Extremes always fascinate. Take, for instance, the extremes of existence that are birth and death – the very first and the very last. With cars, the “first” can be pretty hard to track down, at times. They are prototypes and/or ever-changing mules that may or may not have survived, and were perhaps not photographed all that well. Equally, the very last unit made can be hard to track down – though at least, they’re not usually prototypes and some have been documented and/or saved. Here are a few I found. Some have stories, some don’t.
Let’s start on a high note. German abstract painter Rudolf Bauer, awash with Guggenheim dosh, was touring the US in 1937 and decided to buy a Duesenberg SJ. The factory was already closing down, but there was one demonstrator chassis, originally made in 1931, still in store. Augie Duesenberg himself supervised the complete refurbishing of that chassis, which got a new supercharged engine (a 7-litre DOHC straight-8, if you please) and a wheelbase stretch, over the summer of 1937 and put in storage. But then, Bauer went back to Germany and got arrested. He stayed in jail until 1939, when he was set free and promptly went back to the US.
Once there, he got a hold of his SJ chassis and designed a body for it – not a very up-to-date one, something like a late ‘20s sports car. He went to coachbuilder Rollson, the successor to Rollston that had created many Duesenberg bodies in the ‘20s and ‘30s, to get his dream car made. It took seven months and a small fortune, but in April 1940, the last Duesenberg was finally ready for the road. It still exists today, unrestored and with about 10,000 miles on the clock.
Last “great” ’42 Plymouth and “huge” ’42 Lincoln
There were a number of excellent photos made when Detroit stopped making cars to switch to war production. Nothing of the kind happened in Europe, as far as I know – the decision to go to war was less expected, I guess, and car production in places like France, Germany or Italy didn’t so much switch over as die down progressively – sometimes without totally stopping.
Final ’42 Nash, ultimate ’42 Packard and bye-bye ‘42 Buick
After Pearl Harbour, the US automakers were given a few weeks to finish civilian car production – a significant proportion of which was bought by the Government – and move to war materials. These pictures were taken in January / February 1942; for the next three and a half years, very few cars would be made, and those that were went straight to olive drab life. I’m not sure whether any of these were preserved, but the occasion – and the fact that the model year was ending in winter – was enough to compel several carmakers to immortalize the event.
While we’re in 1942, let’s stay there. In what was left of France that year, the Vichy regime ordered a new parade car for Marshal Pétain. Though little more than the head of a Nazi puppet state, the old marshal still yearned for the trappings of power and tradition. One tradition was that French heads of State rode in huge Renaults, so the carmaker dusted off a prototype LWB chassis of their latest behemoth, the 5.4 litre 8-cyl. Suprastella, made in 1938-39. The chassis was given hydraulic brakes and went to coachbuilder Franay for a massive drop-top limousine body to be fitted on the 372 cm (146.5 in.) wheelbase.
This was to be the last straight-8 Renault. It was used by Pétain, followed by De Gaulle from 1944 to 1946 and Vincent Auriol (pictured above) in 1947. Though it served the French president, the car remained in Renault’s de facto ownership. In 1950, Auriol ordered a Talbot-Lago T26 parade car and the Suprastella was given back to Renault – now State-owned. It has since disappeared and only a few poor quality photos are to be found of it.
Here’s an example of why certain “last evers” can be a bit contentious. This Ford Model A Sportsman was made in 1945 using a 1931 Model A chassis that was sitting around River Rouge. The car was ordered by Henry Ford II, designed by E.T. Gregorie and bodied by the factory, so it’s about as genuine as a Ford can be.
Yet Model A production stopped in 1932, as we all know. So it’s a bit of a stretch to call this “the last Model A.” On the other hand, it very much is a genuine 1945 Model A, if a slightly unusual one. There will be others like this…
Take, for instance, the 1953 Horch 830 BL featured herewith. The chassis was made in 1938, but seems not to have been bodied (or just stayed as a demonstrator in some Auto-Union dealership in West Germany, that part is unclear). When DKW boss Dr Richard Bruhn decided he wanted a company car in the early ‘50s, he asked for the special body to be made by the factory – even though the ancestral home of Horch in Zwickau was now under IFA’s control, and would soon produce the completely unrelated Horch Sachsenring P240.
