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The 1930 Auburn Boat Tail, Torpedo Convertible was designed by Gordon Miller Buehrig. Born in 1904 in Mason City, Illinois. At 20, he got his first job in the automobile industry as chief engineer of the Gotfredson Body Company. In the next five years, he gained experience at Dietrich Incorporated. Packard, General Motors and Stutz. When he was only 25, Gordon Buehrig became the chief body designer for the most prestigious automobile in the United States, Duesenberg. Buehrig became very close to the Duesenberg brothers and in fact was invited to live in the home of Fred's family and did so for over three years. Well known for his fabulous Duesenberg designs, he also did design work for Auburn, and Cord among others.
While, the Auburn looks very "European", it was actually an American based company named after its home town of Auburn, Indiana. Brothers Frank and Morris Eckhart, of the Eckhart Carriage Co. decided to enter the automobile business at the turn of the century. Their car enjoyed limited local success and their first car was a one cylinder, chain drive runabout. To get more horesepower, they moved to a 2 cylinder engine in 1905 and a four cylinder engine in 1909. They did well in sales with about 2,500 sales each year until about 1916 when financial difficulty caused them to look for assistance. It came from a group of Chicago investors that included chewing gum magnate, William Wrigley, Jr. The infusion of cash helped out but by 1924, production was almost stopped and the factory had several hundred unsold cars.
Auburn, like so many other regional manufacturers, was on the brink of disappearing, until it was saved by the arrival of a brash young man named Errett Lobban Cord. Although only 30, Cord already was somewhat of a legend based on his success selling Moon cars in Chicago. He was hired as Auburn's general manager with an option to buy into the company. Cord's first action was to get rid of those unsold cars. He had the roofs of the touring cars lowered, had them painted in bright colours, and dressed them up with the generous use of nickel plating. The cars were soon all sold at a good profit, and by 1926 Cord was president of the company.
The 1929 stock market crash hurt Auburn's 1930 sales, but they rebounded to over 29,000 in 1931, its highest year ever. Buoyed by this success, Cord dropped the Auburn's six-cylinder engine, kept the straight eight, and for 1932 joined the likes of Cadillac, Packard and Pierce-Arrow by bringing out a V-12. To fit the existing chassis, the 12 had a very narrow vee angle, and unusual horizontal valves. The optional Columbia two-speed axle gave it six forward speeds. Building on its reputation for good value for money, Auburn stunned the industry by offering its 12-cylinder car for under $1,000. By 1932 with the Depression worsening, Auburn sales slid to 11,646 and the company lost $1 million. It carried its '32 models over into 1933, and sales dropped to 5,038. In spite of new aerodynamic styling for 1934, and reviving the six cylinder engine and dropping the 12, sales kept falling. As a rescue mission Duesenberg's chief stylist, Gordon Buehrig, and chief engineer August Duesenberg, were brought in. Duesenberg, working with Lycoming and Schwitzer-Cummins, developed a centrifugal supercharger for the Auburn eight. It was driven through a planetary friction drive, and raised peak horsepower to 150 at 4000 rpm. Buehrig revived the boat-tailed Speedster (it had been dropped for 1934) and designed a raked windshield and torpedo-shaped fenders, and removed the running boards. He ran four huge chrome-plated flexible exhaust pipes out of the left side of the hood, a styling cue that would immediately become associated with supercharging. Racer Ab Jenkins took a supercharged Speedster to the Bonneville salt flats in Utah and set 70 speed records, including 805 km (500 miles) at 166 km/h (103 mph). Auburn therefore became the world's fastest stock car. The associated publicity lifted sales somewhat, although not enough for a profit. When Auburn sold only 1,844 cars in 1936 production ceased, and another grand old name disappeared from the automotive scene.