1937 Cord 812 Cabriolet

After 1951 Jaguar XK 120, another great lot next month (11 - 12 October) at Hershey (Pennsylvania, US), RM Sotheby's will auction this beautiful 1937 Cord 812 Cabriolet for a price of $US 140,000.

History of the Cord 812

The Cord 812 with its predecessor the 810 model was a luxury car produced between 1936 and 1937 by Cord Automobile, based in Connersville, Indiana. It was the first American front wheel drive car with independent front suspension (like the Citroën Traction) based on the design of Gordon Buehrig.

The Cord 810 was presented in 1935 at the NY Auto Show, huge sensation on the stand with a lot of commands with promising Christmas delivery. But many production's problems especially on the semi automatic transmission, at Christmas, no car was produced. The first delivery just came in February 1936. In 1937, the Supercharged 912 model was released with chrome exhaust pipes mounted on each side. But reliability problems ended the production in 1937 with 3000 examples built.

This model was owned for 66 years by the Canadian Cord enthusiast & engineer Harold Allsop. He made some modifications in order to stabilize the 812 especially the electrical system

Technical specification

With the problematic semi-automatic 4 speed transmission, the Cord 810 has a 4,739 cc Lycoming V8 engine producing 125 hp. For the upgraded 812 model, the horsepower was raised to 170 hp.