Cord Experimental article in Antique Week

[rocketraider]

August 2, 2022 issue of Antique Week newspaper has an article on the A-C-D Museum's 1932 Cord Experimental prototype. You should be able to download the complete issue at www.antiqueweek.com. Look for August 2, 2022 issue. The article is on pages 2 and 4.

 

The front page feature is on the Sunbeam Mixmaster electric kitchen mixer. Also a good read, especially if, like me, you dig old appliances- and anything else old!

[8E45E]

The Cord E-1.  Well written two-minute read of its discovery and restoration.

 

Here is the two-part Hemmings article with more photos and information:

 

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2012/04/22/sia-flashback-found-the-real-lost-cord-part-1

 

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2012/04/29/sia-flashback-found-the-real-lost-cord-part-2

 

Craig

[wayne sheldon]

7 hours ago, rocketraider said:

The front page feature is on the Sunbeam Mixmaster electric kitchen mixer. Also a good read, especially if, like me, you dig old appliances- and anything else old!

 

I have a waring blender. It has a date code scratched into the underside that may have been a repair date. The date was in 1929.

[trimacar]

1 hour ago, wayne sheldon said:

 

I have a waring blender. It has a date code scratched into the underside that may have been a repair date. The date was in 1929.

Which is interesting, since the “Waring Blendor” was first sold in 1937, and yes, that’s how it was spelled…am sure you have an old one, just not 1929…

[wayne sheldon]

I wondered about the Cord article. But got interrupted. I eventually clicked to the links provided by 8E45E, and see those are for the Auburn/Cord prototype V12.

There were couple Cord prototypes built around the mid 1930s.

By pure coincidence, two days ago (Sunday), my son and his girl friend took me to the National Automotive Museum (Harrah's collection) in Reno, for my belated birthday! The museum has among its so many incredible automobiles, one of those in between Cord prototypes, or "experimental. The car is said to have been E L Cord's personal car for a number of years. 

I did take a picture, although the lighting wasn't great on the car. If I can get them out of my camera onto my computer? And if that photo came out well enough? I will try to post it here. (A lot going on right now. Might take a few days, if at all?)

[8E45E]

This one?

 

Craig

[wayne sheldon]

That is the car in the National Automobile Museum collection!

They have moved some cars around since that photo was taken. There was an 810 next to it, and an 812 across the walkway from it.

[Gunsmoke]

8E45E my goodness, that ELCORD plated car one only a mother could love! Real Jekyll and Hyde number. Other than the popup headlights and unique wheels, would never identify it as Cord. Don't think Gordon B had a design hand in this one.

[8E45E]

This Cord is pre-production.

 

(Note where the hidden headlights are.)

 

Craig

[alsancle]

53 minutes ago, 8E45E said:

This one?

 

Craig

The LeBaron bodied Cords were called “Duesenberg” by the factory.

[Crusty Trucker]

11 hours ago, wayne sheldon said:

 

I have a waring blender. It has a date code scratched into the underside that may have been a repair date. The date was in 1929.

 

Orchestra Leader Fred Waring and the Waring Blender 

 

 

Orchestra Leader Fred Waring and the Waring Blender 

Although the company is named after Fred Waring, a popular entertainer of the 1930's, 40's and 50's, Waring did not actually invent the blender. He did, however, perfect the original version and introduce this version to retailers and consumers-which ultimately became a big success. Waring history has it that in 1936 Fred Waring had just finished a radio broadcast in New York's Vanderbilt Theater when Fred Osius, dressed in outlandish striped pants, a cutaway coat and a bright lemon-yellow tie, approached the entertainer with his latest invention. Osius was looking for someone to finance a new mixer that would "revolutionize people's eating habits."

Waring was intrigued with the concept of a mixer such as the one Osius described, and he agreed to back the new product, even when the prototype failed to work the first time. Six months and $25,000 later, the prototype still didn't work. However, Waring remained enthusiastic and with his support, the engineering and production problems were solved in time to introduce the new "Miracle Mixer" (as it was then called) at the National Restaurant Show in Chicago in 1937.  Later called ‘Waring Blendor’ and then in 1938 the spelling was changed to Blender.

