Customs Auburn Streamline Custom Dreams come true

Hi Custom Car guys, my name is Ulf Christiansson.

Custom Cars is "the major" p***ion of mine and from time to time new custom car ideas pop up in my brain.
This idea is something that my brain attacked me with it in the early nineties and it has been rattling around in there ever since.
Sometimes I come up with an idea just to discover that someone else has already figured out the same thing but to my knowledge not really in this case.
When I got to know Rik Hoving (Rikster) it was quite a revolution for me, not only as a good friend but also as an artist that knows and appreciates the same type of traditional custom cars that I do. We have been involved in several other custom car projects and I have been bugging Rik about my Auburn idea for a couple of years.

The ideas all started when I saw a fibergl*** Auburn pull into a parking lot in the rain at a carshow I was attending . Since I like shaved custom bodies I wonderd why nobody didnt ever use one of the most fantasticly designed carbodys and from there , my mind couldnt let go of the idea of a full custom Auburn
As years gone by Ive seen some fantastic renderings and here are some made by the master designer Harley Earl that made some of the most wonderful streamline design's and also some coachbuilt dreamcars that where actually built.














So when finally Rik said "lets get started on this" we started to toss ideas of what would be the ultimate Auburn custom. Built as a traditional custom released from how it was ever going to be built, just dig into the fabulous 1935-36 Auburn Boat-tail Speedster body.

I don't think there is any other way to get this done... then to make a aluminum or steel sheet metal body shaped from scratch since the original cars have such low production numbers and have astronomical values.
There is of cause fibergl*** bodies but as we went along redesigning I thought the rear and front deck needed to be in the same level which is not the case with the original Auburn body where the hood top is much higher. And this modification would be too much cutting into a fibergl*** body I think.
There is another problem with the original body where the door is quite short and the "DuVall" like windshield is sitting quite a bit in front of the front door edge that will also result in a lot of cutting but nothing is impossible I guess.

To start this we needed a good picture and Rik found a rodded Auburn that was lowered with wire wheels that had all the bells and whistles still attached. First job was so shave the body from all that so we could see what body mods were needed and what other stuff would look neat.

Bellow is the original photo by Howard Gribble. Auburn Low-rider Fibergl*** body




Cleaned up body and better wheels/tires and fender skirts added




Removed the headlights, narrowed the rear fenders and added a beltline side trim



Rik then added a new less distracting background and slightly modified the main body proportions to make the whole body flow better. He also added the Woodlite headlights.




Then we tried a few different color combo's, but I wanterd to keep the overal look light colored. By now the windshield had been chopped a bit as well to get some perfect proportions.




And we added a Padded top for the not so sunny days.





I also wanted it to be possible to build this in the late thirties and that didn´t leave much room for part swapping from later cars. I know that this project is so far out of the mainstream customs and hot rods that this is the reason why this car has never happened and possibly never will happen but with today's computer programs we will at least be able to see what it would look like.

I dont see it would have been impossible to build back in the late thirties looking at what happened back then, some of the Coachbuilt dream cars at its peak in the late thirties with cars like the Phantom Corsair and the Figoni Falaschi cars and Darrin Packards and Cadillacs.

The Phantom Corsair is one of my absolute favorite as a futuristic vehicle that looked like nothing before and set the new standard for smooth streamline looking design.



This Auburn if it would have ever bin built back then would have only bin designed to make the current car as sleek as just humanly possibly, not a totally new made body like the Phantom Corsair.

Please see these images as food for the mind and enjoy, don't judge them too hard as another impossible project.

Wolf

 

This was a really fun project to work on. And when I researched the project I found a few cars that where very interesting. I actually found two Auburn customs that where built in the 30's or 40's. But they where not in the same style as that Wolf was thinking.


From the pages of Rod & Custom...








And this one from an ebay auction... Molded in headlights. But still a rather high stance, and to much clutter on the body for out likings.



This old custom combined the bodies of a 1938 Ford and an Auburn??? Possibly a wrecked Auburn gave up some body parts for this unique custom... Looks like all four fenders are made from Ford components...






I also looked at some of the customs that Deco Ride is creating... some very nice. But all had to much of an Hot Rod flavor for our taste...

still this sample is very nice, and somewhat similar to the ideas Wolf had for his Auburn Custom...




One image not shown is the Auburn with a nice swoopy side trim and two tone paint.

 

Wow! Outstanding work.

 

Man, you photoshop guys rock! Beautiful car, cleaned up perfect.
I've seen a lot of other 'Peable Beach' type cars that could use the same treatment.
I'm jealous, wish I was able do that.

 

this is randy's car,one of these days he might add the wire wheels

 

Nice rendering. In my opinion the stock front bumper looks too big and bulky for a custom, but otherwise I'm diggin' it.

 

Darn , your right , my blurry eyes , they are artillery type wheels , thanks for the heads up !
Wolf

 

I think it looks great, but the yellow kind of turns me off. I agree with keeping it a light color. Nice work guys.

