The Gilmore Car Museum, Hickory Corners, Michigan, July 31, 2017--Part 7: Lincoln

The famous Lincoln Greyhound mascot, designed by Gorham, silversmiths in Rhode Island

The Gilmore Museum does not limit itself except insofar as its focus as on American cars, which allows for a broad enough range.  After walking through the special area devoted to Franklins, the visitor next comes to a wing given over to Lincolns.  The Gilmore has offered space to car clubs and the Lincoln Motor Car Heritage Museum at the Gilmore is actually under the auspices of the Lincoln Motor Car Foundation.  Growing up in a Ford town as I did, it was always a dream to own a Lincoln and I even once had the chance to drive a magnificent 1968 sedan with the famous suicide doors--and power vent windows.  But in the years since Lincoln has become something closer to what Mercury once was: gussied-up Fords, and now Ford SUVs.  But in years past the Lincoln was a marque as good as any in the industry, as the cars at the Gilmore Museum show.

Origins of the Lincoln Motor Company

The Lincoln Motor Company was founded in 1917 by Henry Leland, an expert in precision machining. In 1902 he had been brought into the Henry Ford Company to determine what should be done with its assets after a falling-out between Henry Ford and his backers.  Ford left but Leland persuaded the investors to keep the company going, using engines he was producing at his firm.  The revived company was renamed The Cadillac Automobile Company and was eventually purchased by General Motors in 1909.  Leland and his son Wilfred struck out on their own with a contract to build Liberty aero engines under license and then, in 1920, the first Lincoln automobiles appeared.  Beautifully engineered by unimaginatively styled, the cars sold poorly and by 1922 Lincoln (named after the first President for whom Leland voted) was on the ropes.  It was purchased by Henry Ford in March 1922 at the urging of his son Edsel with the idea of having a separate luxury car subsidiary to compete with Cadillac, Packard and other high-end makes.  While the Lelands came with the company, there was an element of revenge in the story as Henry Ford soon fired them both in June 1922, never forgetting what had happened in 1902.  Edsel Ford was brought in to manage the subsidiary and under his guidance, Lincoln was to produce some of the most attractive and expensive cars of the interwar period.

1926-27 Lincoln Chassis and Engine

1922 Lincoln L Sport Phaeton by the American Body Company

The first Lincolns produced under Ford ownership were essentially the same cars that the Lelands had been building and the Lincoln L, with its L-head V8, was to continue with the same drivetrain and chassis until 1930 but the major difference was the new body styles that were introduced, as well as offering custom coachbuilt choices.  The American Body Company of Buffalo, New York, had been a supplier of bodies for the Ford Model T, as well as for the noted manufacturers located in the Buffalo area: Franklin, Pierce-Arrow and Thomas.  In the Teens and Twenties American also supplied bodies to Marmon, Wills St.Claire and others, and due to the existing relationship with Ford also provided standard bodies for the Lincoln L.  The company specialized in touring models, of which the car on display is a fine example.  Researchers at the museum have examined the body and are not entirely certain it was from the American Body Company as Brunn & Co., also of Buffalo, provided similar bodies to Lincoln.

At some point in its life, the display car had the rear portion of its body removed and it was turned into a truck.  A Lincoln enthusiast had the body recreated to its original appearance.

1928 Lincoln Convertible Sedan by Dietrich

Raymond Dietrich was a principal in the LeBaron coachbuilding firm in New York and designed cars for the leading brands of the day.  In 1925 he was enticed by Edsel Ford (via the Murray Body Company, a major Ford supplier) to establish an operation in Detroit, Dietrich, Inc., to design bodies exclusively for Lincoln.  Dietrich's arrangement with Murray allowed him to do additional freelance work as well, notably for Franklin, Packard and Chrysler.  By 1930 the Great Depression had put a major brake on the business and Dietrich left to become head of design at Chrysler.  Dietrich, Inc. was wound down in 1936.

The Convertible Sedan was a Dietrich specialty and this car features fixed side-window frames and a division window behind the front seat.  With the top down, it becomes an open Phaeton, with the glass in the doors and the division window serving as a windshield for the rear passengers.  The car had a factory price of $6,500 and 38 were built in this style.

