Duesenberg Model J

Duesenberg Model J at a glance

E. L. Cord buys Duesenberg

August and Fred Duesenberg founded their company in Indianapolis in 1920 and made their name in racing: Jimmy Murphy won the 1921 French Grand Prix in a Duesenberg, the first American car to do so, and Duesenbergs won the Indianapolis 500 in 1924, 1925 and 1927. In 1926 E. L. Cord bought the company for its engineering talent and its name, and renamed it Duesenberg, Inc.

The new car was meant to rival the best European makes. Fred Duesenberg stayed on as vice president of engineering; his brother August did not work on the original design but later led engineering and built racing cars in a separate unit. The first car, J-101, a LeBaron dual-cowl phaeton in silver and black, was shown at the New York car show on 1 December 1928 and then at the 1929 Paris motor show.

The Lycoming straight-eight

The engine came from Lycoming, another Cord company, built to Duesenberg's racing designs. It was a straight-eight of 420 cu in (6.9 litres) with two overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder. In standard form it produced 198 kW (265 hp) at 4,250 rpm. That is about 29 kW per litre of displacement. Compared with Cadillac's first V8 of 1915, with 52 kW from 5.1 litres, the J had almost four times the power and roughly three times the output per litre. Our power converter gives the same figures in PS.

English Wikipedia describes the J as both the fastest and the most expensive American car on the market. The standard car reached 187 km/h (116 mph) and 143 km/h (89 mph) in second gear. Early cars had a four-speed gearbox, later replaced by an unsynchronised three-speed; Duesenberg never adopted synchromesh, which made the later cars harder to drive. The dashboard carried mechanically timed lights that reminded the driver to change the oil and check the battery.

J, SJ, SSJ and the special-bodied cars

The SJ placed its supercharger beside the engine. Its exhaust left through four pipes in flexible metal tubing, a style Cord trademarked, instead of the single Monel manifold of the J. English Wikipedia gives the SJ about 167 km/h (104 mph) in second gear, around 209 km/h (130 mph) in third, 0–100 mph (161 km/h) in 17 seconds and 0–60 mph in about eight seconds.

The SSJ roadsters were built by Central Manufacturing, an Auburn subsidiary in Connersville, Indiana, with an external spare wheel and round tail lights. Gary Cooper received the first in 1935 and Clark Gable the second, on loan from the company, in 1936; the two reportedly raced each other in the Hollywood Hills. The JN of 1935 had Rollston bodies, 17-inch wheels, skirted wings and bullet-shaped tail lights. At the other extreme, the last chassis for Father Divine had a 178 in (4,520 mm) wheelbase, weighed 3,500 kg and seated ten; Bohman & Schwartz delivered it in October 1937.

Coachbuilders and famous owners

Duesenberg supplied the chassis, engine and wings; the body came from a coachbuilder of the buyer's choice. About half were designed by Gordon Buehrig and built as LaGrande bodies by company branches in several US cities. Other builders included Derham, Holbrook, Judkins, LeBaron, Murphy, Rollston, Walker, Weymann and Willoughby in the United States, and Fernandez et Darrin, Franay, Gurney Nutting and Saoutchik in Europe. The 1933 Rollston Arlington torpedo-bodied SJ, the "Twenty Grand", now in the Nethercutt Collection, is widely seen as the most beautiful Duesenberg.

Owners included Al Capone, Greta Garbo, Howard Hughes, Mae West, Clark Gable, William Randolph Hearst and the Duke of Windsor, as well as King Alfonso XIII of Spain. When New York's wealth faded after 1929, Hollywood kept demand alive. The company's slogan held that "the only car that could pass a Duesenberg was another Duesenberg".

The Mormon Meteor and the end in 1937

In 1935 Ab Jenkins had a Duesenberg Special built on a supercharged J chassis, with an engine tuned by August Duesenberg. In October 1935, at Bonneville, it set a one-hour record of 247.79 km/h (153.97 mph) and a 24-hour record of 218.18 km/h (135.57 mph), which stood until 1961. The car later received a Curtiss Conqueror aircraft engine and the name "Mormon Meteor".

Sales never reached the target of 500 cars a year. Fred Duesenberg died of pneumonia on 26 July 1932 after an accident in a Murphy-bodied SJ convertible he was driving; August Duesenberg became chief engineer and Harold T. Ames president. When Cord's financial empire collapsed in 1937, Duesenberg went bankrupt. Two more cars were completed between 1937 and 1940; the last, for Rudolf Bauer, is the longest Duesenberg built.

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