photo #7724902

1932 E-1 Cord Experimental Limousine (Driven only 779 miles, the stock market crash ended the plans for putting the big limousine into production and it was dismantled. Paul Bryant saw the body in a barn near Plato Center, Illinois. It had no engine, no fenders, and no grille shell. Paul searched for and found the missing parts and painstakingly reassembled this magnificent automobile.) Known as the E-1, this vehicle was the prototype to replace the Cord L-29. When E. L. Cord was looking forward to his next range of vehicles he ordered a car to be built that was twenty inches longer than the L-29. Originally, the car was to be fitted with a sixteen cylinder engine, but was replaced with another prototype twelve cylinder engine of the same displacement. The E-1 was to go into production for the 1932 model year, but unfortunately it was not the right time economically to introduce a vehicle that was bigger than a long wheelbase Duesenberg. So the idea and the project were scrapped. Only one example of the E-1 was produced. Power is from a 491 cubic-inch displacement V12 engine and rides on a wheelbase that measures 157 inches. It weighs in excess of 6000 pounds! The car resides at the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Museum in Auburn in Indiana.