Jay Leno's Cord and Premier

[Applause] [Music] that's when guys had real muscle oh hey hey hey [Music] I am Dennis gage welcome to my classic car alone in California Jay Leno shops always fun to be here but lately when I come out here it seems to be kind of you know not the best weather and yeah Janice just brings bad weather is that kind of guy mechanisms words I AJ dennis is there ho stormy clouds ahead well today I want to talk about I think one of the most exciting cars of all time another Indiana built car the chord 812 the originally this was going to be the baby Duesenberg the idea was I think cord had this whole General Motors thing Duesenberg at the top like Cadillac then called Orban like Oldsmobile Buick then down to Auburn like you Chevrolet that kind of deal it never quite came to fruition so they built this separately as a chord rather than as a baby Duesenberg it has a 288 cubic inch lycoming engine 28.6 I know a lot of purists out there they get a little crazy with a flathead 8 built specifically for this car and one of the most I think unique cars in American history front-wheel drive a lot of innovations has a thing called a starred X which starts the car automatically if it stalls and you started by pushing in the clutch it's front-wheel drive as I said it's got this vacuum shift transmission it's got a pre selector box and it's a car that was built on a budget there was no money so it on sequential Trahan and Mark you know in Duesenberg and all that but there was no money attached but you know you find out a lot of every time somebody builds a supercar they have no money they have no money God is really the only one that built a supercar that had money everybody else kind of scrapes nickels and dimes and puts together what they can to build their supercar everything on this car was done on the cheap and I don't mean I just mean inexpensively not not poorly done it just means there was no money for example when they road tested the car that breaks overheated and there was no way well they couldn't come up with new brake drums so they just drilled these holes which would become iconic because everybody loves to look at that wheel cover but that's why that's why I just rejected all the brakes yeah everybody looks at the car and who's and AHS it when I Drive it now kids think it's some kind of custom it would always Irish yeah ja it does it does well you know it's in the icon part of it is really the snow's the coffin nose the hopping nose in fact the real cord purists don't like these our cord driving lamps but they don't like them on here because they think it ruins the purity of the front end but it's a real aeroplane design very aerodynamic I mean it looks like the cabin of one of those Ford tri-motor 's you know dashboard is very Aero looking well in a way the the front fenders are there they're like skirts on landing gear right exactly exactly and the way these open up you open your headlights by cranking them so they're manual manual like that there you go and I prefer this because if it was an electric motor and it broke would just be a nightmare trying to fix it these cars came in supercharged and on super charge form this is a non supercharged car but these were so popular yeah people love how it just looks so cool it looks so cool that that they put them on there anyway haha let's open the hood and take a look underneath Wow so hmm so it's a v8 and she's mounted this the other way around right out of the other way around that wrecks we cheat a little bit this has a thing called the generator still a generator acts like an alternator and you can put out a lot more oh every and it still fits the same casing yeah it's the same this is a 6 volt electrical system I've kept it 6 volt what's this thing up here okay that's your transmission that's your vacuum shift well that is yeah yeah that's kind of where and if you had any kind of vacuum leak problem you ain't shifting you're not shifting but they were so beautiful nobody ever throw any of them away just a very Art Deco car and you can see everything is pretty crammed in there it's almost like a modern engine compartment you most cars are this period you can almost stand in there and work on yeah this is this is where this is everything is tight and it's in there now this car is called the Winchester and it has the fastback but people complain because this trunk is so small that they made the Beverly which came up like this had a big bustle back on it and it was more practical for carrying things but I didn't look at school I didn't look as good and I just love these two little windows here I like this better than one pure oval windows gives a little more style it's just a looks like a car the future for nothing well interior wise it's just gorgeous - I mean it's so yeah you know it's snug in fact competing car dealers Ford and Chevy nosewheel dealers would always dinging it well they would always get some oversized persons struggling to get me on the show how uncomfortable the car wasn't uh Oh awful it was terrible a terrible car I notice when you opened it that the other thing that's kind of interesting is is how little space there is here yeah not a lot of space you know I'd love to yeah I think in there I think it's just one of the most beautiful cars ever and it just looks like a custom car of course it's not yeah yeah well it's not raining right now so it will I'm sure it will but let's take it for a ride does it break in the rain I'll take it out and see how she goes chord was probably the most European American car ever built certainly up to the 30s this was a front-wheel drive car front-wheel-drive car a thing called a startx what's the starting you turn the key you press the clutch in and the car automatically starts when you put the clutch down so there's almost akin to the Buick S pen's yeah yeah you have a pre selector what you do with this is you this freed up this whole area here we had a flat floor you had no gear lever here these are all revolutionary ideas so you put it in first gear like that with the clutch in the clutch in and now you pull away as you would any other gear okay so the seller it's acting like a normal man can transmit like an icon normal manual transmission but what you do with the pre selector is is you select your next gear there a second no lunch no clutch now when I put the clutch in it just for you you do that pre-select your gear push the flexion the next gear I'm going to want is third okay please select it and you go [Music] but as you can see it feels and drives much like a modern car and plenty of pickup yeah it's so nice writing oh it's a wonderful driving car since matching