Auburn Automobile Company

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

Auburn Automobile Company was organized in Auburn, Indiana, in 1903 by Frank and Morris Eckhart, following the Eckhart family’s early experiments with automobiles beginning in 1900. It grew from the Eckhart Carriage Company—a sensible buggy concern that made the leap to gasoline, chrome, and considerably more swagger.

After World War I shortages interrupted business, the Eckhart family sold the company to Chicago bankers in 1919. Errett Lobban “E. L.” Cord took over management in 1924 and soon controlled Auburn, turning a struggling maker into the center of a flamboyant automotive constellation. Under Cord’s leadership, the organization acquired Duesenberg assets in 1926 and launched the Cord marque in 1929.

Auburn’s 1929–1930 Art Deco showroom and administration building on South Wayne Street became the company’s visual calling card: part office, part palace, and entirely uninterested in being modest. By 1936, its remaining Auburn offices moved to Connersville, Indiana, as the business contracted.

Our Auburn Automobile Company collection celebrates the rakish optimism of prewar American motoring: sculpted fenders, speedster romance, and an Indiana company that refused to arrive quietly. The automobile operation shut down in 1937 amid Depression-era losses; its Auburn headquarters later became the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum. Corporate afterlife: exceptionally well dressed.