Cord “Westchester”

Posted on November 28, 2022 by classiccarweekly

1937 Cord 812 Sedan

Offered by Mecum | Kissimmee, Florida | January 4-15, 2022

E.L. Cord’s 810 (for 1936 and 812 for 1937) remains a pretty remarkable car. An early front-wheel-drive car, it featured an independent front suspension and was offered in a variety of body styles. Superchargers were also an option.

This naturally aspirated sedan is powered by a 4.7-liter Lycoming V8 that was rated at 125 horsepower. Shifting is through a four-speed pre-selector transaxle where you select the gear you want and then hit the clutch, which completes an electrical circuit, which then completes the shift. Fancy stuff.

The Westchester sedan was the most common version of the 810/812. It featured a fastback body style. There was also a Beverly sedan, which featured a bustle back trunk. The auction catalog calls this a Westchester, but it has a bustle back trunk. So it’s a Beverly… unless it’s a Westchester that has been modified later on. But it also seems to have a Westchester’s interior. At any rate, you can read more about it here.

Update: Not sold.

Cord 812 SC Sportsman

Posted on May 19, 2020 by classiccarweekly

1937 Cord 812 SC Sportsman

Offered by RM Sotheby’s | Elkhart, Indiana | October 23-24, 2020

This is the ultimate iteration of the Cord 810/812. Introduced in 1936, the front-wheel-drive 810 was styled by Gordon Buehrig and featured an independent front suspension and a design like nothing else in the world at the time. The car was renamed the 812 for 1937, which was more-or-less an attempt to spruce up the fact that they had a lot of leftover 810s from the year before. Supercharging also became an option in 1937.

The supercharger bumped power from the 4.7-liter Lycoming V8 to 170 horsepower. Two different wheelbases were used in ’37, and four body styles were offered on the shorter of the two, including the $2,585 Sportsman two-door cabriolet. The supercharger bumped the price by another $2,000, which is insane. Imagine adding 77% of the car’s price back on as options. Oh wait, you can probably do that on a Porsche.

Reliability issues early in production really put a wet blanket over the initial enthusiasm for the model, which was originally envisioned as a “baby Duesenberg.” About 3,000 examples were built in total, only 64 of which were reportedly SC Sportsmans. This one is now going to sell at no reserve. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $257,600.

RM in Arizona Highlights

Posted on February 3, 2012 by classiccarweekly

RM’s big sale in Arizona (almost two weeks ago… we’ve kind of had a backlog of auction results to publish and they were the last to publish their results online). As I’m looking back at it, we featured a number of cars from this auction including their top seller: this 1957 Ferrari 410 Superamerica that sold for $1,815,000. The second highest-selling car was the first car we featured, the most fantastic looking BMW 507 Roadster I’ve ever laid eyes on. It sold for $990,000. RM sold 90% of their cars for a total of $25.6 million.

A trio of pre-1905 American cars all sold, including our featured 1901 Duryea Four-Wheel Phaeton that was purchased by Mr. Car Crazy, Barry Meguiar for $96,250. Also sold were the 1903 Waverely Electric Surrey for $110,000 and the 1903 Stearns Suburban for $82,500. One of two cars we featured that did not sell was the 1913 Pathfinder Touring car, which was bid to $90,000.

A giant 1956 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham Town Car Concept sold for $258,500, missing its reserve by $50,000. This car came from the John O’Quinn collection and had gone unsold at at least one other RM event.

From the 1950s we featured a 1953 Nash-Healey and a 1954 Allard K3. The Nash-Healey brought $71,500, just short of my projection and the Allard was a relative steal at $57,750 – less than half of what a similar car (or the same one) was listed as “for sale” for a few months back.

Other pre-war cars that sold were the very rare Brewster-Knight that sold for $88,000. And that wonderful, purple Isotta Fraschini sold for $407,000 – dead on what I said it would bring (no I’m not bragging). Also sold was this amazing 1937 Cord 812 SC Sportsman Convertible Coupe. One of 64 – yours for $385,000.

Supercar fans could have had their choice of our featured Tom Walkinshaw Racing prepared 1993 Jaguar XJ220 S that sold for $230,000. Or the always popular Ferrari F40, this a 1991 model that brought an astounding $781,000.

The other Ferrari we featured, a 1983 512 BBi sold for $96,250. And the other Jaguar, a 1967 Series I E-Type went unsold. There was another very rare old Ferrari at this sale, a 1952 342 America Coupe Speciale by Pinin Farina – one of six built and one of only three coupes built by Pinin Farina. It sold for $632,500.

There was a Duesenberg Model J sold at this sale and I’ve said previously that we’d feature every Model J Duesenberg that comes up for sale if at all possible. Well, we ran out of time before the sale. Once we clear the backlog and get caught up we’ll be sure to have a rundown of that car.

For complete auction results, click here.