If a whole island isn’t enough to make you feel rich, you can now buy and revive a legendary automotive brand, as the CORD Automobile trademarks are currently put up for sale.
A bit of history
CORD Automobile was an American car designer and builder born in 1929, who is responsible for the first front-wheel-drive car sold on the US market. However, due to the drivetrain configuration not being too popular at that time and place, along with some reliability problems, the company was shut down in 1937.
Attempts to resurrect the CORD have been made in 1940 but failed shortly after. Then in the early 1960s, Glenn Pray from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, acquired the AUBURN-CORD-DUESENBERG Company and in 1966, he unveiled a restomodded 810 model, hoping to raise awareness on the interesting brand.
The inglorious 810 model
In case you haven’t heard of the 810 model, that was the most famous CORD put out on sale. It came with that iconic “coffin-nose”, front wheel drive, pop-up headlamps and an electrically operated manual gearbox. How cool is that for the ’30s?
You may ask why did the automaker want to create such a complicated machine. Well, the main idea was to move the power at the front to leave more room for the passengers. Since nobody was mounting engines transversally back then, the engineers basically took the V8, rotated it 180 degrees, brought it back a bit towards the cockpit and bolted it to a transaxle at the front.
Reason for that intricate electrically operated four-speed gearbox to exist, since a direct link was not quite possible. But more on that can be discovered in the video bellow.
Buy me here
Although his masterpiece was highly acclaimed, nobody found it cool enough to see it as a production car similar to what Wiesmann or Morgan build now. This forced Pray to resell the trademarks, starting with those for the Auburn and the Duesenberg, still keeping the Cord for himself, strongly believing that the nameplate should have another chance later.
Unfortunately, Glenn passed away in 2011, his family now putting the Cord trademarks for sale, hoping somebody will resurrect the defunct iconic American automaker.
There are two CORD trademarks offered for sale, one for toy cars and one for automobiles and parts, both being made available by Leake Auction Company through the process of private treaty until October 22nd, 2014. If nobody buys them until then, the trademarks will go under the hammer during the Leake Collector Car Show & Auction in Dallas on November 22nd.
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