Our 1935 Auburn

by Murray Hall, Maitland Valley Region

In 1987, I bought our 1929 L-29 Cord sedan. After I purchased the car I joined the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Club. We started to attend their national meet in Auburn, Indiana on Labour Day weekend.

Auburns, Cords, and Duesenbergs are all very attractive cars. Duesenbergs are the ultimate collectible cars, but with prices approaching a million dollars per car, I know that I'll never own one of them. However, I was attracted to the 1935 and 1936 Auburns. Many people are familiar with them in speedster form, but these are few and far between.

In 1994, a friend of mine in Michigan gave me some back issues of Old Car Weekly magazines. In one magazine, there was an unrestored 1935 Auburn 8 cylinder sedan with sidemounts advertised for sale. It was in Charlotte, Michigan, a town just south of Lansing. I arranged to see the car and bought it on the spot. The owner had bought it years earlier as a parts car for his 1934 Auburn convertible coupe, but later decided that the sedan was too good to strip for parts, so he just stored it. Unfortunately, vandals had smashed all the windows, instruments, and lights. It cost us $1070.00 U.S. just to have the headlamps repaired and replated.

Our car has twin sidemounts and a trunk on the back. When you lift up the trunk lid, a pair of folding arms hold it up. They were missing when I got the car. I eventually found a pair - in Zimbabwe, South AFtica. The car collector there who sold them to me belongs to an antique car club with over 200 members.

The Auburn was a seven year restoration project the like most restorations, went way over budget. When I started restoring the car, I discovered that it had been in a serious accident years earlier. The right rear corner of the body was full of lead and had been welded up. The right rear door was from a 1936 Auburn and the right rear spring had also been replaced. I ended up buying a parts car (a body and frame) in New York State. From it, I salvaged a pair of doors and the right rear quarter of the body.

The Auburn has some wood in the body, mainly in the roof and the floor, but not nearly as much as in our L-29 Cord. It has a fabric panel in the middle of the roof. By 1935, the Auburn Automobile Company was almost at the end of its rope and they couldn't afford major body changes such as an all steel roof panel, like GM was doing. Surprisingly, Auburn had one of its best years ever in 1931 at the height of the depression, but sadly, five years later, the last Auburn was built. Cords and Duesenbergs were built until 1937, but by then it was almost impossible for small independent car makers to compete against the big three.

The Auburn has a 127" wheelbase and a straight eight flat head engine. It has a two-speed rear axle called dual ratio that works by a vacuum shift lever in the middle of the steering wheel. Because of this, it has a tachometer. In the interest of safety, we wired the car for turn signals.

Last year, we drove the Auburn to the Willistead Classic Car Show in Windsor where it received an honourable mention award. We plan to drive it to the ACD National meet this year. We feel that is is an ideal tour car for Heritage 35 tours, so we hope to participate in more of them.