Cord L-29 History

Introduced in 1929, the Cord L-29 was the first American front-wheel-drive car offered to the public, engineered using a Lycoming 298-cubic-inch inline-eight paired to a front-mounted transmission and constant-velocity joints. Its most striking consequence was visual: with no driveshaft running through the floor, designer Al Leamy could give the car a hood that sat a full foot lower than any contemporary luxury rival, producing a long, lean profile unlike anything else on the American market.

Priced around $3,095 for closed bodies — putting it firmly in the upper tier of American luxury — the L-29 came as a sedan, brougham, cabriolet, and phaeton. Custom coachwork by American and European builders added further variety. Performance, however, was a weakness: 125 horsepower hauling a 2.5-ton car yielded a 0–60 mph time of over 30 seconds and a top speed barely above 75 mph.

The October 1929 stock-market crash devastated the L-29's target clientele before the model had fully established itself. Despite price reductions, sales totaled approximately 5,014 units over the model's three-year run before production was halted in 1932. The L-29 nonetheless secured Cord's place in history as a technical and styling pioneer.