September 8, 2024  

Raleigh Chinn’s 1928 Dodge Rumble Seat Coupe

1928 Dodge with rumble seat

Reed Brothers salesman Raleigh Chinn drove this 1928 Dodge Brothers Senior Six sport coupe that featured a rumble seat. He and his new wife Rebecca Nourse Chinn drove this car south for their honeymoon in 1930. Photo courtesy Jane Sween Chinn

The rumble seat was the imaginative creation of 1920s and 1930s Detroit — to squeeze four people into a two-passenger automobile. A rumble seat, also called a mother-in-law seat, is an upholstered exterior seat which folded into the rear of a coach, carriage, or early motorcar. Depending on its configuration, it provided exposed seating for one or two passengers.

Rumble seat

The back of the seat was attached to the trunk lid, which opened from the top, not the bottom, and folded back, not up, when the trunk was open. Rumble seat passengers were exposed to the elements, and received little or no protection from the regular passenger compartment top. It took some agility to climb up into them, even more to get out.

In 1926, Chrysler offered coupes and roadsters with rumble seats and the following year the corporations other lines, Plymouth, Dodge, and DeSoto, also were offering rumble seats. Chrysler Corporation continued to offer rumble seats through the 1940 models.

Salesman Raleigh Chinn’s business card, reflecting the addition of the Plymouth line after 1930. With the addition of the Plymouth brand, Reed Brothers Dodge became Reed Brothers Dodge-Plymouth.

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About Reed Brothers

I am a co-owner of the former Reed Brothers Dodge in Rockville, Maryland. Lewis Reed, the founder of Reed Brothers Dodge was my grandfather. We were a family-owned and operated car dealership in Rockville for almost a century. I served in the United States Air Force for 30 years before retiring in the top enlisted grade of Chief Master Sergeant in July 2006. In 2016, I received the Arthur M. Wagman Award for Historic Preservation Communication from Peerless Rockville for documenting the history of Reed Brothers Dodge in both blog and book format. This distinguished honor recognizes outstanding achievement by writers, educators, and historians whose work has heightened public awareness of Rockville’s architectural and cultural heritage, growth and development.

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