G. Buehrig; Top Designer of Motorcars
Gordon M. Buehrig, one of the country’s leading automotive designers because of such masterworks as his Duesenberg Model J, the coffin-nosed Cord 810 and 812 of the 1930s and the Auburn Boattail Speedster, died Monday. He was 85.
His daughter, Barbara Orlando, said that her father died at home in Grosse Pointe, Mich., where he had returned after living in Southern California. He had taught at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
The son of a banker in Mason City, Ill., Buehrig dropped out of Bradley University in Peoria to work as a body shop apprentice.
By 1928, he was designing bodies for Stutz Motor Car Co. in Indianapolis, and the following year, at age 25, he became chief body designer for Duesenberg Inc.
There he designed the “Twenty Grand,” a unique car that sold originally for $20,000 and now is worth more than $1 million.
In 1934, he went to work for E. L. Cord, who built both the Cord and Auburn automobiles in Auburn, Ind.
His design of the Cord 810 was the talk of the 1935 New York Auto Show. Not only was it one of the earliest front-wheel drive cars, but, at 12 inches lower than most cars of the era, it permitted drivers to step into rather than climb up to the driver’s seat.
About that same time, he also devised the “T-top” roof so popular today and the flip-up headlights now in use on many modern cars.
After working as a free-lance designer through much of the 1940s, Buehrig joined Ford, where he designed the 1951 Victoria and the 1952 Ford station wagon. He also helped design the prestigious 1956 Lincoln Continental Mark II before retiring from Ford in 1965.
After retiring, he moved to Laguna Hills and taught at the Art Center from 1965 to 1970.
In 1951, the Museum of Modern Art selected the Cord as one of the outstanding automotive designs of all time.
Last October, he was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame, and in 1981 the Society of Automotive Historians put Buehrig in its list of the top 30 people who influenced automotive history. The late Harley Earl of General Motors was the only other designer in that limited group.
In addition to his daughter, Buehrig is survived by his wife, Kathryn, two stepdaughters and eight grandchildren.