The folks at Ingolstadt did a pretty splendid job on this chauffeur-driven saloon, despite the fact that this type of car was miles away from the little two-strokers they made on a daily basis. By some miracle, this unique Horch was bought by an American serviceman a few years later and ended up in a field in Texas, where it was saved from the crusher and returned to Audi, Auto-Union’s spiritual successor.
I tried finding period pictures as much as possible, but sometimes they just don’t exist. When Delahaye built their 84th and final 235 chassis – their last-ever car – in early 1954, the situation at the marque’s Parisian factory was rather chaotic. They were still manufacturing a few trucks and their home-grown Jeep for the military, but the car side of the business had been increasingly moribund for the past few years. By June 1954, Delahaye merged with Hotchkiss, another failing carmaker, and the Delahaye name vanished before year’s end.
Just like most of its predecessors, the last 235 chassis, with its 3.5 litre 6-cyl. engine and Cotal electro-magnetic 4-speed gearbox, went across town to coachbuilder Henri Chapron, where a standard four-seater coupé body was fitted. The car left Chapron’s works on 20 May 1954, but it seems to have only got its registration in 1957. It was restored by Chapron themselves in the mid-‘70s and changed hands a number of times – most recently this year, for a cool €91,000.
Another French legend leaves the stage – the last Citroën Traction Avant is getting ready to leave the Quai de Javel works on 25 July 1957. The revolutionary Traction was born in 1934, combining all-steel monocoque construction, hydraulic brakes, FWD, a new OHV engine and torsion bar suspension. It was so modern and daring that it drove André Citroën to bankruptcy – and an early grave. Michelin bought Citroën, made the Traction work technically and financially, and built a range of cars for over 20 years that were still ahead of the game at the end of their production life. Well, except in terms of looks, of course…
The invincible Traction’s death knell sounded when the DS-19 was launched in late 1955. Soon after, the 6-cyl. models, which had pioneered the famous hydropneumatic suspension system, went away. Then Citroën introduced the ID-19, a low-spec version of the DS (sans hydraulically-assisted steering, brakes and clutch) in 1956, which meant the 11 CV was going to be gone soon. And so it was, with this LWB Familiale 8-seater, which departed by road to Brittany, where it was sold and never seen again.
Zipping back across the Atlantic, we find ourselves in Louisville, Kentucky, on 21 November 1959 – a Saturday. This is the day when the wheels finally came off Edsel. This tan-coloured Villager wagon was the last of the very short model year 1960 to be put together by Ford. It’s hard not to feel a little something when seeing this car – a very nice example of contemporary Detroit styling, by any standard, but also a notorious failure of marketing by one of the biggest carmakers in the world. It wasn’t the first, but they hoped it would be the last. Alas, there would be many other “Edsels” in Detroit’s future, and not all of them Ford-based.
Ah, the agony of Borgward… Was there ever a sadder termination than that of the Bremen giant? Certainly, the somber-looking folks around this Isabella seem to think so. Their placard reads “You were too good for this world.” A number of Borgwards were put together after this picture was taken in 1963, but they were not made in Bremen. A strange end to a most idiosyncratic carmaker. If you want to know more, I urge you to read this.
This one’s a bizarre multinational effort – made across two decades – that really didn’t work out too well. In 1964, the Bugatti family sold off a lot of their remaining assets, including a number of precious cars, such as Ettore’s Type 41 Royale, among other things. At the Molsheim factory, a leftover 101 chassis had been preserved and never bodied. Made from 1951 to 1953, the Bugatti Type 101 was an ill-conceived re-hash of the pre-war Type 57. It kept the 57’s antique beam axle and its superb 3.3 litre DOHC straight-8, but nobody was interested. Bugatti sold a literal handful and went back into hibernation.
