Dave rolled his beautiful, all original, 1932 Auburn 8-100A Cabriolet in to our World Famous Cars and Coffee Folsom last fall, much to our delight. Original sticker price of the car back in 1932 was a whopping $1,195.00! That’s $18,840.51 in today’s economy, which was an enormous amount of money when one considers the country was in the middle of the Great Depression (1929-1939).
Stats: Dave’s Cabriolet weighs 3,585 lbs., has a wheelbase of 127″, is powered by a Lycoming Straight Eight 100 HP @3400 rpm engine. It has automatic Bijur Chassis Lubricator Startix (Automatic engine starting), has adjustable shocks, dual ratio rear axle free wheeling transmission. The total production for Auburns in 1932 was 11,145 units; of this production, the total Cabriolets was only 1,297.
He bought the car approximately 10 years ago. After acquiring the car, Dave had it taken down to ground zero, had it certified by Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg (ACD) then took it down to the ACD meet at Morrow Bay, where he won Best of Show. All that is fantastic on its own, but in addition; and in my opinion, one of the coolest elements of Dave’s and his car’s story lies with what went on before he bought the Auburn from the previous owner. The story goes like this:
The previous owner’s mother bought him an Auburn when he was a teenager (lucky boy). While the kid and his buddies were out cruising around in their cars, the kid totals his Auburn out. Many years passed, the boy went to college, got married, and raised his family. All the while, he swore he would get himself another Auburn one day (one can assume his mother didn’t buy him a replacement one).
Eventually, that time came, and he went out and bought himself another Auburn. He came home with it, and told his wife that he had bought it. The wife was livid. She had a bit of a tirade, yelling and screaming, and finally stormed into another room. Several minutes later, she comes out waving a pink piece of paper in her hand, and hotly declares, “I just bought you one for your birthday!” The pink piece of paper was the pink slip to Dave’s 1932 Cabriolet featured in this article! I can only surmise that the wife had better taste than he did, and that the one he bought wasn’t as nice, so he sold that one. Or perhaps he just needed to keep the peace. What a great wife!
“How did you manage to get a hold of it?”, I asked Dave. The answer: the previous owner passed away, in 2000, and the children weren’t interested in keeping it, so they listed it for sale, and the rest is history.
For a bit of background history on the Auburn: In 1919, the Auburn Automobile Company was struggling financially, so the company was sold to a group of six Chicago investors; one of them being William Wrigley Jr., of Chewing gum and baseball fame. In 1924, the company offered Erret Lobban Cord a top management position; Cord was under 30 years old at the time. In 1926 E.L. Cord added Duesenberg to his Auburn Automobile Company, from the Eckhart family. The Auburn-Duesenberg name was created in 1936. The Auburn Automobile Company closed its doors in 1937.
Thank you, Dave, for taking the time to share your story with me and bringing this gorgeous automobile to our World Famous Cars and Coffee Folsom for the rest of us to enjoy, if for only just a few magical moments.
Photos and story by Carol Marcopulos
