The 1930s
Tough times were ahead for most walks of life in the U.S, and the Crash of 1929 was only a harbinger of the Threadbare Thirties that loomed ahead. Bank holidays to consolidate cash reserves and close down non-performing institutions, work programs to keep the unemployed off the dole, and the creation of Social Security as a safety net for the old and infirm were all part of a strategic plan to get this country back on it economic feet.
Still, it would be 10 years of struggle for most everyone, and only a war would juice the economy back to health.
Reading the tea leaves
The major auto journals of the period were attempting to sound optimistic in their editorial columns.
Automotive Industries, in its Jan. 11, 1930 editorial, noted that the number of car makes displayed at the 30th annual New York Auto Show was 46, the largest collection to date. Most offered modest price reductions, but some of the luxury marques such as Packard increased their prices, also modestly. Carmakers were understandably cautious, as no one knew where this market was headed after “the securities market slump” as reported in AI. Plus, they all had an excess of stock from over-supplying the market in 1929.
AI also remarked on the number of eight-cylinder cars, exceeding sixes by 27 to 24. Indeed, this was a time when the luxury marques went to battle with 12- and 16 cylinder powerplants in an effort to be king of the hill. However, the number of cylinders proved to not be a bellwether for the economy…
The third and fourth floors of the trade show at the Grand Central Palace exhibited accessory and shop equipment from 180 manufacturers. One sales rep remarked: “This year will be a maintenance year – Our Year!” Another comment: “Motor vehicles will be maintained, even at the expense of other elements of present-day higher living standards…” Boy, was that a prescient statement, or what? Lean years ahead were already apparent…
Although the direct advertising of autos in journals had diminished, and especially speedsters as a model – a harbinger of hard times if ever there was any – one could still see sport roadsters and even race cars were used to promote automotive necessities.
Combining race results with a testimonial - now that’s a one-two marketing KO! Ad courtesy Horseless Carriage Foundation Library
Everything in this ad is moving, and fast, thanks to Bosch! ad courtesy HCFI
A pretty woman in a speedster on a horse farm sells that wheel any day! ad courtesy HCFI
Speedsters and the 30s
As mentioned in the previous post, speedsters as a model could not save many a storied company: Mercer, Franklin, Kissel, and many others that languished in the boom times of the 20s and closed up shop in the 30s.It was a hard economy for independent auto manufacturers.
Others, however, managed to hang on and even flourish, for a time. Did speedster mojo add to their sales exposure? Hard to tell, as these things were not systematically measured. Three examples that follow show three different approaches.
Stutz
Stutz had gone through an economic rebirth in the mid-1920s under the leadership of its president, Frederick Moscovicks. During the first few years of his tenure, the “Safety Stutz” period, Stutz would focus on the speedster line as a means to get sporty back into their lineup. The Stutz Standard catalog of 1928 would feature five speedster body styles out of a total of twelve bodies offered!
Moscovicks would resign in 1929 in frustration from conflicts with the company board, and company sales slumped into the 1930s. Although the Blackhawk line of speedsters had been continued since 1929, it became time to revisit an old stalwart that had brought the company such fame and fortune – the Bearcat!
Nothing like bringing back an old friend, the Stutz Bearcat, for 1931! Ad courtesy AACA Library
Continued development of the straight-eight engine from 1926 had allowed it to evolve into a single-overhead cam SV-16 designation, as well as a dual-overhead cam DV-32 version. Both were powerful and employed in both the M-series speedsters, which continued from 1929, as well as the Bearcats, which were marketed from 1931-33.
Both models of Bearcat, the Standard Bearcat with a wheelbase of 134.5”, and the Super Bearcat, using a shortened 116” wheelbase, were outfitted with the DV-32 with dual cams and four valves per cylinder. Out of the box it developed 156 horsepower, but this could be augmented by a supercharger for even more oomph.
Above was the “standard” Bearcat for 1931-1933 next to an autogyro. Image from Stutz sales catalog.
But if you really wanted a go-fast speedster, the 1931-1933 Super Bearcat was hard to beat! Catalog image
However, despite advertising in newspapers and also its catalog, the speedster lines could not juice up enough sales for Stutz. Only an estimated 110 Stutzes were produced for 1933. In light of this, car production shut down that year, and Stutz shuffled on into history…
Packard
Packard as a luxury brand had always been understated in its approach to advertising its products. Although it largely eschewed marketing through racing, privateers who recognized the worth of a Packard chassis and engine took modified versions of them to the track. Thus, the name “Packard” showed up here and there in race results of the early 1900s, but hardly with official factory backing.
However, there were speedster nuts on staff at this prosperous, if a bit conservative, firm. One of them was Col. Jesse Vincent, its chief engine designer.
Vincent had been hired in 1912 by Alvan MaCauley, who himself would eventually lead Packard during its most prosperous years of the 1920s. Macauley saw the talent in Vincent, who developed a series of engines and cars for Packard throughout his tenure. It was Vincent who introduced the speedster to Packard.
Packard built itself a 2.5-mile concrete oval in 1926 to encircle the Packard Proving Grounds in Utica, Michigan, north of Detroit. Coincidentally, Vincent produced a taper-tailed speedster prototype in 1927 to test the concept of a sporty Packard to compete with the likes of Kissel, Marmon, Stutz, and others. Built on a 117” chassis from a Series Four Packard, it was every bit of fast!. But it wasn’t advertised and it wasn’t for sale, either.
