[rotorwrench]

Briggs was a subcontractor way back into the Model T days and he and his investors did make money from the shear volume of stuff they cranked out. Briggs was one of the first of the coach builders to have labor problems in Detroit too. The hours were long and the pay was low for the employees. The subcontractors made the bodies for the lower volume sales applications like the fordors but they built a lot of them. They may have been involved in commercial truck products too but the stampings from them mostly came from Budd. I don't know how far Budd went with cab and van assembly but they certainly helped Ford develop a lot of that type of product and their specialty was stamping out steel products for a lot of manufacturers. I think Briggs built mostly the open cabs for commercial trucks.

Walter Briggs had worked with Fords chief financial advisor James Couzins at the Michigan Central Railroad in earlier years and it helps to know the right people sometimes. It certainly perked up Briggs' new company when they contracted to fabricate interiors for Ford in 1910. Briggs Manufacturing subcontracted with other companies as well.