Vehicle Description
- Two eights offered in 1930--one with 125-inch wheelbase--Super
Eight with 130-inch wheelbase - The former had 100
horsepower--latter 125 HP - This car--246 cubic-inch straight-eight
Lycoming engine - Ground-up restoration years ago--stored inside
museum since - New battery - Carburetor redone - Refurbished gas
tank - Runs & a blast to drive - Historical narrative: - --The
Eckhart brothers, who took over a carriage business from their
father, built the first Auburn automobiles (named after their home
town of Auburn, Indiana) in 1900 when they realized the future
would not be horse-drawn. - --Some reports say they sold none of
the four cars they built that first year because they were
overpriced at $800. - --Auburn designed and built some successful
cars but they were in financial trouble after World War I. - --They
were taken over in 1919 by a group of Chicago businessmen headed by
William Wrigley, Jr. of Wrigley Chewing Gum fame. - --In 1924,
salesman E.L. Cord bought the company and the rest is history. -
--The company became a part of his Auburn Cord Duesenberg empire,
and built some of the most innovative and beautiful cars of the
1930s before falling victim to the Depression in 1937.
