Second-generation Auburn boattail speedster. Photo by Steve Brown.
[Editor's Note: Hemmings Daily contributor Michael Lamm also serves on the board of directors of the Ironstone Concours d'Elegance, which takes place this weekend in Murphys, California, so who better to tell us about one of this year's featured classes at the Ironstone, the boattail speedster.]
Boattail speedsters, which took their inspiration from race cars, came on the scene during the flapper days of the early 1920s and enjoyed their greatest popularity from about 1927 through 1933. During those years, Americans and Europeans considered boattail speedsters the raciest cars on the road. Most were open two-place speedsters with low windshields and snug-fitting tops; a few manufacturers also offered boattail coupes and touring cars, but the majority were roadsters.
Mention boattails and the Auburn Automobile Company comes to mind. Auburn built three generations of boattails: One that spanned the years 1928-1929, a second for 1932-1933, and a third produced from 1935 through the end of Auburn production in 1937. The first generation was designed by Alan Leamy and the third by Gordon Buehrig, both men now remembered more for their Duesenberg and Cord designs than Auburn boattail speedsters. Actually, Buehrig modified Leamy’s design extensively to transform it into the 1935 Auburn 851 speedster.
Auburn’s 1928 Cabin Speedster, used an aircraft theme, burned in Los Angeles. At least two replicas have been built since.
Going back a bit: To publicize Auburns in general, race-driver Wade Morton drove a 1928 non-boattail roadster 108 MPH at Daytona Beach, Florida, setting a new record for the flying mile. That year, the company produced its original boattail speedster and also built the ill-fated Auburn Cabin Speedster, a striking concept car designed with an aircraft theme. The Cabin Speedster burned to the ground in early 1930 outside the Los Angeles auto show, ending up as a puddle of molten aluminum. At least two replicas have been built since then.
First-generation Auburn boattail speedsters were powered by Lycoming’s flathead straight-eight. This engine delivered 98 horses, quite powerful for the time. Auburn management found, though, that building boattail speedsters took manufacturing capacity away from the company’s more profitable body styles, so they suspended speedster production for 1930-1931. They again offered the body style for 1932, this time with a choice of two engines, the previous 98hp eight-cylinder and Lycoming’s new 160hp V-12. But production was suspended again at the end of 1933, and there were no Auburn speedsters built in 1934.
Gordon Buehrig restyled the original Auburn speedster for 1935, but it used the same basic body. Power came from a supercharged straight-eight.
The next year, though, a greatly facelifted third generation of Auburn boattail speedsters came into being. This one arrived with a supercharged version of the straight-eight that delivered 150 horses. With the manufacturer’s standard Columbia Dual-Ratio rear axle, the 1935-1936 Auburn boattail boasted a guaranteed top speed of 100 MPH. All 1935-1936 Auburn speedsters carried a dash plaque with the legend “This certifies that this Auburn Automobile has been driven 100 miles per hour before shipment (signed) Ab Jenkins.” Whether Ab Jenkins, known as the Mormon Meteor, actually drove each and every Auburn speedster at 100 MPH remains something of a question, however.
Essex, Hudson’s companion car in the Ford/Chevrolet price range, became one of the more popular boattails, thanks to its easy affordability. Photo by Steve Brown.
Rear deck of Hudson’s 1931 boattail speedster, built by Biddle & Smart of Amesbury, Massachusetts, does look like an upside-down boat. Photo by Steve Brown.
Auburn, of course, wasn’t the only company building boattail speedsters. Another popular marque was Hudson’s inexpensive companion car, Essex. Essex boattail speedsters marked the height of affordable sportiness, rather like today’s Mazda Miata. Hudson, too, offered boattails for several years, most of them built by the company’s primary bodymaker, Biddle & Smart, in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Hudson’s boattail configuration was probably the most boat-like of the lot.
Many Bentleys used fabric Weymann bodies, whose lightness added speed. This boattail seems to have a rear storage compartment or rumbleseat.
Graham-Paige prided itself on style. The 1928 boattail stands among the rarest of production boattails. Photo by Steve Brown.
Packard offered a series of boattails in the early 1930s. This one was designed and built by LeBaron.
Many other marques commissioned coachbuilt boattails during the body style’s heyday, among them Packard, Stutz, Franklin, Peerless and Roamer. Oddly, the nation’s larger auto manufacturers – General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler – didn’t indulge in the boattail fad at that time. So when a motorist bought and drove a boattail speedster, he (or she) knew he owned one of the rarer and more exotic vehicles on the road. Boattails were definitely eye-catching.
The 1963 Corvette Sting Ray split-window coupe stands out as one of the more successful modern adopters of the boattail theme.
The 1971-’73 Buick Riviera is now fondly known as the “Boattail Riv.” It’s among the last American cars to use a stern-shaped decklid.
In 1963, the split-window Corvette coupe borrowed the boattail theme, as did the 1971-1973 Buick Riviera. Today, a number of recreations and tribute cars have continued the classic boattail tradition. The Moal coachbuilding firm in Oakland, California, recently built a modern one-off boattail that emulated Edsel Ford’s 1932 speedster, a car given to Edsel by Ford’s main body supplier, Briggs Manufacturing. In addition, there have been at least two reconstructions of a Cord L-29 boattail speedster that previously existed only on paper. Two replicas of the Auburn Cabin Speedster boattail coupe have also been built, and the list goes on.
Moal Coachbuilders, Oakland, California, designed and constructed this modern rendition of an Edsel Ford boattail for collector Eric Zausner.
Woodie meets boattail on a 1928 Chevrolet chassis, another modern construction that someone built for fun. European coachbuilders often made tulipwood boattails.