Its hard to imagine but a hundred years ago there were nearly two thousand automakers in the United States, most of them backyard shops that bolted primitive gas engines on to slightly modified horse buggies. There were eleven automakers in Auburn, Indiana alone. Most of them died young but others made quite a splash. But when the Auburn Automobile Company closed its doors in 1936, Auburn's carmaking tradition died with it. Until now.
On the back lot of the Kruse Auction Park Auburn's automotive industry is being reborn. Gene Daley and his son are dismantling a 1980's era Corvette..the body, interior..everything but the chassis is being tossed. Because the old corvette frame is destined to hold a fibreglass replica body of a Shelby Cobra. Gene Daley's business, Classic City Motors, manufactures fibreglass replicas of some of the world's most famous cars...the Cobra, the Auburn boattail speedster, the Lamborghini, and the 1934 Ford. The fibreglass bodies are produced in molds, the pieces of which are scattered around the shop. Gene Daley sells the cars as kits the buyer can complete himself. "You might need to take and do some welding here and cut a piece of metal there," he says. "That's the kind of guy who does one of these."
Or you can buy a completed replicar. The attraction is the money saved. A genuine Cobra can sell for a million bucks. A kit sells for under twenty thousand. Gene Daley just opened this business, he was a mechanical engineer for Essex until he quit to do this...just got tired of the rat race he says. "You can't even call this a job, I work with my son, I play with cars all day..it's not even a job!"
It may not be a job but Daley has put Auburn, Indiana back on the car manufacturing map after a seventy year absence...handbuilding classic automobiles..just like the good old days. Eric Olson reporting out in Your Country.