Cord 810–Phaeton

If there were any hesitations about Errett Lobban Cord, there is certainly no doubt that he was an optimist. He believed in creating  a better mousetrap, and he believed in the American Dream. Of course, his American Dream of producing a successful line of automobiles bearing his name had already come acropper once. He and his team at Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg had designed the  technologically advanced and beautiful Cord L-29 only to see the stock market crash soon after its introduction. With sales of less than 4,000 over the course of its 3-year run, Cord was forced to stop production of the model and re-group.

Cord determined to try once more

But E.L. Cord was never one to sit motionless for long. He always had it in his mind to revive the Cord nameplate when the chance was right. It was his tragedy to live in the 1930’s when the time was never correct. Cord, of course, didn’t know this. He had lived through “business panics” and recessions before, so, like most American businessmen, he was convinced that, even in the depth of the Depression, that the turnaround was on the way, and he wanted to be ready when it came. So he continued to build the super-luxury Duesenberg for movie stars and the children of old money and kept his business alive on the relative strength of the mid-market Auburn. All the while, he kept on the look-out for an opportunity to revitalize the Cord name. In July of 1935, with the Chicago Cubs battling for a National League pennant,  they would  finally win and the nation in a general upswing, he believed he had found his window of opportunity.

Rush to produce  100 cars

He decided that the November New York Auto Show was the right time, right place, so he embarked on a crash program to produce, not just a show car but also 100 salable examples of the fresh Cord. In retrospect, it confirmed  to be too ambitious a timetable. Definitely, Cord wasn’t starting from scratch. His genius chief designer, Gordon Buehrig always had some wonderful stuff squirreled away in his desk drawer, and so it was with the genesis of what would become the Cord 810. Back in 1933, he had drawn sketches meant,  maybe,  for a future Duesenberg that had forward-thinking features like a grille-less engine compartment and “pontoon” fenders. Cooling for the projected vehicle was to be taken care of by twin radiators placed between the fenders and the engine bay. In the end,  this was judged too radical for Duesenberg, which relied on its grille to give it the presence its luxury clients wanted, but Cord did like the prototypes  and encouraged Buehrig to build on the theme. While at the same time drawing up the sparkling Auburn 852 “Boattail” Speedster, Buehrig moved onward with the unnamed second project. In September 1934, he completed more detailed sketches.

Design was radical and beautiful

What those outlines contained was a striking visage, radically different from any car on the road. While even the most modern early Thirties design relied on a stand-up grille to provide both drama and cooling air, the Cord 810 had no grille at all. Louvered slits wrapped around the front of the engine compartment, instead. The de rigeur radiator cap ornament was substituted by a V-motif crest high on the car’s blunt nose. The Cord 810 didn’t simply eschew the grille; it also said good-bye to visible headlights, another major part of the conventional l Thirties car visage. Instead of the wide-eyed headlamps of all other cars on the highway, the 810’s were  deployed by winding cranks on the dashboard and hidden in the bulbous fenders. For both continuity’s sake and styling, Cord demanded that the new model be front-wheel-drive, as was the L-29. This necessitated a wide apron ahead of the engine compartment and between the two front fenders, but this was executed with artful aplomb, and, because front-wheel-drive permitted  the car to be far lower than its contemporaries, Buehrig ditched running boards all together.

Aluminum dash delighted

Inside the car, the engine-turned aluminum dash fascia has become fabled. The car’s electric/vacuum shifter was activated by a lever on the steering column behind the big Bakelite wheel, and because of the rushed development to make the New York Auto Show, early units worked none too well. The Cord 810 was offered in four body styles, all quite striking, but possibly the most attractive is the two-door Phaeton, an ancient name for such a Modern design (and a name borrowed today by Volkswagen). With hinged at the rear “suicide” doors, a close-fitting top over its four passenger seats, and a steeply raked windshield, one is hard-pressed to imagine a better-looking automobile.

Engine was conventional

Under its “coffin nose”,  the Cord 810 provided a 289 cubic inch (4.7 liter) V-8 engine, instead of the L-29’s 299 cubic inch straight eight. Designed by Forest Baster of Lycoming, another company in the Cord sphere, the engine supplied  125 peak horsepower at 3500 rpm. Mounted longitudinally, it transferred its power to the front wheels via a 4-speed transmission situated ahead of the engine. The Lycoming V-8, though a decent performer,  had a lot to contend with. The 810 had a wheelbase of 125 inches, and the car weighed about 3,700 pounds, so it wasn’t a hot entertainer  in the modern sense.  Maximum speed was about 90 miles per hour and acceleration leisurely. As one might expect, the Cord 810’s reception at the New York Auto Show was stupendous, but in the end, that reaction might have hurt the car more than helped it. At a base price of just $1,995, the public immediately snapped up the hundred examples that E.L. Cord had forced his production staff to cobble together for the affair, but the quality of these early units was not what it should have been, and the beautiful cars soon got a reputation as troublesome. Just as damaging, too, was the fact that Cord had eaten up a large part of his financial resources to produce the hundred cars from scratch in just four months time.

Rugged car, but dim economy

In 1937, Cord announced the slightly revised 812 version. The most significant change was the addition of a possible supercharger that took horsepower up to 170 and top speed to 110 miles per hour. It was a car that would travel all day at 70 mph, and get 15 miles per gallon doing so, but the American economy had weakened yet again, and there were painfully less  buyers. Finally, E.L. Cord faced the unavoidable and sold out, and soon thereafter Auburn, Duesenberg and Cord, three of the proudest American marques of all time, stopped to exist. Even after its untimely death, the Cord 810/812 was paid a final tribute. Another manufacturer, Graham, a successor to the old Paige-Detroit company,  bought the Cord body tooling and utilized it on a model that would be sold for several more years.

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