, e-Bay came through, and for $55 including shipping, I’m the proud owner of the only Silver Arrow I can afford.