06/20/2026
It's not every day you come across a car that was built before the Great Depression hit its peak, but the 1931 Marmon Sixteen is exactly that kind of machine—a rolling piece of history that still makes your heart race.
Fewer than 400 of these were ever made, and the two-passenger coupe version you see here? One of the rarest of the rare. Under that long, sculpted hood sits a massive all-aluminum V-16 engine—491 cubic inches of pure American ambition. Howard Marmon spent years perfecting it, and the result was a staggering 200 horsepower with a compression ratio that was among the highest of its time. It could go toe-to-toe with a Duesenberg Model J but cost a whole lot less.
What really sets this car apart, though, is how it looks. Designed by Walter Dorwin Teague, the bodywork is clean, elegant, and refreshingly simple—no unnecessary chrome or flashy ornaments, just smooth Art Deco lines that flow like a perfectly tailored suit. And thanks to extensive use of aluminum (not just in the engine but in the body panels and drivetrain, too), it was actually lighter than the Cadillac V-16 it competed against.
A true engineering masterpiece from an era when every car had a soul.
