1935 Auburn 851 boattail speedster. Photos courtesy Bonhams.
Whether wearing bodywork designed by Alan Leamy or Gordon Buehrig, whether powered by a V-12 or supercharged straight-eight, boattail Auburns have proven some of the most desirable American collector cars out there, and as illustrated by a pair of boattails headed to auction this month – one owned for 64 years, the other for almost as many – they’ve inspired such desire among collectors for a considerable amount of time.
The younger of the two boattails, a Buehrig-designed 1935 Auburn 851 supercharged boattail speedster, chassis number 32069E, happens to be the one with more years in one collection. Discovered by World War II Marine Corps veteran Valentino Chickinelli – whose family founded Omaha Plating – in 1949 in a garage in Omaha, Nebraska, the boattail already required a restoration, which took Chickinelli until 1955 to complete. According to the Bonhams auction description of the Auburn, Chickinelli restored the Auburn as an 852, but the changes involved in the alteration amounted to a new ID plate and grille badge. After several years of parades and car shows, Chickinelli then entered it in a local race, in which he reportedly bested a Duesenberg SJ, but at the same time overheated the Auburn’s engine and cracked its cylinder head. Though he acquired an NOS replacement head, he never got around to fixing the Auburn – too preoccupied with the 100-plus other cars in his collection – and left it unrepaired from 1962 until he died last August at the age of 89.
Offered with the replacement head and original ID plate, the 1935 Auburn is expected to draw bids of up to $300,000 to $400,000.
The other boattail, a Leamy-designed 1933 Auburn 12-161A Custom boattail speedster, chassis number 160 1146E, also received some updating over the years. According to the Bonhams auction description, prior owner Ruby Hofer of Los Angeles commissioned its transformation into Salon trim and fitment with 1934 Auburn bumpers and a later steering wheel in 1949, a few years after she bought it. In the mid-1950s, she then sold the V-12-powered boattail to Dr. Ralph Waldo Emerson Cox of New Jersey, another World War II veteran, who displayed it briefly in his own museum in the 1950s and 1960s and who died in 2012 at the age of 97.
One of only three 12-161A Custom speedsters built in 1933, the boattail is expected to draw bids of up to $500,000 to $600,000.
The Bonhams Scottsdale auction is scheduled to take place January 16 at the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa in Scottsdale. For more information, visit Bonhams.com.
UPDATE (17.January 2014): The 1935 Auburn 851 sold for $467,500, while the 1933 Auburn 12-161A sold for $451,000.
