Offering depression-era buyers maximum bang for their buck, Auburn at one point marketed its muscular V12 at a rock-bottom price of just $975.

The remarkable engine for the Auburn 12 was produced by Lycoming of Williamsport, Pennsylvania—only natural, as both companies were parts of E.L. Cord’s far-flung automotive and aviation empire. Designed by Auburn engineer George Kublin and known internally at Lycoming as the BB V12, the engine is an odd-looking duck with its appearance dominated by elaborate intake and exhaust manifolding (above). The Auburn 12 is just as unusual on the inside, so let’s go in for a closer look.

With a 45-degree vee angle rather than the customary 60 degrees for a V12, the Auburn was exceptionally tall and narrow. Bore and stroke were an undersquare 3.125 by 4.250 inches, respectively, yielding 391 cubic inches. Neither an L-head nor an OHV layout exactly, the valvetrain employed a single camshaft operating rollerized followers that acted directly on the horizontal valves (above). A novel “fire slot” combustion chamber with a slim, rectangular opening to the cylinder supported a compression ratio of 5.75:1. Reportedly, Auburn invested $1 million in the engine’s development, a vast sum at the time. As a side note, in 1931 Horch in Germany introduced a remarkably similar V12 but without the peculiar fire-slot combustion chambers.

Rated output for the Auburn 12 was 160 hp at 3500 rpm, an impressive number for 1932, matching the Packard V12 and nearing the 175 hp of the Cadillac V16. Company literature often listed the model as the 12-160 to trumpet the power figure. To give the big V12 even longer legs Auburn offered a Dual Ratio model, which included a Columbia two-speed rear axle (another Cord subsidiary) that effectively functioned as an overdrive, proviiding a top speed of 100 mph.

For the 1932 introduction, Auburn offered the 12 in two trim levels, six elegant body styles including the Speedster, and a variety of flamboyant colors. But with the U.S. economy headed for rock bottom at that very moment, the 12 proved to be the right car at exactly the wrong time. Auburn adjusted by adding a super-deluxe Salon model and by slashing prices for the standard model to the bone: just $975 for a two-door coupe, undercutting even the Buick straight 8. Auburn offered the cheapest V12 ever sold in the USA, priced at even less than the Lincoln-Zephyr launched a few years later.

Like all the indpendent automakers, Auburn was by this time struggling just to stay in business, and the ambitious but ill-timed V12 was dropped after 1934. Only sixes and eights were offered in 1935, though the 8 received an optional supercharger. (See our feature on the supercharged Auburn here.) The Lycoming BB V12 engine did live on, however. American LaFrance of Elmira, New York, a Lycoming customer, acquired the rights and tooling and produced versions of the design (including a 527 CID big-bore variant) for its fire-fighting equipment well into the 1950s.