31631F - S/C Clone?

Just to make sure every one understands Evans is NOT ANTIFREEZE!!! I us water with a anticorrosion additive in all my cars from 1910 to 1967. The reason is they run 15 degrees cooler with water verse antifreeze. And yes I have drained them at night on long trips numerous times. That's what they make hotel wastebaskets for.
CORDiallyMike

The ACD Museum was donated Josh Malk's Cord Westchester and unfortunately it too suffered block damage from shipping in transit (I believe the museum just dealt with that or is dealing with it now). And freezing seems to be an issue in plenty of Auburn and Cord cars (and I assume it has to do with people wanting to run water over antifreeze die to whatever their belief regarding their Aluminum cylinder heads) - people often forget that even in Los Angeles it will drop down to freezing just long enough to cause problems.

Gary,
I can imagine how upset he likely was.
So this did technically start out as a cabriolet. Amazing effort!

That's really unfortunate. It was probably heart breaking to him for that to happen after a lifelong investment in its creation.

Some information needs to be updated from the comments.
First is Henry purchased a supercharged cabriolet firewall because thats the piece needed for this actual car he built. The "car" had been shortened to a dune buggy type modification. It was the back of the car is the rub because he used a Westchester rear end and fabricated the rest to make the cabriolet body. Henry used Evans waterless coolant. When the car reached England it was noticed to have a coolant leak so water was added to top it off. Big mistake. The block cracked when it froze. Henry told me how upset he was because of this and that the then owner installed a non supercharged engine. My information came to me from Henry and if incorrect please add what might be known. The history of these great cars is very important.


Gary Parsons

It was shipped overseas after it was sold at auction as I remember to a Scandinavian country with no antifreeze in the motor., you can guess what happened. Don't know how it was repaired. Henry did a excellent job and I'm sure it drove wonderfully when he owned it.
CORDiallyMike

Thank you very much for the reply. It seems as though the auction listing was disingenuous. To me, the real story is much more amazing than I assumed. Were there ever any articles devoted to this project?

Henry Portz spent his spare "spare" time building this fabulous cars over a 32 year period. I say spare "spare" time simply because his normal "spare" time was spent working on other people's Cords. Starting with a sedan cowl which was modified to suit, the cabriolet body was built from scratch. It was an incredible achievement. The rest of the body panels were collected from other Cords that had been scrapped or parted out. I was one of the lucky ones to have a short drive of this car with Henry before he sold it. It had the feel and quality of a brand new car ..................... everything was perfect.

After the umpteenth Cord image search, I came across this Bonhams listing: www.bonhams.com/auctions/24809/lot/151/

Hidden in the body of the description is "This car never left the factory officially in its present configuration, but was assembled over a thirty-year period using original Cord 810/812 parts. " Does this mean that this car was fabricated entirely from left over parts or is an non-s/c car that was later fitted with s/c parts to be a tribute car.

On that note, are there many 36/37's that have been fitted with an s/c set up at a later point?