George Smolinski Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Has anyone here seen this car in person? Know any more about it. This 1932 E-1 Cord Experimental Limousine was driven only 779 miles when the stock market crash ended the plans for putting the big limo into production. So, it was dismantled. Paul Bryant saw the body in a barn near Plato Center, Ill. It had no engine, no fenders, and no grille shell. Paul searched for and found the missing parts and painstakingly reassembled this magnificent auto. 10 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zepher Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Interesting car, but I'm not a fan of the proportions. Hood is way too long for the rest of the body. Rear passenger compartment doesn't look any larger than a standard sedan with the large cut out area on the rear door for the rear fender. My Pierce has a very small cut area on the rear door for the rear fender. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8E45E Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Photos I took of it here: Orphan of the Day, 1932 Cord E-1 Prototype - Studebaker Drivers Club Forum Links to more information on it here: Craig 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
30DodgePanel Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 37 minutes ago, 8E45E said: Photos I took of it here: Orphan of the Day, 1932 Cord E-1 Prototype - Studebaker Drivers Club Forum Craig Sorry Craig but it needs to see the light of day on this thread too. Great photo! I don't know anything about the car or it's history but I like it. I can appreciate all the time and work Mr. Bryant put into it. 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Henderson Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 3 hours ago, zepher said: Interesting car, but I'm not a fan of the proportions. Hood is way too long for the rest of the body. Rear passenger compartment doesn't look any larger than a standard sedan with the large cut out area on the rear door for the rear fender. My Pierce has a very small cut area on the rear door for the rear fender. Originally it was to have A 16 cylinder engine, thus the long hood. The body is considerably larger all over than an original L29 sedan's. Plans were revised and became for it to be a 12 cylinder car. Later it was disassembled and the engine for a while was used to power a dynamo or other device at the nearby power plant. My recollections are a bit fuzzy but a comprehensive history of the car is known and could be addressed by ACD Museum staff members or the L29 historian of the ACD Club. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
58L-Y8 Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 The history was written up in Special Interest Auto magazine in the 1990's iirc. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdome Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 27 minutes ago, 58L-Y8 said: The history was written up in Special Interest Auto magazine in the 1990's iirc. Soooo.... are you suggesting that this car's history may be as fake as the 56 Lincoln woody cosmo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keiser31 Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 6 minutes ago, jdome said: Soooo.... are you suggesting that this car's history may be as fake as the 56 Lincoln woody cosmo. Or the Tucker convertible.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8E45E Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 44 minutes ago, 58L-Y8 said: The history was written up in Special Interest Auto magazine in the 1990's iirc. SIA Flashback - Found: The Real Lost Cord, part 1 | Hemmings SIA Flashback - Found: The Real Lost Cord, part 2 | Hemmings 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdome Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 9 minutes ago, 8E45E said: SIA Flashback - Found: The Real Lost Cord, part 1 | Hemmings SIA Flashback - Found: The Real Lost Cord, part 2 | Hemmings If it was written up in a Hemmings rag in the 90s it must be real. Riiight ??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8E45E Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 Just now, jdome said: If it was written up in a Hemmings rag in the 90s it must be real. Riiight ??? Millenials weren't running the show at Hemmings in the 1990's. Craig 5 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
30DodgePanel Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 (edited) 10 hours ago, jdome said: If it was written up in a Hemmings rag in the 90s it must be real. Riiight ??? If you don't trust Hemmings then go to the heart of the source that was provided (Part 1 is in SIA#119 Oct 1990 and Part 2 is in #120 Dec 1990), copies can be had off eBay and other locations. A friend was kind enough to send me a copy of the entire two part article in email and I can honestly say, you'll not be disappointed. Incredible read and work that was done by Pat Tobin (and others I'm sure). My hope is you're not suggesting SIA was a rag.... Edited February 27 by 30DodgePanel (see edit history) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8E45E Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 (edited) Now let's see a flashback to the old SIA's "DriveReport" days in HCC where they often compared two or three competing makes of cars. It would be very cool to see this 1932 Cord E-1 and the 1932 Peerless V-16 sedan which both remained prototypes up against each other. Which prototype '32 do you want to be driven around in?? Edited February 28 by 8E45E (see edit history) 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
60FlatTop Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 The last time I was at the ACD Museum that car was on the floor. That was, maybe 2010-12. It is a stunning car. I had a meeting on Maumee Bay near Toledo so staying in Auburn was the most natural thing to do. I got to the museum at opening time on a week day. A docent was dusting the car and no one else was there. We talked about it quite a while. I would sure like to repeat that trip. RIGHT NOW! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Dobbin Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 The hood is a longer version of the 1934 Ford hood, with a bigger oil leak than the Ford. My back seat leg room may be bigger too. I remember 50 years ago when I began showing my first 34 Ford and watched older women look in the back seat and grin. I guess back seat memories last a lifetime. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty_OToole Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 (edited) You've got to hand it to E L Cord, he knew how to think big. First the Duesenberg J now this. Wonder what kind of gorilla you would need to chauffeur a 16 cylinder front drive limousine with no power steering. Edited February 28 by Rusty_OToole (see edit history) 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 18 minutes ago, Rusty_OToole said: Wonder what kind of gorilla you would need to chauffeur a 16 cylinder front drive car with no power steering. Are you hiring? 