Elegant and bold, everything about the Auburn Speedster 8-120 points to speed. And it was extremely fast — a Speedster with an optional high-compression cylinder head was clocked doing 108.5 mph at Daytona Beach. This fine silver coin is dated 2003.

The car’s distinctive look included hood louvers, raked windshields, twin side-mounted spares, and a unique boattail rear end, designed by Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, a pioneer of streamlining. Other automakers quickly began to emulate the model’s groundbreaking look. Introduced to revive the company, the Speedster featured a $1,895 price tag, and was part of the best sales year in the history of the Auburn Automobile Company. In 1929, Auburn sold a total of 32,301 vehicles — beating Hudson, Packard and DeSoto. The Speedster offered eight-cylinder power and performance at a price that many buyers were paying for six-cylinder cars with nothing near the performance.