Vanderbilt Cup Races

Cords had seven separate pieces that made up the roof of the car. It was horribly labor-intensive to make them all fit together properly. When Cord closed shop, the dies went to Hupp (Skylark) and Graham (1941 Hollywood, the pictured car) and along with them went Tremulis.

As Alex Tremulis recollected: “Our (Cord’s) prices escalated to the point where you could buy two Cadillacs for the price of one supercharged Cord. That was the beginning of the end. When the Cord empire collapsed, the Cord tooling was sold to Hupmobile and Graham who felt that front-wheel drive and V8 engines were too expensive, and that off-the-shelf, six-cylinder engines were the way to go with rear-wheel drive and that they could cut the cost in half. I was retained because of my experience at Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg by the president of Hupmobile as a consultant. Consulting is a very precarious position to be placed in—you have only two options: number one you tell the client what he would like to hear, or, number two, you tell him what he should hear. I chose the latter, which was a calculated risk. I strongly recommended that he spend $150,000 for a one-piece roof, and all his tooling men agreed with me. He retaliated by stating, “I’m not interested in saving money, I only paid $40,000 for the Cord dies.” My answer was, “You just bought yourself $40,000 worth of junk.” I was paid off and fired on the spot after three days! The lesson I learned was that if one must break necks, one must do it very, very gently. It’s a shame that both Graham and Hupmobile failed in their venture as both cars were very beautiful, and they had the reputation of having very loyal clienteles of satisfied owners.”

Graham Hollywood, I think my Father’s first car was an early thirties Graham.

1941 Graham Hollywood

Hupmobile purchased the body dies from the defunct Cord 810/812 model. However, Hupmobile lacked the necessary production facilities to build the cars themselves.
In 1941, Hupmobile and Graham shared the same factory for the production of their vehicles. they partnered with Graham-Paige to build both the Hupmobile Skylark and the Graham Hollywood (their version using the same body dies. So, while the companies were distinct and the cars differed slightly (for instance, using their own engines). they were assembled in the same factory due to the arrangement for sharing the Cord body dies.
the total 1940-1941 Graham Hollywood production was between 1,500 and 1,800 cars. total 1940-1941 Hupmobile Skylark production was 319 cars.

That’s a 1941 Graham Hollywood Custom Supercharged Sedan. It was also manufactured as a 1941 Hupmobile Skylark.

This is a ‘41 Graham Hollywood. story is not right. Huppmobile having finanial issues to come with all an new ‘39 body, so they bought ‘36-‘37 Cord ‘810’ sedan body dies, and using their chassis and engine with new front end, Huppmobile Skylark. But Huppmobile still had financial issues ask Graham slightly better financially to take over producing both their versions The Skylark and Hollywood with having chrome insert over grille for the Hollywood. The War had started and they did well $. After the war, Hupp got in to Real Estates, Graham hired designer Howard ‘Dutch’ Darrin for a new body, but Henry J. Kaiser been doing ship building for the war effort, Looking for new peace time business, bought Graham along Joe Frazer who was head of Graham at the time, Kaiser-Frazer until a fallen out with both of then, beame just Kaiser

Graham Hollywood, looks like a cord but I do not believe it was front drive. I had a six cylinder engine. My Dad’s first car was an earlier Graham.

The Hupmobile Skylark used the same Cord sedan dies from Union Stamping. This division of Cord Corp built WW2 Jeep bodies and Packard Darren bodies after Dutch sold the rights to Packard. A few Skylark and Hollywood convertibles were built. Then some think these dies were sent to Japan as scrap before December 7, 1941. Joe Frazer owned Graham after the Graham Brothers died. Devaux brokered the deal to make the Hollywood and Skylarks. The idea was clever, but the 7 piece roof cost to much for price of middle priced American cars prewar.

Many of the 1940 and 1941 Grahams were Supercharged. Joe Frazer owned the former Graham real estate in Detroit. Henry Kaiser wanted post war. That is why the higher priced Fraiser was built. They cost about as much as the Cadillacs then.