Genuine 1936 Auburn Speedster, photographed by Jack Criswell, with fashion model Miss Alabama USA Haleigh Stidham, for a magazine, along with some shots of Haleigh with a 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, and Ford Shelby GT 350, for a calendar. Thanks to Zoe's, HESCO Performance & Barber Motorsports Museum

Images of Muscle Car, Classic Automobile, Auburn Speedster, Retro, Fashion & Glamour, Glamor Model, Birmingham, Alabama

Dashing Aviatrix Haleigh Trueheart, All-American Ab (Jenkins) & the 1936 Auburn Speedster     A 1930’s Muscle Car? Text & photos © AdPix.Biz Model: Haleigh Stidham Auburn Speedster courtesy of Hesco (www.hesco.us) You might connect these images of Miss Alabama USA Haleigh Stidham, posing so elegantly in front of a stately mansion and this genuine 1936 Auburn Boattail Speedster, with such reserved and stoic historical figures as Ettore Bugatti, or Sir Frederick Henry Royce.  And you would be partially right, especially for a car that cost $2,000 in 1936 – the equivalent of twice most folks’ yearly salary. It’s quite aristocratic, just sitting there beaming class. But note the dash plaque certifying that the car has been driven over 100 mph. That’s a little rambunctious, isn’t it? So, OK, it can go over 100 mph, and yes this was a huge deal in 1936 – even more so than today’s Bugatti hitting 1,000 hp. But to memorialize such a thing with a plaque? A bit reckless you say? Look even closer – the plaque is signed by Ab Jenkins. David Abbott “Ab” Jenkins was a wild man pioneer back when America was still young and had much to prove. He established Bonneville as a racing center long before Bonneville was the internationally-recognized household name it is today. Ab was a young Morman carpenter who, still today, holds a record for breaking and holding more speed records than anyone else. While Mayor of Salt Lake City he piloted the famous Duesenberg Mormon Meteor, powered by a 1,750 cubic inch Curtiss fighter plane engine and Ab also covered 2,700 miles in 24 hours (he drove the whole 24 hours himself) in a Pierce-Arrow V-12. Ab first made the news in 1925 when he shocked everyone by beating a special excursion train, racing beside it in a car, by over five minutes. Back then, trains were simply unbeatable, especially by something as frail as a horseless carriage. Jenkins set several records for Auburn in 1935, and also drove for Studebaker and Duesenberg, making it at one time the “fastest car on the planet.” One colorful story has Jenkins driving with one hand while shaving with a straight razor so he would look good for the crowds at the end of the race. Jenkins is a bedrock part of Americana. He was a brave pioneer full of ambition at what this country could do, back in the heady days of optimism and confidence. Auburn connects Ab with another unusual character – Errett Lobban Cord, a young entrepreneur who saved Auburn, and connected Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg in our rich history of American cars. Cord was also quite a character. With investment help from chewing gum king William Wrigley, another large American figure, Cord turned the ailing Auburn company around when he was barely 30 years old by selling their large back inventory. He did this by chopping some tops off and adding extra chrome. Sounds like the first “blingmeister:”  “Funkmaster Errett Cord.”  Cord ended up buying most of the company, and he was such a sales wizard that he set another record for Auburn, selling about 30,000 units after the stock market crash, which everyone thought would be the end of such expensive cars. In fact, Auburn apparently did eventually fold as a result of the Crash, but not until 1936, just before Cord was investigated by federal securities authorities. Like so many of these stories, it is not clear whether Cord was really doing something fraudulent with the stock, or was simply another victim of an ambitious prosecutor. We’re left with an unfair assumption of guilt, and a shamed American icon. Fortunately, this icon left us with some gorgeous machinery, like the Speedster. Auburn made cars from 1904 to 1937. It was formerly the Eckhart Carriage Company in Auburn, Indiana. They had made carriages, the ones with horses, for about fifty years before then. They sold to Cord in 1924, and the company later partnered with Duesenberg.

