Why do some speedsters succeed in the marketplace and others don’t? Many factors are involved: the times, the economy, customer desires, not to mention the company politics producing an example. This is a case study of two that were produced in the 1950s: one succeeded, while the other failed. image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Pretty hard to lose a complete car, much less a show-winning, heart-stopping speedster concept such as the 1931 Cord L-29 Speedster! But someone did…

Here’s its story.

Auburns and Duesenbergs were about to be woebegones by the mid-1920s before E.L. Cord saved both from bankruptcy and oblivion. Under Cord’s leadership, both companies would produce timeless speedsters. This is their tale.

The Kissel Motor Car Company produced three generations of speedsters in its short but impactful 25 years of production.

The Roaring Twenties put the luxury car on the map, and this post discusses its effect: the luxo speedster movement in automotive design.

Sport bodies evolved from the need for more safety and comfort. This post tells their early history.

The E-M-F story concludes with this last-hurrah 1912 Flanders 20 Speedster!

E-M-F: an early twentieth century auto company with so much promise and so much talent. Caught up in egoistic bickering and tangled legal webs, it still managed to produce some emblematic speedsters before breaking apart!

The cutdown speedster derived its name from street slang. Read this post to find out more!