Thanks to Waring's own promotion of the blender on the radio and through a singing group aptly named "The Waring Blendors," the blender became a permanent fixture in restaurants and bars. It wasn't long before consumers decided that they needed blenders in their kitchens as well; ultimately, department and specialty store sales increased and the blender became a household appliance for home chefs.  (* later changed to Blender)

World War II temporarily halted blender production, but in 1946 sales took off again as consumer demand grew. Product innovations continued, with the introduction of color-coordinated blenders and attachments that crushed ice and ground coffee. Solid state controls were among the most significant product changes. In the 1950's, new uses for the blender were constantly emerging, including applications in research laboratories. In fact, Dr. Jonas Salk used a Waring blender with an Aseptic Dispersal Container attachment to develop his lifesaving polio vaccine.

 

Note old car connection here: 
The V-8 Octet (named for the Ford V-8 sponsor) was part of the large musical programs of Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians during Waring's highly successful series of radio broadcasts in 1936. Sometimes they were joined by Johnny "Scat" Davis, Priscilla Lane, Tom Waring and the duo-pianists Steve Mougin and Frank Hower.

 

Fred Waring died in 1984, but his vision for a top quality blender lives on as Waring continues to manufacture an innovative line of top performance blenders for the home and for commercial use.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Crusty Trucker (see edit history)

[wayne sheldon]

Fifty years ago when I found the thing in a thrift store, sources at the library indicated that the blender was earlier than that. Like the model T Ford, I expect a lot more correct information is known and readily available today.

Regardless, it is an interesting and early unit. I would like to know why the date is on it? But I suppose I never will.

 

Fred Waring was a well known band leader, and began recording during the roaring '20s. As a longtime fan of music from the eras of the cars I love, I enjoy Fred Waring and his "Pennsylvanians" in his earlier work. Packed away with a lot of other things I collected over the years, among the over 2000 78rpm records I have, are a very few of Fred Waring's records.

 

He continued to play concerts well into his old age. Along about 1980, several friends of mine went to one of his concert tours. I was unable to go as I had a sick child at home. They showed up in a couple 1920s cars, and met with Fred Waring before the show. He was an amazing entertainer! My friends said that he appeared quite feeble when they met with him. However, on stage, he lit up the place! Leading the band, dancing around, waving at the audience. A true entertainer to his very end.

[Twisted Shifter]

I recall Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians on black and white TV in the '50's and some of his hit records from before that. Great entertainment in its day. He lived to be 84.

 

The famous conductor of the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops, Arthur Fiedler. was another musician who, when off the podium, was bent-over and feeble and had trouble moving around on his own. But once he was introduced for a concert, he straightened up and proudly marched on stage. He led the orchestra for hours and never showed his frailty to the public. Coincidentially, he also lived to be 84.

[8E45E]

On 8/2/2022 at 6:54 PM, alsancle said:

The LeBaron bodied Cords were called “Duesenberg” by the factory.

Including cars that had front wheel drive?

 

I thought any car made by A-C-D with front wheel drive, experimental, or production, would be labeled a Cord.

 

Craig

[alsancle]

19 minutes ago, 8E45E said:

Including cars that had front wheel drive?

 

I thought any car made by A-C-D with front wheel drive, experimental, or production, would be labeled a Cord.

 

Craig

 

[TAKerry]

AJ, do you know if that 'baby duesenburg' is finished?

[8E45E]

28 minutes ago, alsancle said:

 

By 1937, it became apparent the 'big' Duesenberg need a junior companion car to improve sales.  And as the narrator in the video stated, the funds were not available for new chassis, and engines, and had to use the latest that was available, with the fwd Cord chassis layout being the most advanced for its time.  There was a point in time a few years earlier when Auburn and Cord more or less competed in the same market, and to differentiate the two and minimize 'brand overlap', Auburn was going to be the most conventional of the two, staying with rwd and traditional, but contemporary styling, while the Cord was to be the advanced showcase, with front wheel drive, and radical styling for buyers who wanted to stand out from the others.  Of course, in the end, neither marque had sufficient sales to sustain each.   

Some 40 years later, in the UK, British-Leyland attempted to do the same with its Austin and Morris brands in the 1970s', Morris cars to be rwd, and Austins to be all fwd as a differentiation between the two similarly competing marques.   (The Marina was a 'Morris' in the UK market, not 'Austin', like it was in North America.)

 

Craig

Edited August 4, 2022 by 8E45E (see edit history)

[alsancle]

13 minutes ago, TAKerry said:

AJ, do you know if that 'baby duesenburg' is finished?

Kerry, since restorations are known to take decades I don’t know. The car has not been shown finished, to the best of my knowledge. There are plenty of pictures of it has discovered in the 60s, which I will try to find and post.

[alsancle]

Here it is in the 1960s.