Auburn’s Salon series launched for 1933 in a bid to raise the company’s image and improve sales. Sold in eight- and twelve-cylinder versions, it featured a unique, strengthened A-frame chassis, adjustable vacuum-boosted brakes, and special trim, including a V-shaped grille, unique Parabeam headlamp lenses, chrome fender edging, and beautiful “ribbon” bumpers. The model failed to save its manufacturer but was an indisputably gorgeous automobile, with fine detail visible in every inch—and in the Twelve iteration, a relative performance bargain for such excellent engineering.

Offered for only a single season, leftover Salon Twelves continued to sell into 1934, just as this Salon Twelve Phaeton was, renumbered for sale as a 1934 1250 model—hence why its frame number does not properly correlate to the serial number in usual Auburn fashion. Discovered at a dealer in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1951, Albert J. Koerts of Flint, one of the area’s best-known early collectors, purchased it.

In 1969, the car was sold from the Koerts estate to Ervin F. “Mac” McClellan of Saginaw, with whom it would remain for many years and during whose ownership it regularly appeared in Auburn Cord Deusengberg Club and Classic Car Club of America events in the Midwest. Following its original restoration by Bill Dreist, it was the cover story of a 1980 issue of the CCCA’s Michigan region magazine Torque, with its distinctive Woodlite headlamps already a calling card. A black-and-white photograph in the article shows just how well-preserved and intact the car was prior to restoration; Mr. McClellan wrote that it had only about 24,000 actual miles.

In 1987 Mr. McClellan sold the car to Dr. Barbara Mae Atwood of Rockford, Illinois. A model turned successful clinical counselor and philanthropist, Dr. Atwood had a great passion for the finest classic automobiles and in the 1980s built an extraordinary, well-chosen collection, as the foremost lady enthusiast of her era. She was a very competitive spirit, and most all of her automobiles were restored under her watchful eye by the finest craftsmen with the goal of winning most everything that they could achieve.

The Auburn was one such car and was freshly fully restored by the noted Steve Babinsky’s Automotive Restorations of Lebanon, New Jersey. Its 1991 show season included Second in Class at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and the National Auburn Cord Duesenberg Award from the Antique Automobile Club of America, with which it eventually achieved Grand National status. Several of the trophies from its show career accompany the Auburn to this day, testifying to its success on the circuit.

Dr. Atwood wound down her collecting activity in the mid-nineties, but her collection remained quietly intact in Rockford, housed within a purpose-built private museum until her passing in 2008. The following year, the late Paul Andrews Jr. purchased the Auburn for the extraordinary Andrews Collection in Fort Worth, Texas. In 2011, the present owner acquired it for his own collection, where it has remained the centerpiece for over a decade.

Still in beautiful condition, this car is in the first rank of surviving twelve-cylinder Auburns, with much to recommend it to an ACD enthusiast, the latest in its long line of prestigious caretakers.