1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow. Photos by Darin Schnabel, courtesy RM Sotheby’s.
When Pierce-Arrow needed a halo car to draw affluent buyers into showrooms during the Great Depression, designer Phil Wright was given an unenviable directive: Design a car that couldn’t be ignored. The result was the futuristic 1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow, an automobile that existed somewhere between concept (an idea that hadn’t yet been invented) and extremely limited production.
Of the five built, three remain, and the car thought to have been shown at the 1933 Chicago Worlds Fair, chassis 2575029, will head to auction in New York City on December 10.
When the Silver Arrow made its debut at the 1933 New York Auto Show, Pierce-Arrow declared, “It gives you in 1933 the car of 1940.” To those in attendance, the proclamation was accurate, as surely this is what a car from the future would look like.
Streamlined almost to an extreme, the Silver Arrow sported headlamps integrated into front fenders, spare tires hidden in compartments behind the front wheels, flush-mounted doors with handles recessed into pockets to cheat the wind, skirted rear fenders, and no running boards. Perhaps its most dramatic feature, however, was a single-piece fastback roof that swept from the A-pillar to the rear bumper, broken only by narrow wedge-shaped rear windows and an integrated trunk.
Visually, Wright had delivered exactly what Pierce-Arrow president Roy Faulkner had requested: a car that couldn’t be ignored.
Beneath the skin, the Silver Arrow was even more remarkable, boasting a step-down design and a V-12 engine mounted low in the chassis, both to drop the car’s center of gravity for improved handling. The drum brakes came from Stewart-Warner, and featured a then-innovative power assist, while the three-speed gearbox incorporated an automatic clutch.
Original plans called for the car to be rear-engine and rear drive, but the additional effort and expense to develop an entirely new platform was quickly vetoed. Instead, the Silver Arrow rode on a 139-inch-wheelbase Model 1236 chassis, fitted with the 462-cu.in. V-12 from the larger 1242 and 1247 models. Output was rated at 175 horsepower, and combined with the car’s wind-cheating shape, helped to produce a top speed of 115 MPH.
Furthering their mystique, just five Silver Arrows were built by hand-selected workers, and each was priced at the eye-opening sum of $10,000. Looking to further capitalize on the name once it had become familiar, Pierce-Arrow also used “Silver Arrow” on a production car built from 1934-’35.
Chassis 2575029 is believed to be the car shown at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, dubbed “A Century of Progress,” though the evidence may be seen by some as anecdotal. Of the five examples built, this is the only car known to have ties to the Chicago area, having been purchased by illustrator and Lake Bluff, Illinois, resident Charles Overall sometime in the 1930s. The car would pass through the collection of Chicago dairy magnate D. Cameron Peck, before later landing with Henry Austin Clark Jr., who had the car restored by Reuter Coach Works in 1950 before displaying it for over a decade at his Long Island Automotive Museum.
Clark’s collection was auctioned off in a series of 1963 sales, and the rare Silver Arrow was one of the featured cars in the initial auction. The consignor acquired the car in the early 1990s, and shortly after commissioned a repaint which produced the current light metallic pewter with dark charcoal livery. The New York sale represents the first time in over 30 years that chassis 2575029 has been offered to the general public.
The last time a Silver Arrow crossed the auction block was in 2012, when chassis 2575018 sold for $2.2 million at a Scottsdale, Arizona auction. RM Sotheby’s predicts a selling price between $2.5 million and $3.0 million when chassis 2575029 takes to the stage on December 10 in New York City.
For more information on the Driven by Disruption sale, visit RMSothebys.com.
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