1937 Cord 812 Supercharged Westchester Sedan
Vehicle Story
(The featured Cord vehicle sold for £60,000 (approx. $75,000) by Bonhams Cars HQ - UK in 2021.)
Errett Lobban Cord (1894 – 1974) founded the Cord Corporation on December 28th 1929.
It became the holding company for over 150 businesses controlled by him, including Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg vehicles, Lycoming engines, the New York Shipbuilding Co, Checker taxi cabs, Stinson aircraft and American Airways – which later became American Airlines.
So successful was E.L. Cord that he bought himself 18 acres of prime Beverley Hills real estate and built a modest home of 32,000 sq ft, 16 bedrooms and 22 bathrooms which he promptly christened ‘Cordhaven’.
In 1934 his phenomenal wealth and fame prompted him to move to England for 2 years in order to escape the growing threat of kidnap in the US.
Cord cars were the more luxurious cousins of Auburn cars and were often referred to as ‘Baby Duesenbergs’.
They were also a showcase for all things new, innovative, groundbreaking, experimental and exciting, including the front-wheel drive technology first introduced to American buyers on the Cord L-29.
The 1937 sales brochure for the Cord 810 (the L-29’s immediate successor) tells us that “…of the 24 American makes of motor cars, 24 of them are all of one kind: rear drive. This car is in a class of its own: the front drive Cord.”
But front-wheel drive was just the most obvious of countless Cord innovations.
Most American cars of this era had running boards. Not the 810/812. With no driveshaft or transmission tunnel to worry about, the cars were so low to the ground that running boards weren’t required.
There were many, many other innovations.
The 810/812 had a four-speed pre-selector transmission system. The Bendix ‘Electric Hand’ consisted of an exquisitely miniaturized gear gate attached to the steering column and connected to a number of electromagnets and vacuum diaphragms.
It was the first car to have a ‘horn ring’ on the steering wheel.
And the first to come with a radio fitted as standard.
And the first to have hand-cranked pop-up headlights recessed into the front wing pontoons (these were gently repurposed landing lights from a Stinson aircraft).
And the first to have hidden door hinges.
And the first to have the petrol cap concealed behind a door.
And the first to have rheostat-controlled instrument lighting.
And the first to have CV joints on the driveshaft.
And the first to feature trailing-arm independent front suspension on a front-wheel drive car.
And the first to have variable speed wipers.
Streuth.
To say these cars were ahead of their time really is an understatement. They introduced now commonplace engineering breakthroughs that wouldn’t be seen on some British cars for another 40 years.
And you have to keep reminding yourself that the 812 first emerged in 1937, the year Amelia Earhart went missing, the Hindenburg went up in flames, J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit, and the Golden Gate Bridge opened.
British drivers, happily pootling along country lanes in their Austin Sevens and Humber 16/50s, must have thought the aliens had landed when one of these gleaming beasts shot past them with a flash of chrome, a roar of V8 and all manner of gizmos and technologies that no-one had seen before.
The 812 offered a series of improvements and tweaks over the 810 plus the option of a Schwitzer-Cummins supercharger. This option gave the car the designation ‘812S’ and, more importantly, 170bhp and a top speed in excess of 110mph.
Those numbers made the car a true hot rod in its day and quite possibly the fastest car in America at the time.
Only 688 supercharged 812 cars were sold.
The 810/812 Cords are undeniably, unquestionably, unforgettably beautiful.
Small wonder, then, that in 1996 American Heritage magazine proclaimed the Cord 810 sedan to be “The Single Most Beautiful American Car”.
We wouldn’t argue with that.
The designer, Gordon Buehrig, was an admirer of Le Corbusier and you can see the latter’s design influence in the car’s louvered ‘coffin-nosed’ front.
The 812S, with its chromed exhaust pipes running down the outside of the bonnet from the manifold, is every bit as gorgeously, authentically Art Deco as the Chrysler building.
The overall aesthetic makes this car one of the most instantly recognizable automotive icons of all time.
We are extremely fortunate in having a particularly fine example of this very rare, very special car here with us right now.
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