AUBURN CORD DUESENBERG Festival Aug
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55th AnniversaryAnniversary SouvenirSouvenir EditionEdition AUBURN CORD DUESENBERG Festival Aug. 27 - Sept. 5, 2011 THE 1911 2011 HERALD Ye The 100 ars REPUBLICAN Star THE NEWS SUN 2 Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival kpcnews.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc. Sept.1, 2011 Welcome to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival BY DAVE KURTZ The desperate company set young [email protected] designer Gordon Buehrig loose to shoot for The 2011 version of the Auburn Cord a miracle. Working under severe budget Duesenberg Festival celebrates a special constraints and amid management chaos, milestone in automotive and local history. Buehrig and his team created a master- This year marks the 75th anniversary of piece. the 1936 Cord 810, a car that may have In this section, you’ll read about how changed automotive history more than any Josh Malks spotted a Cord as a schoolboy, vehicle since the first horseless carriage. fell in love with it and saved his money to The 1936 Cord took a giant leap buy a used Cord on his 18th birthday. forward in design and engineering with its Today, Malks ranks as perhaps the leading graceful lines, absence of chrome, expert on Cords. disappearing headlamps and bevy of You’ll also hear about Eric Killorin, technical firsts. More than merely who came to the Auburn Cord Duesenberg beautiful, the Cord set a world speed Festival in his father’s Duesenberg as a 13- record by averaging 101 mph for 24 hours. year-old. This weekend, Killorin returns That remarkable burst of brilliance took with his late father’s Duesenberg, now place right here in Auburn at the headquar- restored to prize-winning condition. BOB CULP ters of Auburn Automobile Co., a building Recalling his first visit to Auburn, Dan and David Yarde of DeKalb County own this 1936 Cord 810. that today houses the Auburn Cord Duesen- Killorin said, “People were up all night, berg Automobile Museum. driving around with the exhaust cutouts On the cover: The success came in the unlikely open, drinking beer, eating popcorn on atmosphere of a collapsing company that Ninth Street. … It was just incredible.” A 1936 Cord is shown with its creator, Auburn Automobile Co. designer Gordon Buehrig, lost $2.5 million in 1935 and would close We hope you’ll think the 2011 classic upper right, and the man for whom the car is named, E.L. Cord, who led Auburn Automobile its doors in 1937. car festival in Auburn is incredible, too. Co. to world renown. BILL’S & BILL’S II Bringing Hollywood to DeKalb County for more than 72 years! LIQUOR STORE 1939 ~ Our 72nd Year ~ 2011 LABOR DAY SPECIALS AUG. 29-SEPT. 5 THE HISTORIC SILVER SCREEN CINEMA 8S+IV[ !! BUDWEISER FAMILY, MILLER LITE FAMILY, COORS FAMILY !! !! SPICED RUM 4 4 !! !! VODKA 4 8S+IV[WZ8S*W\\TM[ AUCTIONS AMERICA BILL’S LIQUOR BY RM Downtown Garrett Bill’s: 1348 S. Randolph St., Garrett STORE AUCTION PARK (opened 1939 as the Gala Theatre) 3-1/2 MILES 357-4156 CR 11A Garrett CR 56 Randolph St. DEKALB COUNTY’S OLDEST THEATRE Bill’s II: 309 N. Randolph St., Garrett 205 SR 327 I-69 357-5989 N Ft. Wayne Sept. 1, 2011 ©KPC Media Group Inc. • kpcnews.com Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival 3 VJ#PPWCN 7KH1HZ7UDGLWLRQLQ$XEXUQ )UL6DW 6XQ6HSW DP'DLO\ :RUOGZLGH$XFWLRQ3DUN7KH3ODFHWR%H 140 Acre Worldwide Auction Park, Adjacent to Deer Track Golf Course Corner of Tonkel Road (SR 427) & County Line Road South of Auburn GG, Exit 129 -SR 8 & $XEXUQ * OLD KRUSE ACD Museum AUCTION PARK Exit 126 -CR 11A AuburnM Airport &$56 $,5&21',7,21,1* x Worldwide Auction Park )5((35(9,(: )5((3$5.,1* Deer Track 23(1727+(*(1(5$/38%/,& 5008 N. County Line Road East Golf Course Thursday, September 1 &(/(%5,7<9(+,&/(6 (Motorcar Blvd.) 10:00AM-5:00PM CR 427 Exit 116 -Dupont Rd Rd Tonkel , GG )257:$<1( 1 5HJLVWHUWR%LG5HJLVWHU WR %LG%LG 2QOLQH7RGD\ View Full Inventory Online at WWGauctions.comons.com | 8800.990.678900.990.6789 Roderick C. Egan, Auctioneer • IN Lic. #AU10000207 4 Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival kpcnews.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc. Sept.1, 2011 ‘There is nothing else that looks like it’ 1936 Cord revolutionized world of automobile design BY DAVE KURTZ [email protected] People writing about the 1936 Cord’s place in automo- tive history often begin with its long list of innovations, said Cord historian Josh Malks of California. The Cord introduced many features found on cars today — such as unit-body construction, disappearing headlamps and the absence of running boards. But that’s not what made the Cord stop people in their tracks, Malks said. What makes the Cord special at first glance is its visual impact. “There is nothing else that looks like it,” he said. “That’s still true today, but it was certainly true in 1936.” Malks adds, “The Cord looks right. I’ve watched people walk around a Cord and say, ‘This thing looks right from every angle.’ … It was really the look of the Cord that made it immortal.” In designing the Cord at Auburn Automobile headquar- ters in Auburn, “The work that Gordon Buehrig and his team did is unique in automobile history,” Malks said. “It went from a clay model to a production car with only the changes needed to make it practical,” he said. “In PHOTO CONTRIBUTED production cars, that is unheard of before that time, and Josh Malks with his latest Cord 810 Westchester, Cord Caravan, set to arrive this weekend. it’s unheard of since.” which he was driving from California to Auburn in the Once it rolled out of Auburn Automobile Co.’s produc- tion line in Connersville, Malks said, “The Cord was a hit member owned a Cord really did, Cord would have with people who looked at it. It was a hit with the outsold Chevrolet,” he said. engineers. It was not a hit in the marketplace.” “Whatever thought the public may have had about the Sales of the Cord lagged for several reasons, including Cord, within the automobile industry, the Cord itself and production problems. the people who built it were very highly regarded,” he “It was really impossible to mass-produce the Cord,” added. Malks said. As one example, workers had to weld seven Malks fell in love with the Cord at first sight when he pieces of steel together to make the roof — a costly was 12 years old, playing hooky from school on a bright process. spring day in the Bronx. As a result, the price of the Cord rose by 20 percent Malks was walking past a used-car sales lot when he from 1936 to 1937, its final year. spotted a car like nothing he had seen before. “That’s hardly a good tactic for selling a car in a “From that moment, I collected every piece of informa- recession,” Malks said. With a price tag that could pay for tion I could on a Cord,” he said. He saved his money to PHOTO CONTRIBUTED three Oldsmobiles, the Cord could not find its market buy a Cord on his 18th birthday — legal driving age in Josh Malks with his first 1936 Cord in 1958. niche. New York City. “The people who loved the Cord, mostly young drivers, Malks now owns his fifth in a string of five Cord 810 couldn’t afford one,” Malks said. “The people who could Westchesters, which he considers the best example of He and his wife, Betty, have driven their latest Cord afford a Cord tended to be more staid and conservative.” Buehrig’s design work. 77,000 miles — four times from the West Coast to They preferred luxury cars such as Packards. “The body style that is considered artistically the best is Auburn, with a fifth trip planned this year. They’ve “Everybody admired it. Hardly anybody bought it,” the original four-door sedan,” Malks said. “I don’t know of traveled in the Cord on the highways of nine different Malks summed up about the Cord. any other car where the best-looking car in the line is the nations, crossing Europe to reach Israel. As Malks travels the country in his own 1936 Cord, four-door sedan.” For all he’s learned about the classic cars, Malks said, people often tell him, “Oh, my uncle had one of those,” he In a half-century love affair with the Cord, Malks has he remembers the words of a friend: “There are no Cord said. written two books about the car and become perhaps the experts. There are Cord scholars, because we learn “My estimate is that if everybody who says their family leading expert on the subject. something new about them all the time.” Sept. 1, 2011 ©KPC Media Group Inc. • kpcnews.com Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival 5 ‘That’s the car I’ve always dreamed of owning’ DeKalb County brothers own a 1936 Cord together BY BOB CULP [email protected] AUBURN — Dave Yarde sat in the back seat of his 1936 Cord and closed his eyes. His brother, Dan Yarde, drove the 75-year- old car at 55 mph on S.R. 3 near Avilla. “Feel that?” Dave Yarde asked, smiling. “It’s so smooth. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you’re riding in a new Cadillac.” The brothers’ car will ride in the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival’s Parade of Classics Saturday for the 75th anniversary of the car’s creation. The car began as their father’s dream and turned into the brothers’ reality.