Auburn Speedster Price Guide

The Auburn Speedster is one of the most beautiful American cars of the 1930s and arguably the greatest design achievement of Gordon Buehrig, the man who also styled the Cord 810/812. The boat-tailed body, sweeping fenders, and exposed side exhausts created a silhouette that remains stunning nearly a century later.

The Car

Auburn Automobile of Auburn, Indiana, produced Speedsters from 1928 to 1936 in various configurations. The most celebrated are the supercharged Speedsters of 1935–1936, which used a Lycoming straight-eight engine with a Schwitzer-Cummins centrifugal supercharger producing around 150bhp. Each supercharged Speedster carried a plaque on the dashboard certifying that the individual car had been tested at over 100mph by racing driver Ab Jenkins at the Bonneville Salt Flats; a remarkable marketing claim for a production car of the era. The boat-tail design, with its pointed rear deck and external exhaust pipes running along the passenger side, is the defining visual feature.

Buying

Genuine Auburn Speedsters are highly valuable collector’s cars. The supercharged models command the strongest prices. Numerous replicas exist, some of excellent quality. Any car presented as a genuine Speedster requires expert authentication. Auburn ceased production in 1937 as part of the collapse of the Cord Corporation. The 851 and 852 Speedster represent specific model-year variants within the Speedster lineage.