I've heard of private cars for such folks as the U.S. President and railroad executives in the golden era but does anyone know how common it was for non-railroad people to own private cars?
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Back in the day, also many private citizens had their own PV. Lucius Beebe, Henry Ford, Woolworth, Marjorie Merriweather Post, Barbara Hutton, Darius O Mills, JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Frick, James Duke, Charles Schwab, Andrew Mellon, PT Barnum, John Ringling, Jay Gould, MGM and other studios and stars. Pullman also had a fleet of "explorer series" private luxury cars that famous people rented.