1930 Lincoln Type 172 Berline by Judkins

The J.B. Judkins Company of Merrimac, Massachusetts, was the coachbuilder that supplied more custom and series-built custom bodies for Lincoln than any other firm, providing nearly 5,904 bodies from 1921 until 1939.  Their Berline model, a five passenger body introduced in 1922 after the Ford takeover of Lincoln, was Judkins' most popular design, with 3,110 constructed up until 1939.  This car, which was discovered in a warehouse in California in 1969, was built in the Lincoln L's final year of production and was priced at $5,600.

1928 Lincoln Type 163B Sport Phaeton by Locke

Established in New York City in 1902, Locke & Co. provided bodies for a number of prestige makes,, supplying them from a factory in Rochester, New York, after 1926.  The company was included in Edsel Ford's expanded program for custom and semi-custom bodies starting in 1925.  This allowed production runs of 25-100 bodies which, while not strictly unique, were products of the best designers and of high quality, while also saving the customers some money compared to a one-off.  This handsome dual cowl phaeton, one of 150 built, sold for $4,600 and featured a clever mechanism that automatically raised the rear cowl when either of the rear doors was opened.  Locke & Co. closed their Rochester plant in 1932, continuing only to paint and refurbish cars in New York City until shutting down in 1937.

1923 Lincoln Type 123A Phaeton by Brunn

Jack Passey, who was to eventually own 92 Lincolns, purchased this car in 1949 for $40 and kept it until his death in 2015.  The car was placed into storage for three decades as Mr. Passey's collection grew and it has been loaned to the museum by his daughter.  The car, with its body built by Brunn & Co. of Buffalo, NY, sports an usual feature: the "California top."  This could be removed in fine weather, turning the car into an open tourer, and reinstalled for bad weather season, a clever solution when closed cars were still a rarity.

1932 Lincoln KB Convertible Sedan by Dietrich

The Lincoln K series replaced the L in 1931 and in 1932 the line was split into the KA and KB, the latter equipped with a new V12 engine, aimed at competing with Cadillac.  The body is another example of Ray Dietrich's convertible sedan style.

1939 Lincoln K Convertible Sedan by LeBaron

After 1935 all Lincolns were once again designated as Ks, and equipped with a 6.8 litre V12 engine that had been introduced in 1934.  Sales of these large and expensive cars declined until production ended quietly in 1939.  Numbers are disputed but range 1939 production is thought to range from 133 to 221 cars.  Two famous ones were built that year: a special car to be used for the Royal Tour of Canada in 1939 and another Brunn convertible sedan, the "Sunshine Special," delivered for the use of President Roosevelt.  The Royal Visit Lincoln is on display at the Lincoln Motor Car Heritage Museum and the Roosevelt car can be seen at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

1939 Royal Canadian Tour Car by LeBaron

On loan to the museum is this one-of-a-kind car used by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during their Royal Visit to Canada and the United States in 1939.  During the tour, which lasted from May 17 to June 15, the couple visited every Canadian province, the Dominion of Newfoundland (as it then was) and, briefly, the United States from June 7-12, meeting President Roosevelt.  Each of the Big Three automakers doing business in Canada was invited to provide a car.  GM provided two stretched McLaughlin-Buicks, made in Oshawa, and Chrysler a Windsor-built Royal.  Only the Lincoln was built in the United States.  After the tour was over, the cars were returned.  The Lincoln was at the Henry Ford Museum for many years but is currently in private hands, as is one of the McLaughlin-Buicks.  The other McLaughlin-Buick is in possession of the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa but not on display while the fate of the Chrysler is unknown.

1940 Lincoln -Zephyr Brunn Town Limousine

It had become clear during the ongoing Great Depression that huge  and expensive V12-powered coachbuilt cars was not going to sustain Lincoln and a decision was made to introduce a smaller, albeit with a smaller V12, model, the Zephyr in 1935 as a 1936 model.  The Ford lines of cars extended from the Ford V8 Deluxe to the Mercury and on to the Lincoln-Zephyr below the Lincoln K.  The Lincoln-Zephyr was distinctly modern car and was the most successful car sold in the Streamline idiom, with 15,000 finding buyers between 1936 and 1943.  Lincoln-Zephyrs made up 80% of Lincoln sales in that time.  By 1941 the K was gone so all Lincolns were based on the Lincoln-Zephyr and in 1942 the Lincoln-Zephyr was dropped as a semi-separate brand.  The Zephyr name was not revived when production of cars resumed after World War II.  Although production Lincoln-Zephyrs came with handsome factory bodies, there was still the possibility of a coachbuilt car, as this example from Brunn & Co. shows.  In 1941 and 1942, Ford offered a "Lincoln Custom" line of extended wheelbase sedans and limousines based on the Lincoln-Zephyr.

