1/10/19 -- Many people outside of Indiana may not know
what a seminal role it played in our country’s car history, but we learned a
ton about that today when our Drive Home IV team held a cars and coffee and was
given tours of both the National Auto and Truck Museum and the adjacent Auburn
Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum in Auburn. Joined by State Farm agents Morgan
Hefty and his aunt Joyce Hefty-Covell as well as Joyce’s office manager, Katie
Chrisman, we had a truly fascinating look at Indiana auto and truck history.
It’s hard to begin to capture all we saw,
but here are some highlights:
Surprisingly, there were 13 different
auto production companies at locations throughout Indiana in the early part of
the 20th Century.
The Eckhart Carriage Company was started
in 1874 and evolved into the Auburn Automobile Co. in Auburn. The buildings
that house the museums we toured were the actual factories, parts supply facilities,
and showrooms for Auburn and Cord cars that were produced from about 1903 into
the 1930s.
Early teamsters (think wagons, horses, mules and stuff) didn’t
like the first trucks because they feared for their jobs, so they would throw
rocks at them. This caused one creative International truck designer to devise a radiator behind the engine to keep it from
getting damaged by cranky teamsters.
This 1925 Miller Junior Eight race car
featured front wheel drive; and it inspired E.L. Cord to hire Harry Miller to design
the first front-wheel drive American production vehicle, the Cord L-29.
This beauty is a 1932 Auburn 8-100A
speedster that set Auburn apart as the only U.S. company building production
speedsters at the time. It had a whopping 100 hp and cost $1,295.
This is the fourth oldest Ford car in
the world. It’s a 1903 Model A Tonneau and No. 121 off the production line. Its engine (built by the
Dodge Brothers) produced 8 hp, and it cost around $750.
This is a 1953 GM Futureliner. Only a
dozen of these monsters were built as part of a promotional effort to tour the
country and display the highest technology at the time (including microwave
ovens and stereophonic sound). It was originally built with a glass bubble over
the cockpit, but the driver got so baked by the sun that a roof was later
installed.
This is a 1930s safety vehicle used in
Portland, OR for catastrophes. It featured a 1,000-cubic inch engine and came
complete with stove and running water, an operating table for injuries (yikes),
and external loudspeakers for communication.
This is the real Dukes of Hazzard General Lee
car that did the audacious jump during the show’s intro. It has a reinforced
frame, and our guide said they had to load 700 lbs of concrete into the trunk
to ensure the General didn’t nosedive into the ground. Another interesting
fact: More than 300 1969 Dodge Chargers were used over the years in filming the
series.
Finally, this is John Dillinger’s tommy
gun that – in a real gutsy move -- he stole from the Auburn police department
after he broke out of jail in Lima, OH in 1933. When Dillinger was arrested in
Tucson, AZ the next year, the gun was confiscated and donated to the FBI. The
FBI ultimate returned the gun to the Auburn Police Department in 2014.
Again, all of this just a small smattering
of the great auto history in Auburn and – between that and the hospitality
of my new State Farm agent friends -- as we rolled out of town I was thinking I
can’t wait to come back.
Working our way north, we came across
several Amish folks trundling down the highway at a good clip in their wagons before we
traveled across the Michigan state line and had a nice lunch at Bud’s in
Schoolcraft.
Another hour or so and our Drive Home IV
caravan coasted into Shelbyville’s Bay Pointe Inn before dark. With excitement
and anticipation mounting, we’re off to Birmingham for the final leg of our
journey tomorrow!
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