Depending on your viewpoint, the people who took part in this event are either heroic or absolutely nuts. As an adjunct to last weekend’s enormous, rollicking classicfest in Auburn, Indiana, a bunch of Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Club members hauled out their cars for some drag racing. On an airstrip. Harkening back to the days when Duesenbergs and the like were found on used-car lots and hot rodders were just starting to out-gear-jam one another at military-surplus airports.
Only now, the great cars of Auburn are some of the world’s most valuable automobiles. Look at that first photo, where the big phaeton’s already punched the cabriolet coupe’s ticket coming out of the hole. This all took place at the airport in Kendallville, Indiana, west of Auburn. No tire smoke – these cars are generally around 4,500 pounds – but lotsa noise. Remember, a lot of Duesenberg cars played their twincam straight-eight pipes through factory cutouts.
The return road, plied by a hot rod, Duesenberg-style, a “bitsa” pieced together entirely from spare parts. Definitely the quickest, fastest rig in the place, howling down the (approximate) eighth-mile on Kendallville’s runway. Check out the oscillating red-light/siren combo above the front bumper, fully functional. Look at this thing. It’s like Fred and Augie meet Dick Kraft.
Definitely not your typical drag pit area, huh? We’ll have more on this in Hemmings Classic Car.