1942 Lincoln-Zephyr Sedan

1936 Lincoln-Zephyr Coupe Sedan

1940 Lincoln-Zephyr Continental Cabriolet

In 1938 Zephyr designer Bob Gregorie was commissioned to come up with a special car for Edsel Ford's March 1939 vacation in Florida.  Using the Lincoln-Zephyr as a starting point, Gregorie came up with a convertible with a redesigned body seven inches lower than the Zephyr and a number of European-style touches, including minimal chrome trim.  The car was ready on time and the reaction to the car was so strong as Edsel Ford tooled around the Sunshine State that a decision was quickly made to put the car into production on a limited basis.  Around two dozen 1939 cars and 400 1940-built ones used hand-hammered body panels as dies for pressed were not available until 1941.  Most of the cars were "Cabriolet" convertibles, with only a few coupes made.  The "Continental" name for this Lincoln was used to note the European-inspired details.

1946 Lincoln Continental Club Coupe

The first design changes to the car were in 1942, with squared-off fenders and a revised grille but production was curtailed by World War II.  The Lincoln Continental returned to production in 1946 with a redesign by Raymond Loewy with a big chrome grille in keeping with the style of the time, which added nothing to the gracefulness of the original design.  1948 marked the last year of the original Lincoln Continental, and the last cars with a V12 engine to be marketed by a major US automaker.

1955 Continental Mark II Sport Coupe Prototype

The Mark II was not actually a Lincoln but was the sole product of the Continental Division of the Ford Motor Company.  It was a massive 5,000 lb ultra-luxury coupe that was the most expensive domestic car sold in the United States.  The car, produced only in 1956 and 1957, used a 6 litre V8 that produced 285 hp the first year, upgraded to 300 hp the second.  It was originally planned that there would be three cars in the Continental line but only the coupe saw production.  3,005 of these well-equipped cars were built and it is claimed that Ford lost money on each one.  The car on display was the first Continental Mark II to come down the line and was extensively tested before actual production for customers was to start.  There were three prototypes and this was scheduled to be crushed like the others but eventually ended up in the Henry Ford Museum before a private owner obtained it and donated it to the Lincoln Museum.

1960 Lincoln Continental Mark V Four Door Hardtop

Even heavier than the Continental Mark II were the Lincolns produced subsequently but it appears that only the 1960 car got the Continental moniker.  The others were simply Lincoln "Mark III" and "Mark IV."  The Lincoln Continental Mark V and its immediate forebearers are among the largest standard non-extended wheelbase cars ever made and the heaviest, with some versions hitting 5,700 lbs in limousine form.  It is interesting that this car appeared after the Continental Mark II and before the 1961 Lincoln Continental, both very restrained in their design language.

1962 Lincoln Continental 4 Door Sedan

After losing more than $60 million on the 1958-1960 Lincolns, Ford needed a winner if the brand was going to continue. The 1961 Lincoln Continental, sold only in four door form as either as sedan or convertible, was a totally different car and is considered an icon of design today.  It used components from the 1961 Thunderbird, such as the chassis, and had actually been originally envisaged as a four door T-Bird.  The car remained in production until 1969, although refreshed twice, in 1964 and 1966.  The 1966 car saw a body lengthened five inches for additional rear seat legroom and the roof was also raised.

1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III 2 Door Hardtop

Henry Ford II once described it as "A Mustang for the Chairman of the Board."  The Lincoln Continental Mark III was the brainchild of Ford President Lee Iaccoca, who instructed his designers to put a Rolls-Royce grille on the front of a Thunderbird.  Introduced in 1969, the car, featured a prominent grille and retro styling cues,notably the faux spare tire hump in the trunk lid.  Powered by a 460 cu. in. 365 hp V8 engine, the Mark III was the direct competitor of the Cadillac Eldorado.  It weighed 4,866 lbs and sold for nearly $7,000.  It was an enormous hit and spawned a series of Mark cars that made a great deal of money for Ford.  Iacocca claimed that it cost less than $30 million to develop the Mark III due to the ability to use existing Thunderbird components and in 1984 he said that the Mark series was the greatest financial success he (of Ford Mustang and Chrysler Minivan fame) had seen in the car industry.

2017 Lincoln Continental Concept Car

Introduced at the New York Auto Show in 2015, the Continental name returned with this concept car, which was the basis for the new sedan launched in 2015.  Powered by a V6 engine, the new Continental is a handsome, if somewhat subdued, car that is related to the Ford Fusion.  To mark the 80th Anniversary of Edsel Ford's 1939 Lincoln Continental a special commemorative version was built with rear-hinged rear doors, as in the 1961 Continental.  Sales of the current Lincoln Continental are as strong in China as in the United States, at roughly 12,000 cars in each market annually.

The Lincoln Motor Car Heritage Museum

Continue to Part 8 of the Gilmore Car Museum visit here.

The Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum, Auburn, Indiana: Saturday, June 25, 2016--Company Showroom and Special Interest Autos Galleries

Driving 2 1/2 hours north along I-70 and I-69 brought us to the Indiana town of Auburn (population 13,052) and what surely must be considered one of the highlights of an motoring enthusiast's trip: the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum.  A-C-D is rightly considered one of the greatest companies in automobile history although it only lasted for 37 years.  But in that time it produced some of the most stylish and technically-advanced cars anywhere, from the monstrous and spectacular Duesenberg straight-eights to the coffin-nosed Cord 810/812 series. 

The museum, which is divided into seven galleries and generally shows around 125 cars, is located in a truly magnificent Art Deco structure, which was the company's actual administrative building and showroom.  It was designed by architect Alvin Strauss and constructed in 1930.  After the company's demise, the building saw varied uses, first serving as a warehouse and repair shop for old A-C-D cars until 1960, then as storage for a clothing company, then to a motorcycle shop.  Damaged by fire in 1973, it was purchased by local citizens a year later and opened as a museum in August 1974.  In 2005 the entire museum facility was designated as a National Historic Landmark. 

Indiana has a long history related to car production, with notable companies including Stutz, Marmon, and Studebaker.  The Auburn Automobile Company was founded in 1900, having grown out of a local carriage company that was itself established in 1874.  This early phase of the industry saw an amazing number of firms come and go and Auburn was only moderately successful.  The original founders sold out in 1919 but the new owners' timing was not very good as a sharp deflationary recession took place in 1920-1921 in the United States and car sales crumbled.  Desperate to keep things afloat, in 1924 the owners brought in 30 year old Errett Lobban Cord to save the company.  A former race car driver and mechanic, he had become a star salesman at a dealership in Chicago selling cars from the St. Louis-based Moon Motor Car Company.  He took on the job with the proviso that if he was successful he could buy control of the company.

Errett Lobban Cord
Source: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org

E.L. Cord was a brilliant businessman.  Taking the unsold Auburn cars, he had them refinished in flashy new paint schemes and rapidly sold them, then taking control of the Auburn company by the end of 1925.  He went on a buying spree and incorporated his holding company, the Cord Corporation in 1929, to hold controlling shares in around 150 different companies, mainly focused on the transportation industry.  Besides the Auburn Automobile Company, they included Stinson Aircraft, Lycoming Engines, American Airways (later American Airlines), Duesenberg Inc., New York Shipbuilding, and Checker Cabs.

Realizing that he could not compete with the volume manufacturers of the day--General Motors, Ford and Chrysler--Cord took a different route, making Auburn cars, technically mid-range at best, into style leaders of the era, beautiful cars that belied their moderate price.  By 1928, Auburn had become the 13th largest seller of cars in the United States.

Founded in Minnesota by the Duesenberg Brothers, Fred and Augie, in 1913, and moved to New Jersey in 1916 and then to Indianapolis in 1919, the Duesenberg Automobile and Motors Co. Inc. had a reputation for advanced engineering.  In 1923 a Duesenberg race car driven by Jimmy Murphy won the French Grand Prix but the success of the company's experimental and racing cars did not translate into consumer sales and by 1924 the firm was in receivership, stumbling onward somehow until 1926, when E.L. Cord added the company to his collection in order to acquire the brothers' technical expertise and the brand name.  He challenged Fred Duesenberg, now Vice-President of Engineering and Experimental Work of the restructured and renamed Duesenberg, Inc., to built the fastest, most powerful and most expensive luxury car in the world.  The Model J premiered at the New York Auto Show in December 1928.

Sold only as a chassis and motor, the J (and its supercharged variants, the SJ and SSJ), was chosen for some of the most extravagant and beautiful (and expensive) custom bodies of the era.  The straight-eight engine, based on earlier Duesenberg racing engines, produced 265 hp and used dual overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder, decades ahead of its time.  The Model J was capable of 120 mph and completed cars ranged up to $25,000 in price at a time when a nice Model A Ford cost around $450.  Plans to build 500 cars annually were wrecked by the Great Depression and when production ended in 1937 only 481 cars had been built but it is thought that around 378 still survive.

James Cagney and his Duesenberg

Clark Gable and his Duesenberg

In 1929, a new brand was established at Auburn, with the birth of the Cord L-29, the first American front-wheel car to be offered.  Gorgeous and low-slung, the Cord was heavy and underpowered but considered to have excellent handling.  Only 4,400 were built before the Depression ended production in 1932.  It was eventually succeeded in 1935 by the revolutionary Cord 810, designed by Gordon Buehrig, and originally conceived as a "Baby Duesenberg," but with the era of conspicuous consumption ending in the dark days of the Depression, it was decided to name it as a Cord.  With front-wheel drive, retractable headlights and unique Art Deco styling, the "coffin-nosed" Cord was a sensation but it was too little, too late as the Cord empire collapsed.  Styling and engineering were not enough to save the company in spite of the Cord 810 or the impressive (and bargain-priced) Auburn V-12, housed most famously in Buehrig's boat-tailed Speedster body.

E.L. Cord, who had a run-in with the Securities Exchange Commission regarding dealings with Checker Cab stock, sold out his Cord Corporation holdings in 1937.  He went on to make more millions in California real estate (the Cord 810/812 Beverly Sedan was supposedly named after his Beverly Hills holdings!), as well as radio and early television stations.  He made yet more money in Nevada, where he also became a State Senator, ultimately passing away in 1974, aged 79.  The US automobile industry produced a number of remarkable characters but many are now essentially forgotten.  Compared to the studies devoted to Henry Ford, there are only a handful of books about the founder of General Motors, Billy Durant, a single one (an incredibly expensive and rare coffee-table book) about E.L. Cord, and nothing much about John North Willys, another remarkable pioneer.  But now back to the museum!

Passing the nicely-stocked gift shop at the entrance, the visitor comes into the street-level floor of the museum and it is suddenly 1930 again.  This is the authentic high-ceilinged Auburn showroom and is spectacular with its marble floor, pillars with sconces, huge windows, and fine trim paintwork.  It is once again serving is original purpose of showing off the cars of the Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg brands.

Although the museum does own a number of cars, many are also on loan from A-C-D enthusiasts.  Here follows a selection of photos of cars that were present during our visit in June 2016.  We subsequently saw at least a few of them at other locations during concours events so they do move around.

1930 Cord L-29 Front-Drive Cabriolet

The first car we saw was this magnificent 1930 Cord L-29.  The current owner bought it in 2005 and is only the third owner as the car was in storage for over 60 years.  It was restored to its original colour scheme of black and copper.  The car was styled by Al Leamy, a brilliant designer responsible for much of the Auburn and Cord bodywork  between 1928 and 1934.  Blamed for the poorly-received 1934 restyled Auburn, the self-taught Leamy went on to General Motors, where he tragically died from blood poisoning connected to a company diptheria vaccination in 1935.  He was 33 years old.  Gordon Buehrig, who was doing designs for Duesenberg bodies, was brought over to redo the Auburns for 1935 but it probably would not have mattered given the economic conditions of the day.

Cord L-29 Front-Drive Cabriolet

1931 Cord L-29 La Grande Boattail Speedster

Introduced at the New York Salon in January 1931 to encourage sales, the single L-29 Boattail Speedster show car went on to shows in Toronto and Paris, as well as Cord dealerships in North America, before eventually disappearing.  This is one of two replicas of the car, built with authentic Cord running gear, the other being at the Stahls Auto Museum in Michigan.

1927 Duesenberg Model X McFarlan Boat Roadster

In a building filled with rarities, one that must rank among the rarest is the 1927 Duesenberg Model X, donated to the museum in 2015.  In attempt to attract interest to their floundering company in Indianapolis, the Duesenberg Brothers launched a new model to replace the ageing Model A and thirteen Model X chassis were constructed and a revised engine developed.  One chassis was sent to McFarlan, a coachbuilder in Connorsville, Indiana, for an aluminum "boat-tailed" roadster body, with the idea of sending the completed car to the New York Auto Salon.  However, in Fall 1926 E.L. Cord bought Duesenberg and development of the Model J began.  The Model X Roadster did go to New York for the show and four other Model Xs in other body styles were built, but the remaining eight chassis were destroyed or used in Model J development.  In 1996 a massive restoration project of this car began, taking some 4,000 man hours to bring it back as closely as possible to its original condition.  The body style was to be very influential, and was picked up in the famous Auburn Speedster subsequently.

The museum also displays another Model X, a green sedan once owned by the chief engineer of General Electric.  Another sedan is owned by comedian and Duesenberg enthusiast Jay Leno, while a Model X Roadster still exists as well, so most of the five original cars are accounted for.

1927 Duesenberg Model X Sedan by Brunn

1933 Auburn Twelve Salon Phaeton Sedan 

The most expensive car in the 1933 Auburn line-up, this V-12 car sold for $1,848 and was one of only 68 produced that year.  It was purchased in 1968 by an enthusiast from Jamestown, New York, who spent two decades restoring it to perfection.

1932 Duesenberg Model J Murphy Torpedo Convertible Coupe

J. P. Getty, the oilman who was once the wealthiest man in the world, purchased this car from Cliff Durant, son of General Motors founder Billy Durant, who only owned it a few months, and drove it until 1940.  One of five built in this style by Murphy, noted coachbuilders in Pasadena, California, the car cost $14,000 new.  It was also owned at one point by author John O'Hara.  Its last owner, who donated it to the museum, owned it for four decades and drove it for 105,000 miles.

1932 Auburn 8-100 Speedster

1923 Duesenberg Model A Sport Touring Car

1937 Cord 812 Coupe

One of only three hardtop Cord 812 Coupes built, this car was a special order for the President of the Champion Sparkplug Company, and has a number of unusual features.  Most striking are the fixed Auburn headlights rather than the usual (and novel) retractable ones.  The car was first driven in Ohio, then went on to California and was discovered in neglected and very decrepit condition in Montreal before undergoing a multi-year restoration and, ultimately, donation to the museum.

1932 Cord E-1 Prototype Limousine

Certainly one of the rarest cars on display is the amazing Cord E-1.  E.L. Cord did not want the challenge posed by the V-16s of Cadillac and Marmon to go unopposed so in 1932 a V-16 Cord came to be.  As Cord practice was to locate the engine behind the front axle for a long cowl to bumper proportion, with an engine this big the car ended up with a truly mammoth 157 inch long wheelbase and it weighed three tons.  Used by Cord as a personal vehicle for a while, the seven passenger limousine had its engine changed to an Auburn V-12 but it was soon decided that the Great Depression was no time to launch something as ostentatious as this car.  The engine was removed and used to run a generator at the factory.  Eventually, the remains of the car, minus engine, fenders and grille, was found in a barn in Illinois in 1977.  Over the following decades, original bits and pieces were located and the car lovingly restored by the time the 2003 Pebble Beach Concours rolled around.  It was shown there and soon after donated to the museum by its restorer, a retired physics professor.

1927 Auburn 8-77 Sports Cabriolet

1931 Duesenberg Model J Convertible Sedan by Murphy

1936 Auburn 852 Hearse

In an effort to expand its sales, Auburn began to offer commercial vehicles in 1936, notably a limousine, an ambulance and this hearse, or funeral coach.  36 inches longer than a standard Auburn 852, this car sold for $1,895 and weighed 4,300 lbs.  It would have been one of the final Auburns built in Auburn itself as production shifted to another plant in Connersville, Indiana.

Moving out of the "Company Showroom" gallery, we found ourselves in a smaller, side gallery devoted to "Special Interest Cars" from manufacturers other than A-C-D.  This area was originally the Experimental Wing, Engineering and Design of the Auburn Automobile Company.

1952 Cisitalia 202 Sport Convertible

Considered one of the most beautiful cars of all time, and heavily influencing sports car design subsequently, the Cisitalia was built in Italy in both coupe and convertible versions and powered by a FIAT 1100 cc engine.  The body was designed by Pinin Farina and modified by Vignale, with 153 coupes being constructed but only 17 of these extremely rare convertibles before production ceased in 1952.

1933 Checker Model T Taxicab

1941 Graham Hollywood (left), 1926 Cunningham (right)

The Graham Hollywood at the museum was donated in 2011 and this model has some significance to the A-C-D story.  As written up in Oldcarsweekly.com upon the donation:

The Graham Hollywood is particularly significant to connecting the dots of the Auburn Automobile Company’s automotive history and the evolution of automobile design.  The Auburn Automobile Company manufactured Cord automobiles and the Graham Hollywood is a direct descendant of the notable Cord 810/812 design. In 1937, when the Auburn Automobile Company went out of business, another automobile manufacturer, Hupmobile of Detroit purchased the dies, jigs and tools used to manufacture the front-drive 810/812 Cord and converted them for use in a rear-drive Hupmobile. Struggling financially, Hupmobile soon granted the right to use the Cord dies to Graham of Dearborn, Michigan, for a similar car of its own, the Graham Hollywood.

1926 Cunningham Sport Touring 

Originally a producer of carriages and sleighs, James Cunningham, Son & Company began producing cars in Rochester, New York, in 1908.  It was noted for its very high quality products, considered the equal of anything produced in Europe, and priced to match.  It was an early proponent of the V-8 engine, introduced into its cars in 1916, and was the choice of numerous celebrity owners but production numbers were always low.  The company stopped producing cars in 1931 but continued to build bodies for other manufacturers until it shut down in 1936.

1937 Lincoln-Zephyr Coupe

Introduced in 1935 as a 1936 model to be a lower-priced alternative to more traditional Lincolns, the Zephyr used a small V-12 derived from the Ford flathead V-8.  It might be considered as the first successful streamlined car and was produced until 1948, probably keeping the Lincoln brand alive.

1911 Metallurgique Roadster

The Metallurgique was considered the premier sports car of Belgium and this 1911 roadster, with body by Vanden Plas, is one of the earliest cars featuring a boat tail.  This car was featured in the 1965 movie "The Great Race." The chief engineer of Metallurgique, Paul Bastien, left Belgium for the United States in 1923 and joined Stutz in Indianapolis as assistant chief engineer. He was responsible for the famous Vertical Eight.  Metallurgique ceased production in 1927, having been taken over by another manufacturer, Imperia, and the factory went to yet another Belgian car marque, Minerva.

And of course this blog devoted to Corvettes cannot end the first part of this visit to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum without a Corvette.  Here we have a great pair of photos as I have always wanted to get a nice picture of the Corvette with its rival, the Ford Thunderbird.  The museum has a 1956 T-Bird, build in the second year of production, along side of a 1954 Corvette.  T-Birds are not built today while the Corvette soldiers on its seventh generation but one would not have guessed that at the time.  In 1956, 15,632 Thunderbirds were sold, with steel bodies, roll-up windows, and V-8 engines, while the 1954 Corvette, the ostensible "sports car," offered more primitive accommodations, an anemic engine and marginal handling, along with so-so build quality, meaning that many of the 3,640 cars built did not even find buyers that year.  The Thunderbird turned into a porky four seat "personal luxury" car in 1958, then after production fits and starts over the years finally disappeared in 2005 after becoming a short-lived retro two-seater.  The Corvette has become GM's halo car and one of the best high-performance cars on the market.  The collector car world has spoken too: a typical 1954 Corvette is $80,000 today, while the Thunderbird goes for around $48,000.