Coachwork: LeBaron Inc.
Chassis Number: 50A
Engine Number: FC 2297
Engine: 288.6-cu.-in. supercharged Lycoming L-head V-8
Output: 170 horsepower at 4,200 rpm
Transmission: Four-speed “preselect” manual
Drive: Front-wheel drive
Brakes: Four-wheel hydraulic drums

“Quality in Every Detail”

The experimental program originated as an effort to fill the market gap between the distinctively styled Cord 810/812 and the costly, individually bodied Duesenberg Model J. Informally known as the “Baby Duesenberg,” the proposed automobile was intended to unite the Cord’s modern engineering with the refinement and exclusivity associated with Duesenberg. Its development reflected the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg organization’s attempt to preserve the standing of its senior marque while responding to a luxury market transformed by the Great Depression.

LeBaron Incorporated was commissioned to prepare a small group of bodies in several configurations, employing Philip O. Wright of LeBaron, with Gordon Buehrig, J. Herbert Newport Jr., and Alex Tremulis. The surviving Berline combined its formal coachwork with a supercharged Lycoming V-8 and the front-wheel-drive architecture of the Cord 810 and 812. Rather than following the distinct mechanical formula of the Model J, its construction drew upon engineering and manufacturing resources readily available throughout the Cord industrial organization.

The program never advanced to production, instead befalling the fate of the Cord enterprise, which would soon shutter its doors in August of 1937. The Berline consequently documents unrealized ambitions of an automotive empire during its final years of automobile production.

This particular automobile retains the provenance of the company’s founder. E. L. Cord kept the Berline for his family’s personal use, initially in Chicago and later at their Beverly Hills residence, where it reportedly remained until approximately 1940. Rather than being discarded after its experimental purpose had ended, the car continued in regular use under the stewardship of the individual whose transportation empire had produced it.

Harrah’s Automobile Collection later acquired the Berline in 1962. Later accounts indicate that E. L. Cord assisted in documenting or guiding its restoration, linking its original use with its subsequent preservation. The automobile remained associated with the Harrah collection and the National Automobile Museum for more than six decades before entering the Singleton Collection.

The Experimental Berline is significant as both an industrial artifact and E. L. Cord’s personal automobile. It preserves the physical outcome of an unrealized model program, demonstrates the resourcefulness of the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg organization amid the financial constraints of the Great Depression, and retains documented provenance to the company’s founder. Rather than a production Cord modified after manufacture, it showcases the ambitions of what might have followed—one of the organization’s final experiments before automobile production ended.