 

I like this and I like the idea of this.
I've been thinking about a project down the road someday to build a one off body of some sort and some of my ideas lean towards a big swoopy job such as this.

I was wondering how the photoshopped drawings would look with a tighter front wheel opening... almost matching the tire diameter.

I vote that you.... GO FOR IT!.... start building!
Zach

 

Nice concept TinWolf,
I have access to an Auburn gl*** replica. The fenders are at my house. I also think I have some drawings the owner copied from the original Auburn blueprints he got from Randy Emma. Patterns could be made from the replica stuff if you are seriously considering a scratch built. An old friend of mine from Schenectady New York built a 32 Auburn body from drawings with just an english wheel.
Shoot me a PM if your interested.
hammeredabone

 

Hi !
Yes I know , yellow is a piercing color but Im red green blind and like blue and yellow since I see them really well , also light yellow is a really luxurious color that needs alot of sun to pop and thats what I was shooting for here . Ofcause color and design is personal and no one can say thats wrong or right so ofcause this is my own favorits , and doesnt mean it wouldnt look dynamite in black or some other fabulous color scheme !
Wolf

 

I like that, thanks Rik
eliminates the wheel opening as a seperate "line" on the car.
With it tight to the wheel like that it just seems like its the wheel and the car flows right around it.

Zach

 

Hi !
Ofcause it would be a dream of building this Auburn dream custom but I already have several personal custom cars to build , I figur if I only get to see pictures of this car I be happy getting it out of my head and down on paper .

Wolf

 

Looking both at the first rendering in this post and the Phantom Corsair having frontwheel skirts got the be the ultimate slead or ?

 

We did a Front skirt for this Auburn as well... but I never really liked the look of it to much so its rough in this photo....

 

Now weir cookin Pebble Beach , and the Figoni & Falaschi cars but I agree this might not be for this car since we were aming for a more traditional custom car look blended with what were possible in the late therties !
Wolf

 

Thats heresy! Customizing an Auburn. Absolute Blasphemy!
If I had one Id sooooo take the clue from those pictures.
Excellent job. I love what you did with my ultimate dream car.
Tin wolf,,,,YOUDAMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

That first rendering is awesome! I've never seen that one before. That rules.

Cool photochops Rikster. Now turn it into that first rendering!

 

You guys might also appreciate Peter Lombardo's scale interpretation of
the one-off, twelve cylinder 1936 Auburn "Cybele Special" (reportedly built, and named,
for Erret Cord's wild young daughter.)

 

When I saved this picture it says Bill Mitchell so I was wrong about this one being made by Harley Earl but the other renderings are . Both these GM design giants are ofcause responsible for some of the most fantastic designs ever created , like Yjob and LeSabre a**** a long list of others !

 

Beautiful work.
I know Randy (the guy who's car you used for the base) if you need measurements to begin shaping tin
Sure would be a knockout!

 

i think the full front skirts might be better if you eliminate the "skirts" and do more of a flush fit wheel cover or even just had the fenders more easily removable with no openings?

and eliminate the whitewalls so it looks like its floating?

 

Yes it is an awesome design.
Wolf once told me he had seen it somewhere. He described it to me, but also mentioned he forgot where he had seen it, but that it had always stuck in his head.

On one of my ebay searches I came across a Automobile Quarterly magazine collection and noticed a very nice drawing on one of its covers. Did some more searching and found a good picture of the cover.
I knew right away that it was the same design that Wolf had seen, and described to me. Unfortunately I did not write down which issue it was.. I just cropped the cover shot and send it to Wolf...

Imagine that car on the road.. on a wonderful sunny day in July...


I always visioned a wrecked 1938-39 Ford sedan body - or something like that - in the back jard of a very talended guy in the 1940's... Starting to lay out the Ford parts over this home built long wheelbase ch***is extending the fenders,, the body building the boat tail like rear portion using Lincoln Zephyr parts. Having his friend George DuVall create some one off parts like the grille, bumpers and windshield...

There are plenty of home built Sports Customs that have been built along this same concept... some of them look nice, others are perhaps only beautiful in its owners/builders eyes. But they do proof it could be done. It only takes a good eye and a lot of time...

 

TinWolf, such blasfamy. lol, good ****! ive always wondered about these as i have always liked em and cords. closet i got is this........

 

Hahaha.... this is being done right now... very close to You Wolf....
Niklas i lerum is building a Auburn boattail custom, fenderless though, steelbody, extremely nice work, has some originalparts in it incl. Auburn v12 eng.
Will be outstanding.

T.

 

Beautiful! Get to work pounding metal : ) My only critique of the photoshop is the front end is an inch~too high, or the back end is an inch~too low.

John www.ghiaspecialties.com

 

give this link a try

http://www.decorides.com/foosebt.htm

AB

 

Yes very nice... I also mentioned these in my post.
But all these Decoride cars have to much of a Hot Rod flavor for Wolf's and my taste.
However it would not be to hard to convert one of those into a very nice Custom Car

 

Thanks for posting! I've picked a few good ideas for my '39 Chevy taildragger. Thanks again, Michael