On September 20, 1936, record-breaking aviator Amelia Earhart posed for a photo in front of her Cord convertible and Lockheed Electra airplane. Finally, all three disappeared. Although Earhart and her Lockheed are still missing, her Cord has since resurfaced.
The Cord 810 (later known as the 812) debuted in late 1935. While most cars of this era were coachbuilt and relied on a front-mounted engine to power the rear wheels, the Cord of front engine broke. the mold adopting a unibody construction and a front-wheel drive configuration. This combination gave the 810 a low and captivating appearance.
Cord supplemented this with other state-of-the-art features such as forward-opening doors with hidden hinges (exposed hinges were the norm). Instead of a chrome-laden grille, the 810 featured subtle horizontal louvers.
It also introduced hidden headlights to the automotive industry. When not in use, the Cord’s headlights folded into the front fenders, a design taken from the retractable landing lights of Stinson aircraft.
Stylist Gordon Buehrig had previously designed the Stutz cars that raced at Le Mans and the Duesenberg Model J, but the Cord was his most daring work.
“Even beyond the styling, a well-restored Cord is just a really fun car to drive,” said Travis LaVine of LaVine Restorations, the shop that restored Earhart’s Cord. “People see these cars as art, but they are functional, very stable for road cruising and [have] plenty of V-8 power.”
LaVine grew up with Cords, as both of his parents were involved with the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Club (ACD). To put into perspective how well LaVine Restorations restored Earhart’s cord, consider the fact that the car received a seemingly mathematically impossible score of 1002 out of 1000 points at the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg festival. ACD’s expert judges reviewed every microscopic detail of the car. Credit a handful of rare accessories for extra points received.
lost and found
Having been the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air (and only the second person to do so, she was also the first person to cross it twice), Earhart set her sights on going around the world. On May 21, 1937, she and navigator Fred Noonan left Oakland, California and headed east.
After traveling 22,000 miles over several weeks, they landed in New Guinea for fuel and departed on July 2, 1937. They were never seen again.
Earhart’s husband, George Putnam, commissioned several expensive searches, but found nothing. In 1939, he had her declared officially dead and liquidated parts of her estate, including Corda.
The Earhart Cord was quite rare, being one of the last 200 cars built in 1936. So it was a mix of Cord 810 and 812 parts, although it was officially listed as a 1937 Cord 812.
This rarity did not translate into its preservation, as like many Cords in the post-war period, the 812 that was once owned by Earhart was neglected. The fact that few mechanics knew how to work on these American front-wheel-drive machines certainly didn’t make maintaining one any easier.
A collector who bought the Earhart Cord in the 1950s further complicated the matter by swapping parts between it and another Cord he owned. ACD members and other Cord enthusiasts knew that Earhart had a Cord 812 – the photo with the Lockheed was famous. Where the Cord and its parts were, however, was as great a mystery as Earhart’s own disappearance.
Enter Roy Foster, a Texan who had known the LaVine family through the ACD Club since the 1980s. For years, Foster had been searching for the Earhart Cord, getting closer to his goal with the 1992 purchase of a Cord with the V-8 from Earhart’s car. Foster found and purchased the Earhart Cord chassis in 2004. Getting there was the result of Foster’s endless hours searching for documents, a feat made even more difficult by a confusion of identity tags from when the car was split in the mid-20th century.
After putting the engine and chassis back together, Foster turned his attention to finding an administrator committed to bringing the Earhart Cord back to its former glory. Later, LaVine introduced Foster to Jack Boyd Smith Jr. Foster soon transferred ownership of the Earhart Cord to Smith, who entrusted LaVine with the restoration of the car.
Details of the past
“In this picture [with Earhart]there’s wear on one of the fenders,” said Jason Stoller, Earhart Cord’s restoration manager. “When we got it down to bare metal, you could see the crease in the fender.”
LaVine noted that both he and Stoller are former attorneys, and research is part of the fun of restoring classic cars. It’s a good thing, too, since the careful restoration of a historic vehicle is as much archeology as it is technical skill.
Approximately 10,000 hours of research went into making sure everything about the Earhart Cord was properly documented and period correct. LaVine Restorations’ connections with the ACD Club and the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum played a critical role.
These relationships helped LaVine land those aforementioned rare accessories that helped Earhart Cord achieve its 1002-point score at the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg festival.
For example, the car’s power steering knob (known as the suicide knob, Brodie knob, or neck knob), an accessory that the Cord carried under Earhart’s ownership, was an almost impossible-to-find part. The car’s compass was another rare accessory that took a while to track down. In total, it took 18 months to completely restore the Earhart Cord.
globe trotter
With its restoration complete, Earhart’s Cord made its initial public presentation at the 2021 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, where the Concours judges placed it second in the American Classic Class category. The Cord’s provenance even earned it a spot on the National Register of Historic Vehicles.
Since its reappearance, Earhart’s former Cord has toured the United States and abroad, even making an appearance at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Italy. There are plans to show the car on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in September and in London next year. Somehow it seems fitting that one of the last relics of a lost pioneer aviator continues to maintain the globe-trotting spirit of its original owner.
Collaborating editor
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, BC, Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden age of Japanese compact sports performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it’s racing. Walter Cronkite’s career or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He’s taught his two young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to perpetually buy Hot Wheels.
