O.R. Fuller, Auburn-Fuller Inc.



O.R. Fuller 1921-1931- Auburn-Fuller Inc., 1931-1938 - Los Angeles, California

O.R. Fuller, Auburn-Fuller Inc. – 1920s-1937 - Los Angeles, California

O.R. Fuller was a Los Angeles Auburn-Cord Duesenberg distributor who had a small custom body building department during the late 1920s and early 1930s. The dealership, located on Wilshire Blvd., was bought out by Auburn in 1931 and served as the automaker’s Southern California flagship up until the Indiana automaker folded late in 1937.

The firm is known to have built two custom-bodied Cord L-29s and at least one Auburn Hearse. Rudy Stoessel and Oscar Haskey worked at the firm at various times as did Burton K. Chalmers, auto salesman to the stars. All three later worked at Darrin of Paris and Stoessel and Chambers joined Paul Erdos, another Darrin employee, in the formation of Coachcraft when Darrin folded in 1939.

Fuller’s dealership was located across from the Ambassador Hotel in the Auburn California building which was located at 3443 Wilshire Blvd. Cord erected the structure in 1927-1928 to house the firm’s West Coast offices and O.R. Fuller, California’s Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg distributor relocated there once the structure was completed. O.R. Fuller was also heavily invested in radio, and his two popular Los Angeles stations, KFAC & KFVD also moved into the Auburn California Building. The Auburn California Building became the first of many E.L. Cord real estate investments along Wilshire Blvd.

O.R. Fuller was heavily invested in the stock market and was forced into bankruptcy in 1931 enabling Cord to buy out his ACD distributorship and radio station empire for pennies on the dollar. Cord then gave him a job as president of Auburn-Fuller Inc. a firm founded to run the Wilshire Blvd. dealership. Fuller’s two-station radio empire was reorganized as the Los Angeles Broadcasting Co. and Fuller was also made president of Cord’s Century Pacific Lines, a small commuter airline formed in 1931 to compete against rail and bus lines in the profitable California/Arizona corridor.

Century Pacific used a small fleet of E.L..Cord-built Stinson aircraft and in early 1932, Aviation Corp., (AVCO) the parent company of American Airways, launched a hostile takeover of both Century Pacific and Century Airlines by creating a labor dispute with Century’s pilots. Cord was not amused and spent the next few months secretly purchasing large chunks of Aviation Corp. stock. At AVCO's fall board meeting, its directors were unpleasantly surprised to learn that Cord was now Aviation Corp’s majority stockholder (34%), which effectively gave him control over Century and American.

Auburn-Fuller went out of business soon after Auburn filed for bankruptcy in December of 1937, which coincided with the creation of Darrin of Paris.

For more information please read:

G.N. Georgano & G. Marshall Naul - The Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles

Albert Mroz - Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Trucks & Commercial Vehicles

Denis Miller - The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trucks and Buses

Tad Burness - American Truck Spotter's Guide, 1920-1970

Tad Burness - American Truck & Bus Spotter's Guide, 1920-1985

Robert M Roll - American trucking: A seventy-five year odyssey

David Jacobs - American Trucks: A photographic essay of American Trucks and Trucking

David Jacobs - American Trucks: More Colour Photographs of Truck & Trucking

John Gunnell - American Work Trucks: A Pictorial History of Commercial Trucks 1900-1994

George W. Green - Special-Use Vehicles: An Illustrated History of Unconventional Cars and Trucks