The Beautiful 1930 Cord L-29 Brougham

Here’s a little information about the beautiful 1930 Cord L-29 Brougham which was on display at the 2022 Concours of Elegance. What an exquisite and beautiful looking car. You can see more Concours of Elegance news, reviews, videos and galleries here.

El Cord’s philosophy for the Cord division of his Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg empire was to build truly unique, inspiring automobiles.

Introduced in 1929, the L-29 was the first American front-wheel drive car to be offered to the public.  This innovative design allowed a much lower roof line than its rivals and when mated with Lycoming’s straight-eight engine, it created a long, strikingly elegant automobile.  Production ended in 1932 after around 5000 examples were built, of which an estimated 175 remain. Of the four standard body styles offered, the Brougham was the rarest, with only ten examples believed to survive.

The L-29 Brougham presented here was purchased by its second owner in around 1931, then driven extensively until stored in a tobacco barn in Farmington, Kentucky in around 1942.  The Brougham changed hands in around 1975 and was again stored in a Kentucky barn until bought by its current owner in 2007.

Although suffering the ravages of 65 years of storage, it remained remarkably solid and extremely original. The car had never previously been restored and even retained the majority of its original interior elements and fabric top.

Following years of research on L-29s, the current owner commissioned LaVine Restorations of Nappanee, Indiana, to begin a full restoration. With access to an unrestored L-29 at the Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg Museum in Indiana USA, every effort was made to duplicate any aspect of the automobile that needed to be replaced.  The original seat fabric, trim and brocade on the doors were sent to England to be accurately reproduced.

The car was also returned to its original colour d combination of black for the main body and burgundy for the wings, running boards and accents, with chrome wire wheels and black wall tyres to accentuate the elegance and luxury of the L-29 Brougham body style.

Since its restoration was completed it won Best of Show at the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Reunion in 2017, finished third in class at Pebble Beach in 2017, Journalists’ Choice at the 2018 Greenwich Concours and scooped Most Outstanding Closed Car at the 2018 Geneva Concours.