In the winter of 1949, Eva May Johnson, a socialite and sportswoman who lived for much of the year in the Hollywood Hills of California, traveled to New York to visit J.S.

Inskip’s famed salesroom.

There she met renowned racing driver and enthusiast Briggs Cunningham and began a correspondence regarding their mutual interests—specifically, Stutzes and, even more specifically, this 1929 Model M Four-Passenger Speedster, in Ms.

Johnson’s California garage.

Ms.

Johnson had a great passion for the car and was quite knowledgeable regarding its mechanical specifications and care.

Even as she considered trading it in on a new Bentley, she had turned down one prospective owner because he intended to hot-rod the Stutz.

“This has been my transportation car from 1937 to 1949,” she wrote to Cunningham, “marvelous on the highway, but requiring simpatico for traffic competitions with V-8s! Corners as well as my Bentley, and while I don’t know the proper term for it, you don’t have to wind it ...