It’s the “Year of the Cord” at the 61st annual Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival taking place Labor Day weekend in Auburn, Indiana, where activities actually began August 26 and continue until the last hammer drops Sunday, September 3, at Auburn Auction Park.
Cheers to the Festival and the Garage Cruise have concluded, but there’s still plenty of events to go. The Hoosier Tour, a four-day drive by 50 historic Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg vehicles, leaves at 8 a.m. today.
Auctions America’s ninth annual Auburn Fall sale of collector vehicles opens with a preview day Wednesday, August 30, with bidding beginning Thursday, the 31st, and running through Sunday the 3rd.
The festival kick-off luncheon is Thursday, as are the ACD Museum benefit and an ACD factory reunion.
The schedule Friday includes a pancake breakfast, ACD Club swap meet, vintage treasure sale, antique show and sale, historical presentation, cruise-in, tour of the route formerly used by Auburn-based car test drivers, various food-based events and a cruise-in concert.
Historic tours, ACD Club car show, running races, cars and coffee, historic home tours, the Parade of Classics, Miss ACD Pageant, Party in the Plaza, and Fast and Fabulous (exotic and luxury car) show and concert and fireworks display, and the Gatsby Gala ball are on the calendar for Saturday, as is the Worldwide Auctioneers classic car sale at the historic National Auto & Truck Museum’s L-29 Cord building.
In addition to the activities taking place in downtown Auburn, just a couple of miles to the south Auctions America stages its own mini-festival with a swap meet, car corral, children’s activities, Rust & Ruffles boutique, monster truck shows and rides, sport-bike stunt shows, helicopter rides and, on September 2, a cars & coffee gathering from 9 until 11 a.m.
And while Auburn may be the featured marque at the ACD Festival, Duesenbergs figure to be the stars of the Auctions America collector car sale, with a 1933 Model SJ “Sweep Panel” Phaeton by LaGrande carrying a pre-sale estimated value of $2.5 million to $3 million and with a 1929 Model J convertible coupe by Fleetwood expected to sell for between $950,000 and $1.2 million.
The auction docket also includes the James Bond “Astro Spiral” 1974 AMC Hornet used in The Man with the Golden Gun, the 1964 Chevrolet Corvette “Supernova” Sting Ray race car, a 2003 Delahaye custom boattail speedster, a 1907 Fabrique-Nationale Four motorcycle, hundreds of other collector vehicles, and, in a benefit for the Honor Flight and JDM Foundation, a private tour of Jay Leno’s Garage will be auctioned.
Meanwhile, the Worldwide Auctioneers’ docket includes vehicles from the Jimmie Taylor, Allen Smith and Chuck Runyon Estate collections and features a 1907 Stoddard-Dayton Model K runabout, 1930 Cadillac V-16 Imperial limousine, and 1938 Mercedes-Benz 320 Cabriolet B on an 80-vehicle docket.
The auction preview begins Friday at 9 a.m.
