T.J. Richards & Sons: from prized Adelaide horse coach builder to assembling motor cars at Keswick in 1920s

Part of the T.J. Richards & Sons car bodies assembly plant in Leader Street, Keswick, in the 1920s.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia

Tobias John “T.J.” Richards (1850 –1939) founded the horse-coach company that eventually formed the manufacturing base for Chrysler Australia cars.

Richards’ first job was with Adamson Brothers, a farm machinery firm, in Kapunda. He tried other trades, including cordial making in Gawler and blacksmithing in Unley before learning horse coach building and opening a shop in 1885 in Pulteney Street.

By 1905, he had grown the business to having 35 horse coach designs, mostly sulkies, including his “King of the Road”. Richards' skill saw him become a coach-building judge at Sydney shows and in 1908 he headed the Coachbuilders' and Wheelwrights' Society. He retired in 1911.

In 1914, the firm began selling Dixi, Palmer-Moore and Swift motor vehicles and Rudge and Pope motor-cycles. The following year it won the Studebaker agency.

T. J. Richards & Sons was founded in 1916 and opened and expanded a workshop/showroom in an adjoining building in Pirie Street. In 1920, it moved into building car bodies at a large new factory on Leader Street, Keswick (that later became the Le Cornu’s furniture warehouse). It concentrated on their own “King of the Road” motor bodies, built on chassis made by such companies as Dodge Brothers.

In 1928, when a second factory opened at Mile End, the company forged a relationship with the Chrysler Corporation and built car bodies for Chrysler, Dodge, DeSoto and Plymouth.

The new Australian company Chrysler Dodge Distributors bought control of T.J. Richards & Sons in 1937. The Richards family sold its remaining interest in 1946. The name was changed again to Chrysler Dodge DeSoto Distributors. In 1951, the American Chrysler Corporation bought 85% of Chrysler Dodge Distributors (Holdings) Pty Ltd and renamed it Chrysler Australia