Frederic John Fisher was an American automotive manufacturer.
Background
He was born in Sandusky, Ohio, the eldest of the seven sons and four daughters of Lawrence and Margaret (Theisen) Fisher. His paternal grandfather, Andrew Fisher, had been a wagon and carriage builder in his native Germany; after arriving in the United States, he became a merchant in Peru, Ohio, where his son Lawrence was born in 1852.
Lawrence settled in Norwalk, Ohio, opening a blacksmith and wheelwright shop there, and later moved to Sandusky, where he married. He eventually returned to Norwalk with a growing family.
Education
Frederic--or Fred, as he was called by most--attended a Catholic parochial school in Sandusky, finished the eighth grade, and at fourteen entered the family business.
Career
Under his father's tutelage he became an expert carriage maker. In 1902 Fred went to Detroit, Michigan, and took a job as a four-dollar-a-week draftsman for the C. R. Wilson Carriage Works, at that time the largest manufacturer of automobile bodies in the city. In these years Detroit was fast rising to its eminence as the principal center of motor vehicle production in the United States.
In 1907 Fisher became superintendent of the Wilson shop. Meanwhile, he had been joined by his brothers. Five of them--Charles Thomas, Alfred Joseph, Lawrence Peter, William Andrew, and Edward Francis--would be associated with him in a variety of industrial and financial enterprises over a period of some thirty-five years. (The remaining brother, Howard Albert, had no part in these ventures. )
Until his death, Fred was the acknowledged leader of the Fisher brothers, who constituted one of the most closely knit family groups in modern American business history. In July 1908 Fred and his brother Charles organized the Fisher Body Company as a Michigan corporation with a capitalization of $50, 000 and established a plant in Detroit. The other four brothers were brought into the firm, and an uncle, Andrew Fisher, served briefly as president until the brothers purchased his interest. The business flourished from the start.
Fisher bodies were designed specifically for automobiles rather than as modifications of horse-drawn vehicles; consequently, they were sturdier and more shockproof than those made by competitors. Moreover, the Fishers grasped the possibilities of the closed car long before it became the standard type of passenger automobile.
The order for 150 closed bodies that Cadillac placed with them in 1910 was the first volume order of its kind in the United States and led directly to the formation of the Fisher Closed Body Company in 1912. In the same year the brothers organized the Fisher Body Company of Canada, Ltd. , at Walkerville, Ontario.
Within four years the combined profits of the Detroit and Walkerville companies had increased almost fourfold to $1, 390, 592.
In August 1916 the three firms were merged into the Fisher Body Corporation, a holding and operating company chartered in New York with a capitalization of $6, 000, 000. This amalgamation, with a total annual capacity of 370, 000 units, made the Fisher facilities the largest of their type in the industry. The enterprise was financed principally through the reinvestment of profits.
In 1919 General Motors, pursuing an ambitious program of expanded vertical integration under William C. Durant, acquired a 60 percent interest in Fisher Body and agreed to buy practically all of its auto bodies from Fisher for ten years at a price of cost plus 17. 6 percent.
The acquisition cost General Motors $27, 600, 000 under an agreement whereby Fisher Body increased its 200, 000 shares of common stock to 500, 000 and sold the new issue to General Motors at $92 a share. The Fishers, however, retained managerial control of their firm. Immediately after the First World War they constructed at Cleveland, Ohio, a facility which ranked as the world's largest body factory until their Flint No. 1 body plant was erected in Michigan, and between 1922 and 1929 their company built or acquired some twenty factories in various parts of the country.
Fred Fisher joined the executive committee of General Motors in 1922, and two years later was made a vice-president of the corporation and a member of its finance committee. Of the many properties acquired by the often impulsive Durant before he was finally deposed as head of General Motors in 1920, the Fisher concern proved to be one of the most profitable. It yielded high returns in the postwar years, when American auto makers and motorists shifted their preference from the open touring car to the closed car.
In 1919, 90 percent of the automobiles produced in the United States were open cars; in 1927, by contrast, 85 percent were closed cars. The Fisher company made $23, 000, 000 in 1923 on a volume of 417, 000 bodies; in 1925 its net earnings on 575, 000 units were equal to a return of 18. 9 percent on a valuation of $143, 000, 000 in assets.
The Fishers introduced numerous improvements in body hardware and interior fittings, notably steel panels, the rubber weather strip for windshields, side window vents, and the Ternstedt window regulator.
They pioneered in the development of steel body presses and steel-faced dies, and were the first to use lacquer instead of paint on auto bodies. Their Fleetwood custom division, acquired in 1925, became a byword for excellence in design and craftsmanship. The trademark "Body by Fisher, " with its emblem of a Napoleonic coach in silhouette, became familiar to millions of motorists.
In 1926 the minority stockholders of the Fisher Body Corporation, consisting chiefly of the six brothers, sold their 40 percent interest to General Motors in exchange for G. M. common stock with a market value of $130, 000, 000. Fisher Body became a division of General Motors, and each of the six brothers was named to a post in the corporation or one of its subsidiaries. William was made president of Fisher Body, and Lawrence became head of the Cadillac division.
Fred continued to serve as a vice-president of General Motors until his resignation in January 1934. Meanwhile, in 1927, the Fishers began construction of an office building in Detroit, the Fisher Building, designed by the architect Albert Kahn [Supp. 3].
By 1928 Fred's personal fortune was estimated at $50, 000, 000. The combined holdings of the brothers were later set at $500, 000, 000. Seeking new investment outlets for their accumulated capital, the Fishers entered the stock market for the first time in 1926. Their operations were conducted through a family concern, Fisher & Company, of which Fred was chairman.
In 1927-29, as the great bull market of the Coolidge era moved toward its climax, the Fishers' carefully planned and boldly executed maneuvers, frequently carried out together with the Wall Street operator Arthur W. Cutten, brought them a national reputation as shrewd speculators.
The market crash of 1929 wiped out their paper profits, and soon afterward the Fishers withdrew from large-scale trading. Fred Fisher was a director of some twenty corporations, including North American Aviation, the Sperry Corporation, the National Bank of Detroit, and the Intercontinental Trust Company of Chicago.
He made large philanthropic donations to Detroit educational and charitable organizations, and was a trustee of the Detroit Symphony Society and the Detroit Community Fund.
He maintained a palatial home in Detroit, and his 226-foot yacht, Nakhoda, built in 1930 at a cost of $1, 000, 000, was among the most luxurious of that era.
He died in 1941 of subacute bacterial endocarditis at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Burial was in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Detroit. All of his brothers survived him.
Achievements
Religion
A Catholic, he was a trustee of the University of Notre Dame and in 1929 was decorated by Pope Pius XI with the Order of Malta.
Politics
Shy and retiring, he was not prominent in public affairs, but with his brothers he contributed to the Republican party, giving $100, 000 to the Hoover campaign in 1928.
Membership
Fred Fisher joined the executive committee of General Motors in 1922, and two years later was made a vice-president of the corporation and a member of its finance committee.
Connections
Fisher had married Burtha Meyers on June 24, 1908. There were no children.