Legendary Auburn, Cord, and Duesenberg designer Gordon Buehrig had seen many of the world’s most famous automobiles flow from his artist’s pencil over the decades. Yet he had never had his own name on a car, something that his dear friend, prominent Detroit businessman and collector Richard Kughn, decided to change in celebration of Buehrig’s 55th year in the automotive design field, 1979.

With the trend for 1930s-style ”neoclassics” on modern drivetrains at its peak, Buehrig and Kughn collaborated in the creation of the Buehrig Carriage Roof Coupe. As noted in a tribute booklet published by the ACD Automobile Museum in 1990, ”it was designed by Buehrig and was meant to combine luxury with race car sleekness in the neo-classical style.”

Three prototype Buehrigs were produced by Mr. Kughn’s employees at a shop in Farmington Hills, Michigan, using hand-laid fiberglass bodies styled in a Cord vein, with headlamps blended into long, flowing fenders around a ”coffin nose.” They were mounted on an extended Corvette chassis with a 350-cubic-inch V-8 and Turbo-Hydramatic transmission, and featured a luxuriously trimmed interior. Each was intended to be sold for $130,000, but unfortunately cost and insurance problems doomed the venture.

The first prototype Buehrig today resides in the ACD Automobile Museum in Auburn, while the remaining two prototypes have remained with Richard Kughn since new.