Compare and contrast: the “production” Bugatti 101 in 1952 and the 1965 Exner / Ghia
The sixth and last Type 101 chassis never found a buyer at the time, but by 1964 things had changed. A budding community of well-heeled connoisseurs recognized that this was a unique opportunity to buy the last genuine 8-cyl. Bugatti ever made – and put a body on it, too. An American enthusiast bought the chassis and asked Virgil Exner to design a roadster, which was executed (yes, that is the right word) by Ghia in 1965. The chassis was shortened by a good 25 cm to make the design appear less heavy, I guess, although Exner just put those 25 cm back up front as overhang, so that was kind of pointless. A dreadful end to a great name.
Let’s stay in Eastern France, moving from Molsheim to Sochaux. It’s early November 1966 and the last Peugeot 403 saloon just rolled off the assembly line. The 403 had been launched in late 1955 and continued being made as an economy model even after its successor, the mighty 404, arrived in the spring of 1960. As a matter of fact, the 403 pickup was still being made in Argentina for some years after the PininFarina-styled berline had passed on, ushering something of a Peugeot tradition of making RWD pickups outlast their saloon equivalent. But still, this was the last French-made 403, and it passed away in relative anonymity. Columbo would only make it TV-famous in the ‘70s — something of a missed opportunity for Peugeot.
Let’s not wallow in self-pity, though. Let’s instead bawl uncontrollably at the passing of Studebaker. This dark and grainy picture of the last Stude ever baked was taken in Hamilton on the evening of 17 March 1966. The man facing the camera, holding back the tears, is Ed Harse – Studebaker of Canada’s head of engineering. He is cold. He is sad. He is looking for a job.
Here’s a better photo of that last Studebaker (as photographed by Jim Grey in his CC tour of the Studebaker National Museum), which has fortunately survived and is preserved for posterity. But in terms of unique last-of-the-breed Studebakers, I think we can do better than that…
This ad was placed in newspapers in the mid-‘70s by the last Avanti’s second owner, Joe Erdelac. It also tells you all you need to know, which is quite handy for me. The asking price was a bit on the steep side, even for an Avanti with the rare supercharged R3 engine and a limited-slip diff. Erdelac had bought the Avanti in 1967 for $7000 – I don’t know how much he ended up getting for it, but this exclusive car survives today.
The 1962-65 Bentley S3 Continental was also pretty exclusive – and quite a bit more expensive than a Studebaker. All Continentals were made “in the old style” as chassis-only cars, with the customer selecting a coachbuilder for the kind of finished product he desired. The problem, by the early ‘60s, was that there weren’t many coachbuilders capable of doing this type of job any more. Rolls-Royce’s in-house outfit, Mulliner-Park Ward, was the default choice, though James Young still existed as well (they bodied 20 of the 311 S3 Continental chassis made). And on the Continent, there were a few still in operation.
This Continental’s chassis was made in 1965. It is not the last one made, but the body was only finished in 1967 by the great Swiss carrossier Herman Graber, so it’s the last one that was registered. Graber had a long history with Bentley, but hadn’t worked on one of their chassis in years. In the meantime, he had worked closely with Alvis, making a series of beautiful specials on the British firm’s final 3-litre cars. For this Bentley, Graber reworked his Alvis body to fit the larger Continental. The final result for this final old-style Continental wasn’t half bad. This car, hitherto very discreet, was seen at Pebble Beach this year.
But having begun on a blue-blooded Duesenberg, let’s end things on a more plebeian Glas. This is the last Goggomobil to come out of the Dingolfing factory on 25 June 1969. A true success, these little runts were made from 1954 to 1969 – predating and outlasting all the other Glas cars except the BMW 1800 SA. It’s a very short car, but it tells long story, which has been written already.
See you for Part 2 (1970-present) in a week.
