Flashback: the era-defining Cord 810
By Karl Smith2023-08-11T07:30:00
Karl Smith takes a look at the short-lived yet iconic Cord 810, a symbol of mid-1930s glamour
It might not have been the Face that Launched a Thousand Ships, but the Cord 810 was a car that defined the era of the Streamline Moderne.
Introduced at the New York Auto Show in late 1935, the Cord 810 was a smash hit. Crowds at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, where the show was held in those days, pressed in so tightly that some attendees resorted to standing on the bumpers of competitors’ cars displayed nearby to get a better look.
There on the Cord stand, near its Auburn and Duesenberg cousins, was a sleek sedan with a radical new face, one that would define its era and become an American automotive classic and icon of American automotive design – and one that would be enshrined in the Museum of Modern Art in New York some 16 years later…