1927 Packard Speedster prototype. photo courtesy William Bailey collection
However, this project led to production models:
1. The 1928-29 626 Speedster Eight, built upon a 126.5” wheelbase and using components from the Series 640; they built about 70 units. Didn’t advertise…
1929 Packard 626 Speedster. photo courtesy National Automotive Collection, Detroit Public Library
2. The 1930 734 Speedster Eight, a much more sleek, refined, and classier speedster. Built on a 134.5” wheelbase, using a 385 cubic-inch engine with high-compression heads and other speed parts. Four versions were made, but the Runabout Speedster was all the beans. Ironically, only catalog advertising was used to market these cars, and 118 were made and sold.
1930 Packard 734 Speedster Runabout. Speedster sales brochure, personal collection
3. The 1934 Eleventh Series Twelve models sported two designs that could be considered speedsters: the Sport Runabout (Model 1106) and the Sport Phaeton (Model 1108). This streamlined pontoon-fender design was executed by Packard’s current chief designer, Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, revealing au courant design influences coming over from Europe. The Sport Runabout Speedster used a short 135” wheelbase and housed a 445.5 cubic inch engine pumping out 160 horsepower and gobs of torque. Everybody wanted one; Packard only made eleven. Except for sales brochures, they didn’t advertise these either…
1934 Eleventh Series Packard 1106 Twelve Sport Runabout. What a name, but… what a car! sales brochure, personal collection
Auburn
Under the leadership of Errett Lobban Cord, Auburn would enter the 1930s with guns blazing. Cord, who had joined Auburn in 1924, was all about jazzing up his company’s designs and rolling out performance-oriented vehicles as a means of attracting attention and selling. Auburn depended on a mix of endurance racing events to establish its speedster’s credentials in the late 1920s, which it continued with speed runs at Muroc Lake and at Bonneville in the 1930s. And it advertised their results from the records that they set in newspapers and other publications, as well as promoted their cars through a variety of lifestyle ads.
1932 Auburn 8-98 Speedster. ad courtesy AACA Library
In 1929, a one-year wonder called the Auburn Cabin Speedster was produced that banked on the rapidly growing interest in aviation. Used as a promotional model for the auto shows, it was unfortunately consumed in a tent fire that completely destroyed all of the cars in the 1929 Los Angeles Auto Show.
1929 Auburn Cabin Speedster, which incorporated streamlining principles, an infant science at this time, as well as aviation technology (lightness, aviation instruments), all to promote Auburn’s goal of planning for the future of transportation. ad courtesy AACA Library
The 1929 sales year had also gone up in flames, and so for 1930 Auburn discontinued its Speedster line as it rethought its sales strategy. Successive years brought out restyled examples whose purpose was to reify the company’s sales performance.
Al Leamy had been hired away from Marmon in 1928 to help design the Duesenberg Model J and the L-29 Cord, all part of the Cord Corporation. Then Leamy was assigned to update the Auburn lines, producing a Speedster for 1929, and in 1931 Auburn rolled out the updated Model 8-98 Speedster. Overall, Auburn sales exploded from a sales slump of only 13,000 total units in 1930 to 32,000 sold in 1931! No doubt the flashy Auburn Speedster was part of that success.
1932 Auburn 12 Speedster. catalog image courtesy AACA Library
Sales again plummeted in 1932, and once again a new designer was hired to revamp the lines and come up with something new. Auburn brought in Gordon Buehrig to reconfigure unsold 1933 Auburn Speedster bodies with a new look. Both the front and rear were completely restyled to create one of the most timeless designs of the 1930s, the 1935 Model 851 Supercharged Speedster. The inline-eight used a Lycoming 279.9 cubic inch engine that produced 150 horsepower and 232 foot-pounds of torque.
1935 Auburn 851 Supercharged Speedster. ad courtesy AACA Library
As attractive as they looked, and as much attention as they probably drew, Auburn Speedsters were a noticeably impractical mode of transport, a happy and fun car that was out of place during a period of great unhappiness. The production 8-851 Speedsters that did not sell in 1935 were simply rebadged as 8-852 models for 1936, and it is estimated that only 185 Speedsters were built and sold in 1935 and 1936. Overall sales for the company collapsed to 1500 in 1936, and Auburn was forced to halt production.
Conclusion
The 1930s were not kind to speedster production and sales. Then again, this period was not kind to most any independent auto manufacturer. Those that survived did so by sheer size or by nestling within a conglomerate. Those that didn’t headed off into the sunset.
Despite having beautiful lifestyle ads, placement in major magazines, testimonial backing from big name people of the day, and advanced technology, Franklin somehow couldn’t make it past the thirties. So true of many a fine car company… We’ll look at Franklin in a special post - what a car company! ad courtesy H. H. Franklin Club
The speedster as a concept was mothballed as the world recovered from economic hard times and then plunged itself into years of conflict and war. Very few cars survived the scrap drives that fed the giant war machine; speedsters certainly did not. Miniscule as they had been in actual numbers sold, it is a miracle that any speedsters from this period are still around to show on the field and inspire modern design.
All, however, is not lost! Speedsters are still being produced, but in far fewer numbers. We’ll look at that in a future series.
Next post will begin a look at some of the lesser-known companies which made a classic speedster. Join us as we forge ahead to another year of covering this significant type of motorcar!