This Speedster also connects Duesenberg to another large figure in American history, the brilliant young designer Gordon Miller Buehrig who designed this Speedster, also Duesenbergs, and Packards, Stutzs, the famous Cord 810/812, and later the Ford 1951 Victoria Coupe and the Continental Mark II, a post-war benchmark. Buehrig was hired to “freshen up” the design, but also set a new standard, with a raked windshield and torpedo-shaped fenders. He invented the chrome flexible side pipes now associated with supercharging. Cord was on a tear. He also owned Lycoming, the famous aircraft engine company, and this took advantage of the mystique created by such luminaries as Howard Hughes and Charles Lindberg. Cord offered 4.9 liter (298 cu in) in-line V-8s and V-12s (remember, just ten years earlier some cars had only one cylinder). The Schwitzer-Cummins supercharger jumped the horsepower to 150, but it still weighed only 3,750 pounds – a lightweight in the 1930’s. His competition was the Stutz Black Hawk, which cost $5,000 and was heavier. Cord was a pioneer in selling performance cars. It had Lockheed drums with hydraulic assist, and covered 0-60 in 15 seconds. (You’re not impressed? Have you timed a locomotive?) The suspension was not independent, and it uses leaf springs, even in the front. It is 194.4 inches long, 71.5 inches wide and 58.0 inches high. The little compartment on the right behind the passenger door was for storing golf bags in the carpeted trunk. Only 500 Speedsters were made over the years, maybe. What is certain is the difficulty of finding one. This one’s owner purchased it years ago and is not parting with it. It sat in a museum for decades. Average genuine Speedsters sold at auction in 1977 for $66,000 and for over $400,000 in 2004. Replicas of this car can cost $100,000. Enter another famous American car icon, GM’s Harley Earl, who was motivated by what Ab Jenkins had done driving Auburns and Duesenbergs to fire the public’s imagination. In 1957 Earl hired then-73 year old Jenkins to debut a new car with a modified 285 hp high compression engine and four-barrel carburetor. Ab posted a new 24-hour speed record in new a Pontiac called a Bonneville. With muscle cars so hot, Pontiac likes to point to their history with Jenkins. And they trumpet that they may have made the first muscle car, the GTO in the mid-60’s. May because the definition of muscle car is not certain. Some include the Chrysler 300’s in the 1950’s and some go back to 1949. A muscle car is apparently a domestic-production car with more horsepower than its original design, and is better at straight-line performance. These are features shared, and pioneered, by the Auburn Speedster. The first muscle car in 1936? That should get Madison Avenue in a titter.

Auburns also signify shifts in the use of the car, in fashion, and in ladies’ role in society. Before then, cars were still more toys than tools. In the 1930’s about 30% of all car wrecks were caused by mechanical failures (Today the number is closer to 2%) Before power seats and power brakes, drivers had to understand such things as spark advance and be able to fix it – it would need it soon.   Roads were bad, and that’s not just bad surfacing. The traffic controls were not uniform, when they even existed. Gas stations were barely common. Brave motorists bought gasoline from barrels in hardware and grocery stores. MOTOR magazine sold a 448-page book entitled "All the Really Vital Repair Data Found in Every Shop Manual Every Factory Has Put Out Since 1930"- for $4. It was simply not proper for ladies to be motoring around. In prior decades, they wore their fanciest outfits with tight lacing and delicate shoes. A manservant cranked the car and wiped mud off the parasols. The Depression had lowered skirts and subdued fashions generally. No loud colors. Katherine Hepburn said she wore “boyish” outfits because "I wear my sort of clothes to save me the trouble of deciding which clothes to wear." They were getting a little wild by 1936 – women could show those sexy ankles. Hubba hubba. Ladies followed the lead of bold aviatrixes like Amelia Earhart, Winifred Spooner (you remember Winifred, of course) and Ruth Darrow. Don’t forget “Penelope Pitstop,” the ‘60’s cartoon about a lady racer heroine of the ‘30’s. A book about Darrow was penned by the same author of the Nancy Drew series which also started at about that time, as were the first appearance, officially, of Girl Scout cookies. This was a formative period for the ladies. By the '30's, the gals could wear boots and goggles and check their own engine oil! (this latter task they somehow quietly but brilliantly abdicated back to the men) They didn't know it, but they were preparing for the “Can Do” attitude the ladies displayed to help win our second world war. What a great period in America’s past. It built our character and revealed entrepreneurs, pioneers, hotrods, and ladies’ independence. And you thought it was just a gorgeous car.