01
Origins
When Cadillac unleashed its V16 in 1930, every American luxury house had to answer. Pierce-Arrow's reply, launched for 1932, was a V12 of eventually 7.6 litres — quiet, muscular, and proven in the most public way imaginable: Ab Jenkins took a nearly stock Twelve to the Bonneville salt in 1932 and averaged 112 mph for twenty-four hours without relief, a run that made headlines nationwide and was repeated faster the following years. The car itself was superb, and it hardly mattered. Pierce had been cut loose from Studebaker's collapse, the luxury market had evaporated, and no engineering could argue with the Depression. The Twelve carried the marque's colours until the end in 1938 — the fender-lamped aristocrat going down with its standards fully intact.
Rockville Antique And Classic Car Show 2016 · S Pakhrin from DC, USA · CC BY 2.0