his farmers not that billowy stuff like you had a lot of cars ready size-wise is perfect we'll pull over up here and I'll let you drive it oh cool yeah I've never driven one of these okay watch in put the clutch in okay move it over into first okay and go regular clutch setup what's a like clutches right there - yeah all right now now just press it like ii don't touch the clutch just put it in second and then anytime you want to ship just hold the collection and i heard it okay least fun and continue motor lovely that is interesting Wow it feels good too oh yeah it's a nice driving car third gears got some power that's so cool yeah just a different driving experience you know the shifter in a second yeah and press the clutch in oh what a beautiful car you know since Dennis the Rainman gauges here today we took the cord out and it started to rain so we came back because you don't want to drive classic cars not unless you have to we try to figure some theme so we thought we do cars of Indiana this is a premiere this is a car almost nobody knows about I didn't know about I do not you know I didn't really know about him until I found this one but did you knew that the Indiana was the largest car producing state yeah Indiana rival Detroit and some of our greatest cars came out of Indiana if you lived in Detroit this is a foreign car cause it may be in another state foreign cars no but just a big t head luxurious extremely well built car massive engine I think it's four hundred and thirty-four something cubic inches but only a six but like a lot of old cars and this is a problem there aren't very many of these premieres in fact I've only found one other one like this parts break this car was put away in the late 70s early 80s because what had happened was the water pump had rotted out all the radiator had gone you see I mean we open this up it's all just corroded inside and consequently well you go drive around junkyards trying to find a water pump from the premiere good luck and I'm fine ain't going to happen so this is where technology actually helps the old car hobby you know it's easier now to get parts of these old cars and was even 3040 years ago because you can create them because you can create them so is this premier original or is this thing been right no it's not original it's old enough to be second-generation old again it was restored I think in the early 50s mid 50s and used as an antique car and then it was put away for so long that oh it looks original people back in the 50s when they were restoring these cars what is concerned about originality as we are today so he updated the ignition oh by updating that's pierce-arrow 12 something from the 30s so it was a 14 it was updated to a more modern nishan by the 30s so if anybody looked at that they think it was original because that's also said it looks pretty old pretty old but no it's but other than that it's all stock engine transmission wheels tires electrical system all that is pretty much as it was did premier make its own they made their own engine they made their own transmission yeah they made their own everything premier was an independent company this was just a big strong dependable luxury car the seating setup is kind of interesting yeah these seats fold down yeah it's got these little jump seats seven passenger yeah yeah I mean people can really em you go cruising in this thing with the whole family would go mean it and you know it starts and drives like a modern car driving traffic you have to be a bit careful it's got the anti stop brakes let's consider those four brakes but not much for brake just a two wheel rear brakes but that's okay the transmission it's got a lot of compressions so it's a big motor you can use the transmission to slow you down obviously it's not a freeway car top speed in this car is probably 60 but I would want to beat it up at that it'll cruise at 45 to 50 and that's about right you know the speed limit was 35 when this is built so this would have been a big fast car but it's quite comfortable you know commanding view of the road one of the nicest shifting cars if you get that water pump on we'll take it around the block and you can drive and see what it's like but Jesus just a nice nice driving well it's I mean it's big it is a big long it's tall but this is the size cars were back that day it wasn't big for its day but it was a big car well so we need water pumping we'll put that water pump on and move take it for a spin [Music] this is a pretty straightforward basic car nothing particularly innovative big heavy chassis big durable motor big strong transmission you know bulletproof electrics don't go take a lickin and keep on tickin a basically cruise along at a nice speed I mean this is a great tour car you know but it'll just run forever doesn't overheat but you know you stay off the highway you can drive around as a normal car it's very dependable you run through the gears very normally it shifts wonderfully it's a nice shifting nice driving car you almost got to get you in an old car after a while was it just drives him shifts on is life I'll let you take it down here you'll see and for a heavy car and actually steel it's pretty nicely right here think of it a try alright well come around pull that big mistake letting get us dry this is a huge mistake of mine the big smooth as you but I'll get there yeah little slower second of their hey guys hey very nice yeah this is comfortable yeah the big comfortable leather chair it's driving the living room the equivalent is may be driving a early 50s pickup truck it's studying it's chalk but it does do that yeah a little bit of a buckboard yeah yeah action and IG steals pretty nice than that yeah it does considering I mean there's a better Ralph Kramden bus driver thing going but to the moon Alice it will grab some lunch I'm sure the chickens ready now [Music] so hey we went out cruising the Sun even came up it's lunchtime I don't know about this Rain Man Thing let's eat chicken the Jay Leno ultimate collection vol 3 is here this compilations got everything from steam cars to supercars and you never know what's gonna happen when Jay and Dennis get together order yours today [Music] Oh

Channel: MyClassicCarTV

Views: 46,191

Rating: 4.9211044 out of 5

Keywords: My Classic Car, Classic Car, Dennis Gage, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, Cord, Premier, Cord 812, 812 Cord, 1914 Premier, Indiana, Jay Leno's classic cars, Jay Leno's car collection, classic car collections, old cars jay leno, driving old cars, driving classic cars, Jay Leno Cord, Jay Leno Premier

Id: uwXazl0V9tc

Length: 15min 22sec (922 seconds)

Published: Mon May 23 2016