Like all great pieces of art, the Marmon Sixteen was one man’s vision of perfection.

Automobile pioneer Colonel Howard Marmon created a triumph of pattern-making and foundry technology, containing at its heart an all-aluminum V-16 engine on a state-of-the-art chassis.

With 200 horsepower from over 490 cubic inches of displacement, the car was capable of out-accelerating a Duesenberg Model J—yet at only one-third the cost, making it as much of a performance bargain as a $5,000 automobile could be.

Walter Dorwin Teague Jr., an MIT student working for his father’s industrial design firm, dressed the Sixteen in crisp lines devoid of gratuitous ornamentation and characterized by clean shapes embodying the lean sporty aesthetic of the age.

A design with such superb styling and world-class engineering comingling in harmonious balance has seldom been seen before or since.

Like a fine Swiss watch or the best mahogany speedboat, it whispered quietly but firmly of its owner’s wealth and exqu...