This long, low Cord automobile doesn't look much like a school bus, does it? No, but one just like it owned by the late W. John Whisenant was part of a volunteer fleet of private vehicles used by the late Doug Helm to transport Los Gatos High School athletic teams.
Today's photograph of a vintage Cord--similar to that Whisenant had--is owned by Tom Moore and displayed by his brother, John Moore.
In the 1930s, the school administration paid for gasoline for drivers who "filled up" at the Shell station across Main Street from the school. Team members felt fortunate if they were assigned to ride in Whisenant's long, low, new-on-the-market vehicle. Tom Moore, on the other hand, was not that excited when his father, the late Edward Y. Moore, founder of Moore Buick of Los Gatos, bought him this secondhand Cord on a father-son junket to Los Angeles. Tom, now CEO of MCM Energy Research, had his high-school heart set on building a racer from the ground up. Tom feels to this day that his father bought the secondhand Cord for $600 to cool Tom's desire for a racer. This rakish product was manufactured by Auburn Automobile Co. of Auburn, Ind.
Whisenant, a pharmacist, took a mid-life retirement from his Los Gatos Pharmacy, which at the time was located at 47 E. Main St., and he set out to enjoy life, playing golf at La Rinconada and tennis with his wife, Lura, as a mixed-doubles partner playing on the high-school courts. And he plunked down $3,095 for Santa Clara County's first Cord automobile.
Student athletes loved riding in the low Cord with front-wheel drive.
Whisenant purchased his sedan from another Los Gatan, James D. Shaw, who owned and operated an agency in San Jose. Shaw's son, Emerson, a resident of the Meadows, is a retired member of Los Gatos Museum board of directors.
Shaw recalls the pleasure of driving an Austin--a bug of a car from his father's lot--to high school. So small was the Austin that fellow students "snuck" it onto the auditorium stage.
An enraged Principal J. Warren Ayres asked Shaw if he wished to press charges. Undisturbed, Shaw calmed the principal, and the tiny car was removed with no difficulty.
Tom Moore's Cord is a four-door Westchester, 1936 Model 8l0.
Shaw recalls the Cord as overweight and underpowered. Windshields in some models were so shallow as to limit visibility to an almost dangerous degree.
Notwithstanding, Whisenant and his wife transported athletes to Mountain View, Santa Clara, Fremont and Gilroy high schools and the King City Relays without mishap.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, January 17, 1996.
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