Once upon a time, Americans were encouraged to dream big, go on adventures, and take risks.  While we have become a society that has become adverse to those things, in the early 20th century, this was the goal of many.  You can read about many of the heroes of that age, from Frank Lockhart to Nikolai Tesla.  Yet nobody lived a more full life than Eddie Rickenbacker.  This man crammed several unbelievable adventures into his long life, including manufacturing a line of automobiles, yet he is relatively unknown today and so is his car.  Would you like to add a car with a story to your collection?  If so, this 1925 Rickenbacker Sedan for sale on Craigslist in Garden, Michigan may be the car you want.  This blue-on-black twenties cruiser is being offered for $15,000, and would surely be the only one of this marque at your next Cars and Coffee.  Are you interested in refurbishing and showing such a car?  Thanks to Henry R. for the tip on this seldom-seen classic.

Edward Vernon Rickenbacher was born on October 8, 1890, and lived until July 23, 1973.  To say that he lived a full life would be a great understatement.  His Swiss immigrant parents were in Columbus, Ohio, and Rickenbacker’s childhood was one of hard work in a family with limited means.  He held many odd jobs as a kid to help put food on the family’s table.  He also had a knack for finding trouble.  Rickenbacker cheated death after falling in an open cistern, narrowly missing being hit by a coal car on two separate occasions, and barely escaping a school fire.  It wasn’t long before he found himself as an adult cheating death again and again.  In his life, he was a riding mechanic in the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup road race, a relief driver in the Indianapolis 500, got suspended from racing by the AAA for dangerous driving, raced again for the Duesenberg brothers, and was surveilled and arrested by British authorities for having a name similarly to a German noble’s son when arriving in the country to work for the British Sunbeam racing team during World War I.

It was in World War I that Rickenbacker achieved his greatest fame.  Enamored with flying, he joined the war effort and eventually led the famed 94th Aero Squadron.  During the war, he shot down an amazing 26 enemy planes to make him the ace of aces in WWI.  His bravery was rewarded with the Distinguished Service Cross (eight times), the Legion of Honor, and the French Croix de Guerre.  One of his DSCs was later upgraded to the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Later in life, Rickenbacker owned the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, was in an Eastern Air Lines DC-3 crash outside of Atlanta that nearly killed him, and was the victim of a B-17 crash in the Pacific during World War II that left him and fellow survivors adrift in life rafts for 24 days.  He credited his survival of that ordeal with a seagull that landed on his head when they had lost all hope of rescue.  Rickenbacker quickly snatched the bird from his head, and he and the survivors ate it raw.  Smokey Yunick said that Rickenbacker would repeatedly tell the seagull story in the pits to everyone he met at Indy when Smokey was a competitor.  Later in life, Rickenbacker would also run Eastern Air Lines.

Somewhere in there, Rickenbacker got into the car business with the backing of millionaire Byron Everitt of Everitt-Metzger-Flanders (EMF), an early car manufacturer.  The plan was to build a new car using the Rickenbacker name and his “hat in a ring” symbol from the 94th Aero Squadron.  The car had several innovations, including twin flywheels, a suspension designed to provide an undisturbed ride, and, in 1923, the then-unusual feature of brakes at all four corners of the car.  While such logic sounds ridiculous today, competitors such as Studebaker campaigned against the car on the premise that having four-wheel braking was unsafe.  Rickenbacker left the company after it was brought to its financial knees by the malicious treatment.  Increased competition in the upper middle end of the market ultimately drove the company into bankruptcy in 1927.  Rickenbacker ended up on the hook for $250,000 of the company’s debt.

While an estimated 27,000 cars were produced, time and attrition have made these cars literal ghosts in today’s collector car market.  According to the Rickenbacker Motors website, only a handful are known to exist.  We know little about this survivor due to the seller’s close hold on verbiage.  We are told that it is a 1925 Rickenbacker which is very rare with not many left.  The seller also states that it is a cool car and everything is original.  The term original in this case means either that the car carries all of its original parts, finishes, and upholstery or that it was restored to the same configuration it left the factory with.  If it is a restoration, it is an old one.  There was a time when collectors sought out rare and interesting cars to restore as a challenge and as sort of a reaction to the huge number of people restoring much more common cars.  Regardless, a perusal of the photographs reveals a car that could use some refreshing but is intact enough that its hard-to-find parts could probably be replicated.  Unfortunately, there is no mention as to the condition of the engine.  The picture below shows everything to be there, and the spark plug wires look to be recent replacements.  Perhaps that is a good sign that it has received some exercise in the past decade or so.

It seems sad that so few people today know who Eddie Rickenbacker was and the impact he had on aviation and racing.  Tragically his attempt at automobile manufacturing met with failure.  Setbacks like this were uncharacteristic for him but can be looked at positively as another example of his courage and determination to win against all odds.  More important was that he kept going after the loss.

Hopefully, someone will purchase this seldom-seen sedan and bring it back to good condition.  Perhaps asking about the car and its unusual logo may end up sharing the story of one of the most amazing Americans in history with a new generation of folks.  Eddie Rickenbacker deserves to be remembered, as does the car that bears his name.

Have you ever heard of a Rickenbacker?  Have you seen one in person?  What would you do with this car if it were yours?  Please share your thoughts in the comments.