Every story has a beginning...

Michael Akins has had a passion for the Auburns and Cords of years past from a very young age. At 23, he already had been hard at work at his own small one man restoration facility when he saw an add in a local paper looking for a shop foreman for the prestigious Antique Autos of America, owned and operated by David Samuels in Largo, Florida. Knowing that he had the talents to do the job, he interviewed and was hired the same day. With over fifty employees, Antique Autos of America was one of the premier auto restoration facilities in the United States. Cars restored by Antique Autos included the famed Frank Lloyd Wright L29 Cord in 1981. The company was so well respected that cars would just show up on trailers to be restored, not even knowing whom the cars belonged to. Southeastern Replicars was a side company of Antique Autos of America, the replica division. Southeastern Replicars produced the 1935 Auburn Boattail Replica in kit and turnkey forms, then later adding the 810 Cord Phaeton, or what Southeastern called, the 815SE Phaeton. Southeastern Replicars heyday of building Auburn and Cord replicas ended in the early 1980's due to the changing economy.

Fast forward to 1995, and Akins still has the passion and the dream of once again building the famed Auburn Boattail. After stints owning and operating a successful collision shop in Palm Harbor, Florida, and another large-scale restoration facility in Homasassa, Florida, Akins again decided to go back to basics and start working on the dream that had lasted a lifetime, a new Auburn Boattail Speedster replica. There were still a small handful of companies out there producing the car, but none that focused squarely on the Boattail as their sole production car. To get away from the rat race, he rented a small one bay shop on Hernando Beach, Florida to start producing the first of his new generation of Auburn Replicas. Little did he know what it would lead to? The first car was to be painted bright yellow with lipstick red leather interior. Akins wanted something that when people looked at it, they said, "Wow..." Though the car was still based on late 1970's technology with a donor car being used for a chassis and engine as well as other parts of the build. What set this particular car apart from the rest was that it was the first car to utilize power windows, air conditioning, and a removable hardtop. Taken from an actual 1935 Auburn Boattail Speedster hardtop, this piece, along with the outstanding quality of the new Speedster once again propelled the car to the front pages of replica car magazines around the world. Speedster Motorcars was born. Production continued on the Auburn replica in a couple of different locations, first being a modest sized facility in Spring Hill, Florida, where Akins received his first orders for cars, then to the more permanent location of New Port Richey, Florida at the aptly named, Akins Ranch. Production totaled around four to five cars a year along with high quality collector car restorations and restorations of older Auburn Speedsters from other manufacturers. Akins introduced the use of a late model 5.7 liter GM engine with fuel injection at this time to modernize the automobile. Different stages of Auburn Speedster kits were offered to customers who wanted to build their  own cars. He also found that because of so many reproduction Auburns out in the world, there was a need for aftermarket parts that just were not available anymore. He started mass producing parts such as castings and bumpers to fill the needs of the hundreds of Auburn replica owners.

In 2000, a gentleman named Michael Hughes approached Akins interested in producing the Auburn Speedster on a large scale. Akins and Hughes came to an agreement and Speedster Motorcars was put on hold for this new venture called Auburn Cord Motorcars and the company was moved to Carsville, GA. Auburn Cord Motorcars set out to produce a tribute car called the Auburn Encore Speedster. For all intent and purposes, this car was identical to the Speedsters that Akins built in Florida. The relationship though was short lived and Auburn Cord Motorcars only produced about a half a dozen automobiles. When this newly formed company shut down, some of the remaining inventory was purchased by Palmer's Custom Classics out of Lavonia, Georgia, and a handful of cars were produced under that moniker.  These cars had a striking resemblance to the Speedster Motorcars Auburns of years past.

In 2001, more wise and ready to start producing Auburn Speedsters again. Akins opened Speedster Motorcars once more at Akins Ranch. Always keeping the standard for the quality in the work done top notch to stay ahead of the pack. With business slowing down, in 2002 Akins decided to move the company to a more noticeable location. He felt that having a facility on a main thoroughfare would also bring a more diverse customer and open new doors and more opportunities to make a living. Speedster Motorcars moved to a 5,000 square foot facility in Clearwater, Florida. The shop was once a premier Corvette restoration facility and was the perfect location to start anew. Speedster Motorcars continued to produce the Auburn Boattail, though not on the scale that had been seen in the past few years. They started to filter in a few more restorations and some off the street work to supplement the income. That same year, Akins brought his oldest son, Jeff, into the business and began to pass down the knowledge that he had gathered throughout the years. Even with Speedster Motorcars producing cars at the rate of about five cars a year, they never had more than three or four employees including Akins. All that was about to change.

Fall 2002. Akins received a call from a gentleman from Indiana who had just purchased an early 1980's California Custom Coach built Auburn replica. He was looking for someone to restore the car and came across Akins company. The car and the business intrigued him. His name was Timothy Durham. He was a young, very successful businessman that by trade invested in small to mid market companies. Speedster Motorcars caught his eye and he wanted to see it in person. Durham and his associates Terry Whitesell and Jeff Osler flew to Clearwater to take a look at the operation. Seeing the cars that Speedster Motorcars was producing, Durham knew that Akins was on to something. In the following weeks, Durham flew Akins to Indianapolis, Indiana to visit Durham's company, Obsidian Enterprises. The two gentlemen came to an agreement that there was a need for a mass-produced Auburn Boattail Speedster replica and they set out on a course that would rewrite the books on how to build a proper Auburn replica.

With the backing of Tim Durham, Speedster Motorcars in a matter of months went from a 5,000 square foot facility in Clearwater to a 30,000 square foot full production facility in Pinellas Park, Florida. With Akins still at the helm of the company, he set about to put together a team of people that would make history producing what some have called the absolute best Auburn recreation. They were able to take the car to the next level by using a full custom fabricated chassis, dubbed the Speedster Gen II which used rectangle 4" x 2" steel with full cross members throughout to provide strength and rigidity. The days of using donor cars were a thing of the past. They utilized a fully modern 5.3 liter General Motors fuel injected engine that was completely computerized. Speedster Motorcars was able for the first time to use what they wanted to make this a real, fully functional, everyday driver automobile, and that is how they advertised it.

No longer would the Auburn Speedster be offered in kit form, they would only be sold as turn-key replicas. After a few months, Speedster Motorcars was once again on the front pages of countless auto magazines. Showing the world what a high-quality replica was supposed to look like. Speedster Motorcars for the first time started a dealer network across the country in which a customer could drive and see a new Auburn Speedster replica in person. In the first year of production with the help of over thirty employees, Speedster Motorcars was churning out car after car, producing twenty-three in the first year alone. Along side of the production, Speedster Motorcars was continuing to do some high quality restorations, total frame-offs to simple interior work, they never said that a job was too big or small for them. They now had some of the best fabricators in the business helping design their world-class automobiles.

By the beginning of 2004, the production outlook was looking up as they were hoping to hit a high mark of fifty cars produced in the year. But then things took a turn and the face of Speedster Motorcars was about to change. Early in the year, Michael Akins was having problems with his health. Testing was done and the doctor's told him that he better make some serious life changes and slow down or he would have a heart attack in the near future.  He met with Durham and his associates and voiced his concern and they came to a mutual agreement that they would continue with the company without Akins at the helm. The decision was made to move Todd Bontrager into the lead position at the company. A young but very savvy businessman, Durham thought he would be the perfect fit to move the company into the future. By mid-year, things had started to quickly move through production and Bontrager kept the company on course and pumped out a very respectable thirty-five cars the second year by focusing strictly on Auburn replica production and dropping the restoration division of the company. Before Akins left the company, he had met an old-time hot rodder, Terry Cook.

Mr. Cook had been the brainchild behind countless custom automobiles including the famed Scrape, a chopped, channeled, and slammed 1939 Lincoln Zephyr. Cook had been producing replica bodies of his Scrape automobile for years and approached Akins about producing turnkey Lincoln Zephyr replicas. Akins thought that it might be a good fit for the company, but now it was up to Bontrager and his production foreman slash engineer Ron Clark to make this a reality. Development began on what Speedster Motorcars dubbed their Z-Series line in mid 2004. This was to be a hot rod for the masses. Being that a custom car would take someone years to have built or build on their own, with the Z-Series they could just walk onto the showroom and purchase a brand new hot rod at a decent price. With a hardtop and a roadster available. Speedster Motorcars was ready to take the world by storm with their new car. The first Z-Series cars rolled off the production line in January 2005 to rave reviews from customers, as they were selling quicker then Speedster could produce them. Later adding a Z-Series custom line in 2006 that showed you could build a show quality car in less than two months. All in all, Speedster Motorcars produced forty-one Zephyr replicas between 2005 and 2006. The high watermark in sales being an Alice Cooper themed Z-Series that ran through the famed Barrett Jackson Scottsdale auction bringing a cool quarter million dollars.

In mid 2006, as sales of the Z-Series and Auburn replica were starting to wane a bit, Speedster Motorcars knew that they had to stay ahead of the curve and began to look for that next project. What presented itself was an opportunity to produce a replica of the world renowned 1955 Mercedes Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupe. The car was to called the GW Coupe. The GW Coupe was so stunning that it propelled the company to the front of the magazines once again and even garnering its own write up in the New York Times. Though the car was a hit among onlookers, it failed to catch on in sales and took a long time for it to find a market. By the time that the GW Coupe finally did start to sell at a fairly regular pace, Speedster Motorcars was already behind the eight ball in that they had more inventory than they needed. Was it the car that slowed the company down, the economy, or maybe a combination of the two, we will never know.

By early 2008, with Tim Durham's interest in the company not high on his priority list anymore as he was devoting more time to his other companies and venturing into new areas of medical technologies. The once impressive company of over thirty employees had dwindled down to eight with cutbacks and layoffs. On March 21, 2008 Speedster Motorcars, in all its grand glory, shut the doors of its 30,000 square foot facility for good. In the five years of mass-production, they built eighty-four Auburn Boattail Speedster replicas, forty-one Lincoln Zephyr replicas, and twenty 300SL replicas. One hundred, forty-five cars in just over five years.

The end is just the beginning of something else...

Akins son Jeff, had continued to grow and mature in the company throughout its run. Going from purchasing and parts to being the company's controller. Though never actually in charge of Speedster Motorcars, not much was done without him being involved in some capacity. He and Akins senior had always maintained contact since Michael's departure. When the rumors started to become reality in early 2008 that Speedster Motorcars was in trouble Michael and Jeff approached Durham with an idea, the idea of buying back the company. Tim Durham had no problems with this. He probably would like to have seen it continue and who else to better sail the ship than the man who created it. So, with the help of a friend, Michael Akins got the funds needed to buy the company back. They found a new location back in Largo, where it all started, and began the move. Michael Akin was now leading Speedster Motorcars again.

During that same time period, Akin had already been working on a a new project of his own, a 1937 810 Cord street rod, named the Coffin Nose Speedster. The Coffin Nose Speedster along with the Classic Boattail Speedster and an upcoming Speedster V2, should prove to be a great lineup of cars being produced by Speedster Motorcars. Michael and Jeff once again will show the world that they can build world class automobiles. Auburn Speedster production continues today.
 

Speedster Motorcar Sales
2320 10th St. SE
Largo, FL 33771
Phone: 727-584-3606

email: jeff@speedstermotorcar.com

website: www.speedstermotorcar.com