The best-remembered advertisements for the Duesenberg in the magazines of the 1930s never showed the actual car. There was simply a sketch of an elegant man or woman — maybe hunting pheasants, addressing the gardener or simply sitting in a paneled library. There was a single line of copy: "He drives a Duesenberg." Or, "She drives a Duesenberg."
You get the idea. Special people, special automobiles. It's an idea that has never gone out of style, and neither has the Duesenberg.
Twenty years ago, I visited Rick Carroll, an insurance broker and car collector in Jensen Beach, Florida, who then owned 17 Duesenbergs, an astonishing number that you'd never see in the hands of a single person today. "I take off every day at four," he told me, "and head for the garage, just like a boy with his toys."
Driving Miss Duesie
Behind Carroll's palatial Spanish-style home was a huge garage with Duesies lined up in formation. It was like visiting a stable of thoroughbreds. You were simply overwhelmed by rows of long hoods, shimmering chrome exhaust headers, sparkling paint and the heady aroma of waxed hardwoods.
"Duesenbergs are the greatest classics," Carroll enthused. "But a lot of people think they drive like trucks. Sure, they weigh 6,000-7,500 pounds depending upon body style, but set them up right — with proper attention to tire pressures, front-end alignment and the steering — and they're not heavy at all. I can drive one up my 1,000-foot serpentine driveway with two fingers on the steering wheel."
And then he offered graciously, "Pick any one, and take it for a drive. You'll see."
I was captivated by his 1929 Duesenberg Model J Murphy Torpedo, an unrestored yet beautifully preserved black beauty with a pointed flair of polished aluminum framing its tiny cockpit and then tapering to a dramatic point on the car's gracefully curved rear deck. The Walter M. Murphy Company of Pasadena, California, had been responsible for more custom bodies on the Duesenberg chassis than any other coachbuilder. Most were roadsters like this, many with "disappearing" tops that retracted into the bodywork.
"Now this one's really quick," Carroll confided. "It's a lot lighter than a big phaeton or a sedan. Go ahead, take it by yourself."
The Warp of Time
Within minutes, my heart pounding, I was cruising the back roads in Jensen Beach, wondering whether to turn northward and make a run for it. As I hunkered behind the low windshield, the huge hood stretched all the way to the horizon. The big roadster felt surprisingly responsive, with short shift throws, powerful brakes and a meaty exhaust rumble. I decided to point it toward the horizon and punch it.
The race-bred, 265-horsepower straight-8 complied eagerly and we soon passed the 100-mph mark with more to go. On that old narrow two-lane road, with tall palm trees and a blessed lack of traffic, the moment was a time warp. Suddenly it was 1930 again.
And just as I eased off, there were flashing red lights in my mirrors.
The Car of the Roaring '20s
The 1920s were an extraordinary time in American history, a riot of high living and loose money just like our own recent history, and the Duesenberg expressed the temper of the Jazz Age as perfectly to the people of those times as it does to us today.
Popularly known then as "America's Mightiest Motor Car," the Duesenberg was built by the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Company in Auburn, Indiana. Erret Lobban Cord, a renowned entrepreneur who'd twice been featured on the cover of Time in a two-year period, was the motivating force behind the marque. He wanted to create the finest motorcar in America.
The right men for the job were two skilled German immigrants (tractor mechanics from Minnesota, actually), Fred and August Duesenberg. The brothers had built racing cars, pioneered supercharging and won the Indianapolis 500. From 1920-'27 they had built the Duesenberg Model A, the first American production car with all-wheel hydraulic brakes, in their factory in Indianapolis.
Funded by Cord's millions, the Duesenberg Model J was introduced at the 1928 New York Automobile Salon. It was acclaimed, despite a price tag of $8,500 for the chassis alone. (A custom-built body could more than double that cost.)
Naturally, the rich and famous immediately lined up, checkbooks in hand. Sadly, Cord's timing could not have been worse. The stock market crashed in October 1929 and the Great Depression would soon put most luxury makes out of business.
Greatness Endures
But while it lasted, the Duesenberg J (and later JN and SJ models) was magnificent. The engine was a race-inspired vision of polished aluminum, a 265-horsepower, 32-valve, DOHC inline-8 that displaced a whopping 420 cubic inches (6.9 liters). These immense engines were built by Lycoming, known for its aircraft power plants, and were all painted green. Duesenberg claimed an astonishing 320 hp for the Model J's successor, the supercharged Model SJ.
About 480 Duesenbergs were completed from 1929-'37, although because the factory and many custom coachbuilders rebodied, updated and resold a number of individual cars (a not uncommon practice for luxury makes at the time), it can appear as though as many as 500 examples were produced.
Duesenberg owners were the crème de la crème of society, industry, politics and show business, and included candy magnates Phillip K. Wrigley and Ethel V. Mars, pharmaceutical magnate Josiah K. Lilly, the razor blade king Colonel Jacob Schick and the prince of cough drops W.H. Luden. Jimmy Walker, New York's madcap mayor, cruised Manhattan in a silk-upholstered Duesenberg limousine. Not to be outdone, Mayor Frank Hague of Jersey City had two Duesies, and one of them cost $20,000 in an era when families waited in bread lines and ex-bankers sold apples on street corners. Putting it in perspective, a new Ford Model A roadster back in 1929 was $450.
Back to Reality
Officer Joyce Smiley's police cruiser wasn't too menacing alongside the towering roadster I was driving. But she'd recognized the cruising Duesie and knew I was not the owner. "That's one of Mr. Carroll's cars," she drawled, not unkindly. "I'll just make sure y'all bring it back where it belongs." Under police escort, my short-lived fantasy was over, but I was very impressed.
"Part of the fun of these cars is letting people see and drive them," Rick Carroll told me. Certainly it was an experience that doesn't come to everyone. Sadly, Carroll was killed in a motor home crash a few years after my brief drive and all his Duesenbergs were sold. Now they grace some important collections, something I am sure would have pleased him.
The Duesenberg Still Matters
Jay Leno owns seven Duesenbergs. They include a bare Model J chassis that he's fitted with a seat so he can drive it on the street.
"I love Duesenbergs," Leno says. "They were the first American cars to beat the Europeans at their own game. Fine cars of that era were mostly lumbering limousines with slow-revving engines. Duesenbergs had high-revving, double-overhead-cam, four-valve straight-8s. They were the fastest American cars until the Chrysler 300 letter series in the mid-1950s."
Leno continues, "My favorite is my supercharged Murphy SJ disappearing-top roadster. The McLaren F1 of its day, it was stylish, sophisticated and very fast. And it still is."
I've driven several Duesenbergs since the time I acquired a police escort in Rick Carroll's car, but nothing compares to that first thrilling drive. Today, with auction prices for many examples exceeding seven figures, it's clear that E.L. Cord and the talented Duesenberg brothers created a car that is real art, not just industrial art. Even people who've never heard the name Duesenberg use the expression, "It's a Doozy!" It's an enduring tribute to this classic among classics.
edmunds
