1933 car part of Dillinger exhibit since ’96 up for auction

CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) – A 1933 car that has been part of a John Dillinger Museum exhibit and appeared in a film about the famous gangster will be auctioned Saturday outside the historic Lake County Courthouse.

The South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority is selling the 1933 Essex Terraplane that has been part of a display for nearly two decades. The car didn’t belong to Dillinger, but it is the model and year favored by him, and appeared briefly in the Johnny Depp film “Public Enemies.”

A reserve of $18,500 has been set on the vehicle. Visitors’ bureau President Speros Batistatos told the Post-Tribune that the auction has generated interest from people as far away as Arizona.

“I’m hoping the number is in the high $20s. We might be surprised,” Batistatos said.

The tourism group is the car’s third owner. The original owner was from Arizona, and the car was later purchased by the late Joe Pinkston and housed in The John Dillinger Historical Wax Museum in Nashville, Indiana.

Batistatos said his agency hopes to find a new owner who will appreciate the car.

“We hate to see it go,” he said. “We want to do right by the car and ensure its existence for many, many decades to come.”

Dillinger was born in Indianapolis and led a gang that robbed several banks and police arsenals in Indiana during the 1930s. He broke out of the Lake County Jail in Crown Point while awaiting trial in the killing of an East Chicago policeman in 1934 and was later fatally shot by federal agents outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater.