The first Cord I ever saw was standing forlornly on a used car lot in The Bronx. I was twelve, and so was the Cord. I had been on my way to school. By the time I was able to stop gazing and tear myself away I had earned a good deal of detention time.

It was worth it. I have not been able to tear myself away from Cords since.

The car that captured my eye and my heart was the timeless 1936 Model 810 Westchester sedan. I remember it clearly. I have since found that nearly every Cord enthusiast can tell you the place and time of his or her first encounter with a Cord, and even what the weather was like.

The Cord story actually began with an earlier model. Errett Lobban Cord, who by the late 1920s had turned the sinking Auburn Automobile Company into a money machine, had acquired dozens of well-known transportation firms during a three-year buying spree. Duesenberg, Columbia Axle, Lycoming, Checker Cab, New York Shipbuilding, American Airways (later American Airlines) and more were to eventually come under Cord’s control. “Across the United States,” gushed Time magazine in the first of two cover stories, “stretches the Kingdom of Cord.”

In 1928 the king would be all of 34 years old. Now he wanted a car with his own name on it. It would be built by Auburn and would be America’s first production front-wheel-drive car. The result, a patchwork of the race car patents of Harry Miller and the practical engineering of Cornelius Van Ranst, was adorned by the inspired styling of Alan Leamy. The new Cord Front Drive, since dubbed “L-29” by fans, was announced just a few weeks before the onset of the Great Depression.

The ultra-low chassis of the Cord Front Drive inspired coachbuilders worldwide. Stock and custom-bodied Cords won prizes and medals all over Europe and the United States. About 5,000 production L-29s were built during the following three years.

The engineering and styling exercises that would result in the next Cord, the Model 810, began soon after the termination of the L-29 project. The tale has been told many times in books and magazines. With a budget of less than two million dollars, and with a time span of fewer than twelve months from prototype to production, the little Auburn Automobile Company ignited sparks that light the automotive world to this day.

Arguably no other American production car introduced or popularized so many mechanical and decorative features. And no car ever combined such innovation with breathtaking styling that still seems modern seventy years later.

Headlights that were concealed during the day and opened at night were a first in the world. The horn ring, which replaced the horn button for the next fifty years, was first seen on the Cord 810 (Auburn patented it). The first car to hide the gas cap under a lid was the Cord. Every other 1936 American car had running boards, but the Cord was so low it didn’t need them. And you stepped down into a Cord; Hudson made a big deal out of this twelve years later!

Cars of 1936 featured mousy-brown mohair interiors, usually quickly concealed under seat covers by the new owner. Cord interiors, in English wool broadcloth or quality leather, came in luxurious color combinations that complemented the exterior paint. The Cord’s instrument panel told the driver everything he needed to know including engine rpms and the level of oil in the engine sump. The large instruments were set in an engine-turned panel and featured one of the earliest uses of edge-lighting.

The Cord’s front drive transaxle was similar in concept to the three-speed unit in the contemporary Citroën Traction Avant, a rugged and reliable design. To enhance the Cord’s intended use as fast transportation between America’s wide-flung cities, Auburn added a fourth overdrive gear. Great idea. But the useful fourth gear was shoehorned into a gearbox originally intended for three, and the Cord’s initial reliability suffered for it.

Auburn was working on a column shift for the Cord’s way-out-front transmission, but ran out of time. Instead, they incorporated an electric-vacuum pre-selective gearshifting device made by Bendix and known as the “Electric Hand” when offered on Hudsons and Terraplanes the year previous. The shifter on the steering column, which resembled those of the European Cotal and Wilson gearboxes, added yet another futuristic detail to the Cord. Behind the scenes, however, lay many complex switches, multiple vacuum solenoids, and nearly one hundred feet of wire. It’s a wonder that it shifts at all.

Lycoming Motors, a wholly owned subsidiary of Auburn designed a new V8 for the Cord. No one knows exactly how they planned to amortize the tooling for a monobloc engine to be used in a car whose production schedule called for only 3,000 cars a year. (That was less than one day’s production of the Ford V8.) But if there was one thing Lycoming knew it was engines. The new V8 was a modern, lightweight, efficient design. It weighed less per horsepower and produced more horsepower per cubic inch than contemporary Ford, Cadillac or Lincoln V8s.

The Cord V8 was designed from the start to accept a centrifugal supercharger driven by bevel gears from the camshaft. The supercharger was eventually offered as an expensive option in 1937, adding nearly the total cost of a new Ford to the Cord’s already considerable price tag. But with the added flashy external exhausts—the hallmark of all supercharged Cord Corporation products—it sold well to affluent buyers.

Apart from this new option, only incremental changes were made for the Model 812 of 1937. The Beverly sedan grew a “bustle” trunk to increase luggage space. A “Custom” series was offered, with wheelbase extended by 7 inches to 132 inches and overall height increased by 2 inches. Included were a Beverly sedan and a new Berline with roll-up glass center divider, intended to be chauffeur-driven.

Mechanical innovations and details aside, what rendered the Cord timeless was its styling. Every list of the ten most beautiful cars every built, or the one hundred best industrial designs, always has the Cord 810 sedan near the top. In 1996, Forbes’ American Heritage magazine, celebrating the centennial of the American automobile, called the Cord 810 Westchester “the single most beautiful American car.” (While not minimizing the accomplishments of talented automotive stylists through the decades, it is far easier to create a smashing design in a two-seater convertible or coupe than in a four-door sedan.)

So why did the Cord fail? No, it was not because it was “ahead of its time.” Like most business failures, it was a matter of dollars and cents. At $2,000 for the basic sedan, a Cord cost as much as two Oldsmobiles. Younger families who loved the striking design couldn’t afford it. Conservative older folks who could, preferred traditional Packards and Cadillacs. Still, Auburn received over 7,000 requests for more information at the 1936 model shows. But the car was still months away from production, and disappointed buyers went elsewhere. As sales faltered, Auburn dealers defected to other makes. Fewer dealers meant even fewer sales. The downward spiral was fatal. Just 3,000 Cords had been built when production ended in September 1937.

Six years after my first encounter with that car in The Bronx, I bought my first Cord. It was also my first car; Cords were to be my everyday transportation through my college years and beyond. One of them never started on the starter in the entire year that I owned it. I would get into the driver’s seat and my friends would push. I would pop the clutch, all jumped in, and off we went. Another caught fire under the hood on a wintry New York day and was kept from total immolation by many hands throwing snow on the engine. Love, however, is blind. And I learned to be a tolerably good Cord mechanic along the way.

I bought my present pride and joy, Moonshadow, in 1984. It is the fifth in a line of 810 Westchester sedans that I have owned over five decades. Nearly entirely stock, it still wears much of its original upholstery. It does have a few subtle modifications to help it deal with the modern world. The CV joints are modified from new GMC units, the stock-appearing generator conceals an alternator, and tires are radial.

Armed with these few changes, Moonshadow, my wife Betty and I have visited 29 states and nine countries on three continents. We have crossed most of the United States several times, on Route 66 and the Lincoln Highway. We’ve driven the Mojave Desert and visited Mount Rushmore. We’ve blasted the underside of the Cord with salt on the Bonneville Salt Flats, where a 1937 Cord set speed records that stood for sixteen years. In 1998 we toured Europe from London to Athens, then ferried to Israel via Cyprus and Rhodes. The Cord conquered the Alps, and visited the famed casino in Monte Carlo. We sojourned at the lowest point on the planet Earth, the Dead Sea in Israel, and stood before the gates of the ancient city of Jerusalem.

And we have met the most interesting people. Whenever we stop for lunch at diners in the American Midwest the restaurant empties and folks tell us of the experiences of their parents and relatives with Cords. When we arrived in Greece the only Cord in that country was waiting at the dock to greet us. The elderly son of Auburn’s Switzerland dealer brought his Cord to Lausanne to visit. We followed Sir Stirling Moss on a few quick laps of the Monaco Grand Prix course. Our favorite encounter was with a young truck driver on the route of the Mille Miglia who fell on his knees in front of the Cord and said in passable English, “This is my favorite car in the whole world. I never thought I would see a real one. Now I can die happy!”

I’ve often wondered what became of the Cord that I first saw when I was twelve. I truly hope that it has since made other owners as happy as it has me, and that they too understand the contributions that this one marque has made to the history of the automobile.

Josh B. Malks has five books in print on the subject of collector cars in general and on Auburns, Cords and Duesenbergs in particular. His latest, How to Keep Your Collector Car Alive, will be published by Motorbooks in 2008.

Copyright © 2007 Pebble Beach Company. Used by permission. All rights reserved.