To me the Auburn 851 Boattail Speedster looks like the future. It's what you see in movies when directors want to portray a decadent sci-fi image of what's to come: it's the car the bad guy will be driving – and the wheels will fold up when the car needs to take off. Slightly over-excited daydreaming aside, for a car that's almost 80 years old it still has a striking appearance: a 1930s boulevard cruiser given a steam punk make-over. Over-wide, over-long and over here. 

The Speedster is a stunningly opulent car which defined Hollywood at the time – rather at odds with the more austere British models it shares a display line with at the Beaulieu National Motor Museum in the UK. The Triumphs and Hillmans down the row might be 30 years younger, but they have little of the youthful panache of this car. Built in 1935, the 851 seems like the result of the desperation of a world on the edge of collapse: a refusal to see the writing on the wall. The 851 was just over a year old when Auburn folded and production ceased.

Auburn were a luxury American brand based in Auburn, Indiana: their imaginative styling and hardcore engineering were shared with their sister brands, Cord and Duesenberg. In 1926, the Cord Corporation, then owners of Auburn, had partnered with Duesenberg (better known for their record-breaking racing cars) to begin production of a line of luxury cars, and all three companies competed to produce the most outrageous and sensational vehicles.

As with most of the cars at Beaulieu, there's an underlying common denominator: the pursuit of speed. The in-line 8-cylinder, side-valve 5-litre engine in the 851 is also super-charged, an optional extra which hopped up the power considerably and meant the car could top 100mph – not bad for such a heavyweight. The car's ability to break the 100mph barrier was personally tested by the Ab Jenkins, a driver famous for his record-breaking drives on the Bonneville Salt Flats – a plaque on the dash commemorates the fact.

From the rear, it is just as stylish. In fact, it almost looks like it could drive in this direction as well! Imagine the long nose, tapered aerodynamic wheel arches, add some headlights… Sorry, daydreaming again. The car had sold for a street price of £800 (around £30,000 today) and the model on display was reputed to have been used by the famous actress Marlene Dietrich in the 1936 film Desire – it still features the period car radio.

Auburn shone brightly but faded fast – founded in 1900, by 1937 the company was gone, killed by outrageous optimism about selling such expensive cars at the height of the depression and not helped by Cord's own financial impropriety. Cord and Duesenberg went down with them: a sad end to such innovative companies, but at least we still have these amazing cars to admire.

Jonathan Moore