We are featuring a great looking, quite rare and stylish 1941 Graham Hollywood Sedan. The creation of this automobile actually goes back to the demise of the Cord Corporation in 1938.
Graham was an American automaker which was founded in 1927 by brothers Joseph, Robert and Ray Graham. In January of 1928, the name of the company was changed from Graham to Graham-Paige Motors Corporation. This resulted from Graham absorbing Paige Motors.
This continued until after 1930 when their automobiles took on the name of only “Graham“.
Graham built a total of 1,458 of these Hollywood automobiles from 1940-1941 with only 350 built in 1941. Many of those 350 Grahams were either destroyed over time or were customized meaning that very very few are in existence today.
The Graham Hollywood and the Cord and Hupp Connection
Although the Auburn Cord Corporation did go out of business in 1938, automotive entrepreneur Norman de Vaux went ahead and purchased the tooling for the 1936-1937 Cord 810/812. His reason for the tooling purchase was an effort to return the well known Gordon Buehrig-styled Cord type cars to production. It was de Vaux’s intent to create an entirely new company to built these new cars, Graham-Paige President Joseph Graham introduced de Vaux to Hupmobile Vice President W.A. MacDonald. McDonald put de Vaux on the company payroll and this resulted in a prototype automobile introduced in October 1938 alongside the new Hupp models.
Graham’ s 1939 cars called the “Spirit of Motion” did not go well financially. Many in the public referred to the car as the “Sharknose“. Graham would then work out a deal to build the Hupp Skylark using Hupp-supplied engines, and also its own Graham Hollywood. These would be built side by side but problems arose especially with the moving and setup of the Hupp tooling to Graham’s Willow Run, Michigan factory and this delayed Graham’s production schedule.
In 1940, Graham had a contract with Hupmobile to build a model named the Skylark. The problem however was that Hupmobile went out of business.
The Hupmobile was one of several Detroit automakers who enjoyed moderate success, but as automobile production grew more and more eventually they were unable to compete against Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler with their deeper pockets.. Hupp as a company did stay around after the war but not in the automotive industry. They became a manufacturer of electronics and kitchen appliances.
At this time in 1940 Graham had the production line set up in their factory and made the decision to go ahead with production and renamed the Skylark the Graham Hollywood.
Graham Hollywood Styling
The Hollywood was built using dies from the Cord 810/812. From the cowl back, the Graham Hollywood is based on the 1936-37 Cord. Since Hupp had purchased the body dies from the defunct Auburn Automobile Company, Graham was able to have access to them. The Hupmobile and Graham association helped both automakers who were strapped for cash. This merger of resources would occur with a few other independent automakers.
In regards to styling, the Graham Hollywood had unibody construction. The Hollywood did not have the hidden headlights or front-wheel drive of the Cord. It did feature a supercharged 125 horsepower, six-cylinder Graham-designed engine built by Continental. More styling characteristics included dual chrome mirrors, three piece grille, a split windshield, “suicide” front doors and steel wheels with chrome hubcaps along with wide whitewall tires.
1941 Graham Hollywood Specifications
As noted, the 1941 Graham Hollywood was produced with a 217 cubic inch inline six-cylinder Graham-designed engine built by Continental. The engine was rated at 85 HP. Most Graham Hollywood models however were built with this engine in supercharged configuration putting out 120 HP.
Transmission is a column mounted three speed manual.
Brakes are four wheel hydraulic drums.
Wheelbase is 115.0 inches and the Hollywood weighed about 3,000 lbs.
New car price was about $1,100.
Related Auto Museum Online articles are found on the links below..
1930 Graham-Paige Sedan Series 8
Reference material for this article included…The Graham Legacy: Graham-Paige to 1932, by author Michael E. Keller… The Graham Owners Club.
The 1941 Graham Hollywood Sedan Collector Automobile
With only 350 of these models built for the 1941 model year, the Graham Hollywood is a very rare automobile.
Auction sales for the 1941 Graham Hollywood Sedan in excellent restored condition with very high originality are in a range from about $38,000 to $50,000.
(Article and photos copyright Auto Museum Online)