Related posts:
Cohort Classic Capsule: 1942 Lincoln Continental – The Beginning Of The End, by PN
CC Capsule: 1942 Buick Series 90 Limited – Icarus’ Twin Carbureted Chariot, by Aaron65
Classic Curbside Classic: 1929 Ford Model A – The Best Ford Ever – Maybe Even The Best Car Ever, by PN
Automotive History: The Citroën 15-Six – Traction Royalty Genealogy 101, by T87
Car Show Classic: 1960 Edsel Villager – Unicorn In Wisconsin, by GN
Automotive History: French Deadly Sins (Sports/Luxury Edition, Part 1) – Bugatti Type 101, by T87
Auction Classic: 1966 Studebaker Cruiser – End of the Road, by Tom Halter
Curbside Classic: 1964 Studebaker Avanti – Fall Forward Onto The Sword, Rise Like The Phoenix, by Laurence Jones
Automotive History: German Deadly Sins (The Bayern Cycle, Part 3) – The Shattered Ambitions Of Glas, by T87
The schnoz on that Dusie is a touch on the cloddish side, surely? All a bit thick in the chrome bits. The rest is sweet.
About noses, Mr Exner committed various intrusions into the world of taste in his career, but with that leftover Bugatti, he did overtop it all and prove conclusively his talent could befoul even the greatest of marques at its despondent end.
About that 1953 Horch: did the nascent Audi-ophiles in truth pinch a Mercedes 300, graft same onto that 1938 chassis and pass it off as their own? Or did they just lack imagination?
About Studes and Citroens. There’s a (slightly specious) argument that the last South Benders ever were actually produced in Aus into 1967, only a few crow-miles from here as it happens, but they were truthfully Canadabaker kits, so not really. And of big Cits, I definitely recall reading not too long back that the oldest DS in existence (’55, handbuilt) was found much diminished in Oz in a junkyard, but now can find nothing to back this. There’s no doubt a very early LHD model was here, because the mags drove it, but as for it staying on post-embassy, illegally LHD, I now can’t tell you.
And about that Goggo (also made here for a bit), just have a look at my very favouritist bit of engineering (not), swing axles – presumably this little bastard oversteers at the back AND front.
Nice post.
A good point on the Studebakers, and do I recall that there were some CKD cars assembled in 1967 in Israel as well?
Israel and Australia too, with Israeli cars built into 1967. They were popular there and the management apparently tried to find some way to continue after Hamilton closed. They even made a mock-up for a 1967 facelift.
The company that made them, Haifa-based Kaiser Ilin, also assembled CKD kits from other manufacturers, including Kaiser and Renault, and is still around today (after some mergers/acquisitions) building Jeep and Ram trucks for the Israeli military.
Gah! That’s awful.
But on the other hand, it’s great to learn about this stuff.
Sort of reminds me of the ’62-’63 South African DeSotos or the Indonesian Borgward Isabellas — the marque dies in its home country, but the memo gets lost in the mail, so some far-flung assembly line keeps it alive for extra innings.
Could have the makings of a post on “ghost marques”…
Some, like the Willys Aero, even live to see a major facelift or redesign in their adopted country
great topic and post 🙂
Tatra87 – just sublime as per usual
These are the kind of articles that has me checking this site every morning once I finish my comics and newspapers. Thank you.
A very nice dive into obscurity! The Duesenberg is fascinating. I have had them on my mind quite a bit as my daughter just moved into a loft apartment directly across the street from what is left of the old factory.
Going by memory, I believe that the Studebaker museum also boasts the final South Bend-built car as well as the 66 model you featured. The last 64 was said to be a red Daytona hardtop.
The only other I can add is the last International Scout that was built in Fort Wayne in late 1980. (Or maybe I am jumping the gun and you already have this one coming in the next installment.)
You’re not jumping the gun, JPC, but you are giving me a very nice lead for a potential third installment. Thank you for that!
There are literally thousands of potential “last ones” out there, though far fewer would have been documented. I’m barely scratching the surface here.
A terrific stroll through the last of their kinds. Early on while reading this the debate about the whereabouts of the last Corvair popped into my head.
Having seen the last Studebaker at the museum in South Bend, it is a truly beautiful and nicely equipped car. Studebaker truly did continue to put their best foot forward even if that best foot was slowly diminishing.
Yes, that “last Corvair” thing is a thorny issue. I remember reading about it. Might give it a shot in another installment. As i said above, there are so many “last ones” around that it’s an almost infinite subject.
Last Corvairs sposta been made in prototype “factory”. Final Corvairs noted for sloppy assembly.
Story I heard …
Terrific topic, and each one of these has a fascinating story.
