I never really understood the division that exists between the “car men” and the “motorcycle men”, I like cars and bikes and see no point in restricting my tastes dependent on the number of wheels a vehicle has. If it’s loud and it goes fast, I want the keys.
This car, the 1929 Cord L-29 Special Coupe, is one of those motorised industrial design masterpieces that allows all people, regardless of their wheel-number-preference, to stand side by side with their mouths open. Before tentatively checking their wallets to see if they, by some miracle, have enough small pieces of green paper to bid on it.
Originally designed in 1929 by the infamous Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky the car was a one off design for Cord, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The Count selected the long-wheelbase chassis of the Cord L-29 for his project, he famously kept almost nothing of the original car, just the front and rear bumpers.
The Cord L-29 chassis was fitted with a 125 bhp, 298.6 cu., straight-8, front wheel drive layout which remained unaltered. de Sakhnoffsky spent months working on the body work of the concept car, by the time the design was finished the metalworkers only had 9 weeks to complete the car before it was shipped off to Europe on the Leviathan ocean liner to be shown at the 3 top concours shows in Europe, in Paris, Monaco and Britain.
The Count’s Cord L-29 Special Coupe went on to win the coveted Medal of Honour at all 3 events and became the first and one of the only American cars in history to do so.
The Count’s Cord L-29 Special Coupe went on to win the coveted Medal of Honour at all 3 events and became the first and one of the only American cars in history to do so. On return to the USA the car fell victim, as many did, to The Great Depression and spent time in a few private collections before largely disappearing off the radar into a private museum.
After being rediscovered in 1986 and restored, the Cord L-29 SC has been a popular feature at motor shows around the United States and in 2008 won the highly sought after and hotly contested Best in Class for the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg class at the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance.
If you happen to be a millionaire with taste and fancy yourself behind the wheel, the Count’s Cord will be hitting the auction block at the RM Auction at Amelia Island on March the 10th, click here if you’d like to view the official auction page.
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Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
