Reminiscing about the Cord 810: The World’s First Front-Wheel Drive Car
The brand and manufacturer no longer exist, but the story of the 1935 Cord 810 still fascinates automotive history buffs.
The Cord 810 was produced in the US in several front-wheel drive versions and these cars are no longer running. One of the major auto manufacturers that appeared in the history of the American automobile industry was Auburn, with the Cord model, a brand that no longer exists. After the great depression of 1929, Auburn was determined to design a beautiful and technologically groundbreaking car to stay ahead of the industry, according to the Detroit Free Press.
In August 1935, the company nearly completed the Cord 810 model, with the biggest breakthrough being the front-wheel drive system, a solution unprecedented in cars at that time. This car model was expected to launch in January 1936 at the New York Auto Show, the largest car show in the world at that time.
However, then US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt requested that the opening date of the exhibition be moved up two months earlier, to November 2, 1935. The reason is that he wants to promote the launch of new car models next year, so the car model must appear two months before the first day of that year. That is also the reason why today, new cars of next year’s series often appear from November of the previous year in the US.
The President’s wish made it difficult for the engineers at Auburn, because the regulations of the New York Auto Expo stipulate that commercial vehicle models that want to be exhibited must have at least 100 complete units assembled. In addition, the engineers who built the Cord 810 did not have the millions of dollars in working cap
ital that GM, Ford and Chrysler had, nor enough time to build an assembly line.
Mechanical problems made it difficult to build 100 Cord 810s, mainly due to lack of testing time, causing the front drive system to repeatedly malfunction. After the New York Auto Show in November 1935, the front-wheel drive system on the Cord 810 was canceled due to complex manufacturing and poor quality.
The story of the Auburn automaker’s Cord brand ended when World War II broke out in Europe. New brands like Jeep grow and become legendary later.