🤪 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdome Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 2 hours ago, 60FlatTop said: The last time I was at the ACD Museum that car was on the floor. That was, maybe 2010-12. It is a stunning car. I had a meeting on Maumee Bay near Toledo so staying in Auburn was the most natural thing to do. I got to the museum at opening time on a week day. A docent was dusting the car and no one else was there. We talked about it quite a while. I would sure like to repeat that trip. RIGHT NOW! If you are into trucks, Auburn, IN. Has an interesting truck museum too. The truck museum happens to be on Gordon Buehrig St. and the ACD Museum is on some nondescript st name. If you can, time your next visit to coincide with the ACD festival. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8E45E Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 43 minutes ago, jdome said: If you are into trucks, Auburn, IN. Has an interesting truck museum too. That is the NATmus Museum, immediately behind the ACD Museum. Some unusual cars and trucks in there. Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
60FlatTop Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 I have been visiting the ACD Museum since 1978. I cherish those 10 AM visits on weekdays. I visited the NASmus once. The focus and quiet of the ACD Museum is what brings me back. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozstatman Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 i was at the ACD Museum in 2018 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alsancle Posted February 27 Share Posted February 27 Is there a period picture of this car somewhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAKerry Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 It may have a completely different appearance in person but in the pictures it looks cartoonish! Way out of proportion imo. The body lines are great and it has great styling but it just looks too long. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Skelly Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 From the looks of the car, a person might think it was designed for an inline 12 or 16. It's nice that the car was saved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
30DodgePanel Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 16 hours ago, alsancle said: Is there a period picture of this car somewhere? If there is, it's probably a panoramic Can anyone tell us if it was made to act as his own personal limousine eventually or was it simply designed for marketing purposes? Hence the famous tag "200 Horsepower Sensation Of The Automobile World" I would think the book "Errett Lobban Cord His Empire His Motorcars" would explain what the ultimate motives were, but I do not have a copy of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
60FlatTop Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 So far the pictures of the car have been terrible. In person it looks great. My set of pictures from that visit got lost in a server incident. I took about 100 that day. Glad to still have the memory. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunsmoke Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 (edited) I must confess that I have rarely if ever seen a "limo" that looked good. In the vast majority of cases, they are assembled by taking a nicely designed car and chopping them in half, adding a center section, lengthening the chassis, and perhaps even raising the roofline, adding some bells and whistles (fake landau bars for example), larger wheels. None of the resulting modifications from a styling viewpoint, usually have been run by the original designer. The buyers/owners usually don't care, they buy them for prestige. There have been exceptions where a designer was intimately involved, a few Rolls Royce customs, the Bugatti Royales perhaps. So, the OP Cord fairs pretty well by comparison, there have been thousands of ugly limousines. Edited February 28 by Gunsmoke (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Skelly Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 I wouldn't call this factory limousine ugly: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunsmoke Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 Hmmm.., then what would you call it? Serves a purpose I suppose, sort of like a "pushup bra". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
30DodgePanel Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 (edited) A year later and they were resorting to this hideous beast (sarcasm). The more early limos I look at the more I like the "in your face" 32 Cord on topic. Proves to me it stands alone in a select category. Edited February 29 by 30DodgePanel (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Mereness Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 I believe the body shows itself with a streamline grill (much different than the one on the current car) on a whatever chassis that looks like a more streamlined Duesenberg - and apologies I do not have the photo. The front fenders are from a Brooks Steven’s Cord (probably transplanted WWII era or …) Here is the catch - why are there no “period” photos of the car in its current configuration and my understanding is that there are or were two bodies (a blue one and a maroon one) and/or two grills (Blue and maroon too - of which one is on the car now). So there should even be more a chance of photos ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
30DodgePanel Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 7 minutes ago, John_Mereness said: So there should even be more a chance of photos ? I've had time to research due to a recent surgery so I've been able to dig into thousands of period publications via digital libraries but have only accomplished exhaustion. Since the project was so hidden I may be digging in the wrong hole... That part of the SIA interview (blue and maroon bodies) stood out to me also. I'm hopeful someone gets lucky and uncovers one in our lifetime. I'm sure most of us are equally hopeful anyway. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Mereness Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 (edited) You are looking for a photo of what looks to be like a Duesenberg with a very stylized waterfall art deco grill - but there should be plenty more that do not exist for whatever reason and for two cars (and where is the other body and where is the other grill) Edited March 1 by John_Mereness (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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