The ad for the $100,000 Avanti really puzzled me ($100,000… really!), so I looked up some more information on it, and evidently Mr. Erdelac, a former Studebaker dealer, never did sell the car. Several years later, he and his family donated it to the Crawford Auto Aviation Museum, where it remains today.
Incidentally, the Avanti’s first owner didn’t initially realize that his was the last Avanti until he found the note (below) tucked into the trunk that had been written by one of the production line workers. The note, referenced in Erdelac’s ad, stated that the car was the “last one built.” The owner then wrote to Studebaker asking to verify the note was correct. Shortly after he received verification that his car was, in fact, the last Avanti, he promptly put it up for sale. Mr. Erdelac was the buyer.
Great work. I also see a heck of a lot of Adenauer MB in that Horch.
Great read Tatra87. That photo of Ed Harse in the rain with that “last” Studebaker is evocative of that brand at that time, and of many more brands now.
It is an ongoing obsession with me that the mergers of companies (be they automotive or others) rarely works as promised to employees and customers, and often just delays the weakening and dissolution of the partner companies. When this photo was taken in 1966, it would have been hard to think where solid corporate giants Chrysler, Ford, GM, Volvo, and SAAB would be be 50+ years later.
I predict that the in-the-news Fiat/Chrysler and PSA merger will result in giant payouts to top management, generous retention bonuses to near-top management, and loss of jobs to all other employee groups under the guise of efficiencies gained through the elimination of job duplication, excess capacity, and non-critical overhead.
Well, more of a guess than a prediction, but a guess based on some relevant experience.
Sorry for the rant. Automotive obits are just as fascinating as the human ones.
Oh, hell, I’ll agree with your rant, rplaut.
I know there are possibly sound arguments about the survival of ANY of the new FCA/PSA grouping into the future (to do with scale and over-capacity and electrification costs) if they didn’t do this, but there are also always large unforced errors in these events that multiply the inevitable culling of jobs (aka people’s livelihoods). As for who wins the most, these ultra-bonus system for higher-ups of the last 20+ years for meaningless stock-market points is a distorting, destructive sickness that needs immediate cure.
Auto obits are actually made from the lives of many, many humans (and hopes and aspirations and follies) – and the final cause of death is rarely natural!
I think Ed Harse may have been driving the last Studebaker around while looking for a job, from the ramps in the background the photo doesn’t appear to be taken in the vicinity of the plant.
Jerry Seinfeld has had a couple of episodes of Comedians in Cars getting Coffee using the last 356 built.
If I’m not mistaken, that Studebaker has dealer license plates… I think the last character on the plate is “M”, and Ontario used the M suffix (“M” stood for “Merchant”) on dealer plates for many years.
Not sure if this helps in figuring out the picture’s context, but that was the first thing that jumped out at me about the picture… and for that matter, maybe the manufacturer itself used M plates for company cars — I have no idea.
How about the last Toyopet ? I think the last was around ’62. We had an earlier one when we were on Guam in the late ’60’s.
I’m not sure when the Toyopet name last went on a car, let alone one built for export, but it’s still one of Toyota’s dealer channels in Japan.
Toyopet is seen on cars regularly here japanese dealers afix stickers to their cars which are incredibly hard wearing and get exported along with the cars.
I actually went into one last week – branded as a Toyopet dealer, and inside was just a single regular Prius on the floor. I walked around it and then (with a salesperson’s assistance) went to the brochure wall and had a nice browse through the new Century’s hardbound brochure. The other brochures were just all the other regular (for Japan) Toyota models.
I’m not sure what you mean by “last Toyopet”… Any specific model? They used the name in Japan for a long time, like until the late ’70s.
I didn’t realize the Toyopet name was still being used in Japan. I meant the last time Toyopets were sold in the U.S., before the name was changed to Toyota.
Unlike the rarities shown here, what really stands out to me are a handful of long-lived cars that seemed to continue well past their sell-buy: the TA, the 403 and especially the Goggomobil. Hard to believe that the last Goggo came off the line around the same time that the NSU/VW K70 was first shown … they seem like cars from completely different eras. As are the TA and DS, of course.
