On September 20, 1936, record-setting aviator Amelia Earhart posed for a picture in front of her Cord convertible and Lockheed Electra airplane. All three eventually vanished. 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. Whereas most cars of this era were of the body-on-frame type and relied on a front-mounted engine to power their rear wheels, the front-engine Cord broke the mold by adopting unibody construction and a front-wheel-drive setup. This combination netted the 810 a head-turning low-slung look.
Cord complemented this with other state-of-the-art features such as forward-opening doors with hidden hinges (exposed hinges were then 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 cribbed from the retractable landing lights of Stinson airplanes.
Stylist Gordon Buehrig had previously designed 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’re functional, very stable for highway cruising, and [have] lots 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 thoroughly LaVine Restorations restored Earhart’s Cord, consider the fact the car received a seemingly mathematically impossible score of 1002 out of 1000 points at the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Festival. Expert ACD judges went over the car’s every microscopic detail. Credit a handful of rare accessories for the 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 circumnavigating the globe. On May 21, 1937, she and navigator Fred Noonan left Oakland, California, and headed east.
After covering 22,000 miles over several weeks, they touched down in New Guinea for fuel, departing on July 2, 1937. No one ever saw them again.
Earhart’s husband, George Putnam, commissioned several expensive searches, but nothing turned up. In 1939, he had her officially declared dead and liquidated parts of her estate, including the Cord.
The Earhart Cord was quite rare, being one of the last 200 cars built in 1936. It was thus a mix of Cord 810 and 812 parts, though it was officially listed as a 1937 Cord 812.
This rarity didn’t translate to its preservation, as like many Cords in the postwar period, the 812 formerly owned by Earhart was neglected. The fact that few mechanics knew how to work on these front-drive American machines certainly didn’t make maintaining one any easier.
A collector who purchased 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 owned a Cord 812—the photo with the Lockheed was famous. Where the Cord and its parts were, though, was as big of 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, inching closer to his goal with the 1992 purchase of a Cord fit with the V-8 from Earhart’s car. Foster found and purchased the Earhart Cord’s chassis in 2004. Getting this far was the result of Foster’s endless hours digging through documents, a feat made all the more difficult by a muddling of ID tags from when the car was split apart in the middle of the 20th century.
Having brought the engine and chassis back together, Foster turned his attention to finding a steward committed to bringing the Earhart Cord back to its former glory. LaVine subsequently introduced Foster to Jack Boyd Smith Jr. Soon, Foster relinquished ownership of the Earhart Cord to Smith, who entrusted LaVine with restoring the car.
Details of the Past
“In that photo [with Earhart], there’s a scuff on one of the fenders,” said Jason Stoller, manager of the Earhart Cord’s restoration. “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. Good thing, too, as the accurate restoration of a historic vehicle is as much archaeology as it is technical skill.
Roughly 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 with the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum played a critical role.
These relationships helped LaVine get those rare, aforementioned accessories that helped the Earhart Cord achieve its 1002-point score at the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Festival.
For instance, the car’s steering-assist knob (variously known as a suicide knob, Brodie knob, or necker’s knob), an accessory the Cord sported under Earhart’s ownership, was a near-impossible piece to find. The car’s compass was another rare accessory that took some time to track down. In all, it took 18 months to completely restore the Earhart Cord.
Globe-Trotter
With its restoration complete, Earhart’s Cord made its initial public showing at the 2021 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, where Concours judges placed it second in the Class C, American Classic category. The Cord’s provenance even earned it a place in the National Historic Vehicle Register.
Since its reemergence, Earhart’s old Cord has traveled the United States and abroad—it even made an appearance at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Italy. There are plans to show off the car at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in September and in London sometime next year. It somehow feels fitting that one of the last relics of a lost pioneering aviator continues to carry on the globe-trotting spirit of its original owner.
Contributing Editor
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.
