CLUB TALES
THE AUBURN CORD DUESENBERG CLUB OF AUSTRALASIA: WE ARE NOT WORTHY
Whether you own one or more of the trio of impressive American automotive classics that have the irrepressible Errett Lobban Cord’s entrepreneurial fingerprints all over them, or merely have an interest in the prestigious marques, here’s a club that is well worth checking out.
Around since 1958, the club is based in NSW. Its 100-plus members, and their 90 or so cars are, however, distributed around Australia and New Zealand.
Club President Terry Cockerell tells us that the club is developing and evolving, and as part of that it’s reaching out to new members. Terry said: “In the past the club’s main activity was its biennial event where members gather with their cars to spend a week together, socialising with like-minded enthusiasts and celebrating all that’s good about the cars we love.
“As part of the change we’ve now added ‘Mini-Meets’, weekend-long get-togethers at six-monthly intervals. At the most recent one we were based at Morisset (NSW). As well as all the usual enjoyable fellowship we were treated to a stunning aerobatic display by Paul Bennet in his Pitts Special, visited local wineries, and entered cars in the vintage car Show ’n’ Shine that was part of the Hunter Valley Steam Fest. I’m proud to say that club entries took out both the first prize and the runner-up prize in the ‘Best Resto’ competition.”
To reinforce his point that the club is far from NSW-centric, Terry mentioned that their meets are rotated around the country with Echuca (Vic) and Tanunda (SA) being mentioned as venues for club events in recent years. In the same breath he said that a club member based in Melbourne is the proud owner of no less than eight Cords. Terry’s own pride and joy is a 1936 Cord 810 Westchester sedan.
Club members offer plenty of support to each other exchanging information on maintenance and restoration, and assisting with sourcing of spares and buying and selling of cars. This is facilitated through the Australian club’s connections with the 1800-strong Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club in the USA. A number of the Australian club’s members are also members of the American club, which run’s regular ‘Reunions’ in Auburn, Indiana.
So if you’ve got one of the revered ‘A’ ‘C’ or ‘D’ cars hiding in your shed, or you’ve long had a yen for one, or you reckon you would enjoy mixing with the ‘A’ ‘C’ and ‘D’ folk, why not make contact with the club now?