It’s even harder to imagine the last VW Beetle coming off a line only a few months before the Golf V was introduced!
Or VW in Sth Africa still making Mk1 in Golfs in 2009 when the Mk6 was available, especially as a Beetle made in ’78 (33 years after a ’45 one) was a very different car to a ’45 model, whereas an ’09 Citigolf was barely any different to a a ’74 model of 35 years earlier.
Belíssimo
What a treat! I never knew about the 403 having the extra years.
That Bentley is gorgeous!
Yes, I only discovered the 403’s Argentinian career pretty recently myself. Don’t know when it ended, but after MY 1970 at a minimum…
1973. Apud cocheargentino.com.ar
Re: Packard, “going all out on engines” for the war effort – shouldn’t that be “all in”, not “all out”? Or was the expression different back then?
The 1960 Edsels are strangely attractive and modern looking.
Awhile back I did a study of car brochures and advertisements for the 1941-42 models just to see if there was any sense of impending doom. Some brands referenced the threat of the US being increasingly involved and threatened by WW2 – Packard, for example, slipped several inferences that in “times like these” you should really invest in a car with a trustworthy reputation, noting supply constraints. Some brands though made no mention of the war at all. I also looked at 1946 brochures, many of which made strangely little reference to the previous four years. Chevrolet’s brochure made it clear that the 1946 models were exactly like the ones built before the war. Was this just trying to make the lack of improvements and updated design a positive attribute, or was there really widespread concern that postwar cars were of subpar quality?
USA Involved? Not a Chance!
http://theoldmotor.com/?p=95379
The Bentley has Austin A90/50 rear lights but a nice car anyway, Model A Fords at least the powertrains were still in production in Russia during the korean war some A powered soviet military vehicles found their way to Korea and were seen and photographed by Kiwi troops who recognized the engine sound, Ive seen a couple of those shots of the engine of a captured GAZ? light truck
The Ford Sportsman is quite a find. I’ve read a lot of articles on that era, including some by Gregorie, and never saw that car before. It seems to be more ’39 or ’40 Ford than Model A. The dash looks like a simplified ’39, and the wheels are from that period.
Gregorie returned to designing yachts shortly thereafter, and he seems to have been thinking about his retirement!
Had the pleasure one late Saturday afternoon as the Hershey show wound down when the Baur Duesenberg was still in the hand of long-time owner Bill Pettit. Making ready to depart, he started it while engrossed in conversation with a friend, both seemed to be having a great time while the Duesenberg ran with the exhaust cut-out open. What a supreme sound! Throaty, deeply powerful and aggressive.
All nicely warmed up, Bill concluded his conversation. The parking area was largely cleared except for us die-hards waiting for the moment we anticipated: ‘snick’ into gear, let out the clutch and floored it! The sound was beyond description, just magnificent! Safe to say all but the most jaded were a mass of goose-bumps…I know I was.
Excellent read, a lot of really great photos and history. I am intrigued by the “last Model A.” I had never come across this car before. I have seen the many different cars that E.T. Gregorie had made for Henry Ford II over the years and most were quite stylish machines. Of course, the most well known was the Continental, which made it into production. This Model A on the other hand is kind of homely and not overly sporty or stylish like most of the other customs E.T. Gregorie made for Henry Ford II.
I had also never seen the last Bugatti before. It definitely has the appearance of Exner’s hand and I have to agree that it wasn’t the most graceful exist for a once great marque.
Funny how quotation marks had different meaning in the past – If someone put the sign today, explaing how “great” the new Plymouth is, not to mention tanks and guns (and more “great” cars in the future), it would be seen as ironic or even sarcastic. I am pretty sure it wasn’t the writers intention in 1942.
I guess that at the time, the word great was considered too strong to be used withot quotation marks…
How does one handle the question of “last” when there are several factories? The VW Beetle immediately comes to mind since Wolfsburg made its last Beetle in 1979 but Puebla was cranking them out until 2003 and Brazil made Beetles until 1996.
For that matter “The Last Avanti” actually needs an asterisk since Avantis were made after 1963 from leftover part before beoming the Avanti II