The Cord 810 Could Be Had in Both FWD and RWD.

"TylerLinner" (tylerlinner1) 12/01/2016 at 20:10 • Filed to: CORD, AUBURN, GRAHAM-PAIGE, HUPMOBILE

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One iconic body, three manufacturers and two different drive axles. Outside of mid-engine racing homologations, I can’t think of a single other car available in such disparate configurations, or under more desperate circumstances.

Jack Snell, Flickr

The Cord 810 splashed onto the scene in late 1935 with its stunning Beuhrig body and futuristic front wheel drive, shown !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Quite oddly, the preselector transaxle sat in front of the 288 cubic engine Lycoming engine while axle shafts passed through holes in the frame rails.

Unfortunately, the Cord 810 was, put kindly, something short of a runaway success. After selling a few thousand rather unreliable examples over only two model years, Indiana-based Auburn sold its body tooling to struggling Hupmobile in Detroit.

Hupp’s production was shut down at the time due to money, so the company ironically lacked necessary funds to produce the cars. This was no doubt due in part to the fact that each roof was stamped in seven separate pieces, then welded and filled by hand. Still, with such an advanced design, the car was still deemed worth building and Hupp was able to build a few prototypes to drum up orders.

Soon, Graham-Paige from Evansville, IN stepped in. The proud-but-broke manufacturer had often been forced to contract Continental to produce engines which had been designed in-house, and had even raised a few dollars by selling old production equipment and rights for its outdated Crusader to Nissan ( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ). Graham was reeling from a make-or-break model update that nearly put the company under; it and Hupmobile came to a potentially lucrative agreement- Graham would build cars with Hupp’s equipment.

After a lengthy nine-month delay, they made it work and Graham started production on the streamlined 1940 Hollywood.

Beam front axle and rear differential are visible

Using its own 217ci inline six engine, the Hollywood employed a conventional three speed manual transmission and live rear axle instead of Cord’s FWD V8 setup, accomodations for which contributed to the early production delays.

On the bright side, the Hollywood followed Cord’s lead in offering a supercharger. This bumped brake horsepower from 98 up to a formidable 120, both figures besting Ford’s flathead V8. The supercharged Lycoming V8 with 60 more cubic inches put out 125.

PleasurePhotos

Sold alongside their famous “sharknose” models

Holding up its end of the deal, Graham also produced the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! with a 245ci inline six Hupp engine and a handful more horsepower than the naturally aspirated Hollywood.

Kompressed

The cars were not successes, though, and fewer than 2,000 Graham Hollywoods of this generation were sold. Hupmobile moved merely 319 examples.

However, the greater story is quite remarkable and I recommend !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

There you have it. One body, three cars. Front wheel drive or rear wheel drive- take your pick!

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sm70- why not Duesenberg? > TylerLinner 12/01/2016 at 20:41

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I seem to recall there was a rover or MG sedan from the 00s that could be had as FWD, RWD, or AWD in varying years and trims.

Amoore100 > TylerLinner 12/01/2016 at 20:57

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You forgot one very special Cord! Ok, fine, that’s a different body...details...

ranwhenparked > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 12/01/2016 at 21:24

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The Rover 75 & MG ZT were FWD in 4 and 6-cylinder guises, and RWD in 8-cylinder form. No AWD though, BMW’s agreement with Ford prohibited MG Rover from using the Rover nameplate on anything with 4WD or AWD. Not that they really had the cash to develop such a thing anyway.

TylerLinner > ranwhenparked 12/02/2016 at 07:15

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Did they have different floor pans? It does look like the same exact body!

TylerLinner > Amoore100 12/02/2016 at 07:15

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Cord-sair?

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > TylerLinner 12/02/2016 at 11:10

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The Mercedes Benz Vito/Metris van is available with front, rear, or all wheel drive depending on the market.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_Vito

TylerLinner > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 12/02/2016 at 11:32

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Same model, same manufacturer, same time. Crazy! I wonder why they would do that.

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > TylerLinner 12/02/2016 at 12:06

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Market versatility I guess.

TylerLinner > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 12/02/2016 at 14:21

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Considering Fi- Dodge has been selling lots of FWD full size vans recently in the US, I can’t imagine it makes that much of a difference. But maybe it does to some people?

ranwhenparked > TylerLinner 12/02/2016 at 18:38

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The 75's body shell was designed with a tunnel for structural rigidity, so it didn’t take that much reworking to convert to RWD - other than the obvious of a whole new rear axle and suspension setup.

The new rear suspension actually meant that MG Rover didn’t have to pay BMW royalties on the V8 cars, since the FWD models used BMW’s Z-axle design, so the cost savings on that helped offset some of the cost of reengineering. Of course, they did have the new cost of buying Ford’s engines and transmissions.

TylerLinner > ranwhenparked 12/03/2016 at 18:52

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I guess it makes sense when the car is designed from the outset to work with drivetrains from multiple suppliers and to be sold in multiple markets.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > TylerLinner 01/09/2017 at 05:59

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Love the Cord :) such a great piece of innovative (and beautiful) design.

Another odd mix of FWD/RWD is the Triumph 1300/1500/Dolomite family. Originally FWD with an IRS rear end, then RWD with a live rear axle (sold alongside a FWD with a live rear axle that looked identical).

They even produced a 4WD gearbox that could have been mated to the disparate bits to make an AWD passenger car, but never put 2 and 2 together for a production car...

They also had a RWD IRS setup from their larger saloon that as far as I know is close enough to the FWD IRS rear that you could bolt it up to have yet another variant, but again they didn’t bring that to market.