Duesenberg
Brief History
Fred and August Duesenberg were selftaught engineers who came to America from Germany in 1885 when they were both young boys. Fred built a racing car in 1903, but his main interest was engines and in 1913 the brothers formed the Duesenberg Motor Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. They built an ingeniously designed four-cylinder engine with horizontal valves that performed magnificently. Eddie Rickenbacker drove a Duesenberg powered car to tenth place at the 1914 Indianapolis race, and succeeding years found Duesenberg-engined machines placing among the front runners.
With the coming of World War I the Duesenberg brothers had cause to change many of their engineering ideas. The catalyst was a Bugatti engine. The master of Molsheim had designed a power plant consisting of two straight-eight engines. They were mounted parallel to each other on a common crankcase with two crankshafts which were both geared to a single shaft. The Duesenbergs were granted an American contract to produce the engine for the French government, and it was their experience with the Bugatti masterpiece that led to the design of the famous Duesenberg straight-eight engine.
In 1926 Erret Lobban Cord bought out the company to add to his Auburn-Cord merger, but he was not as interested in the car as he was in the engineering ability of Fred and August Duesenberg. He needed them for his other cars, but he wisely continued the Duesenberg line as well. That year the Model J Duesenberg appeared and some years later a supercharged model called the SJ. These were the most famous Duesenbergs. Their racing history is unparalleled and they still hold three world records. Since 1935 no other car has been able to break the Duesenberg Class B marks for the one hour, twelve hour, and twenty-four hour runs. But the stock models were not much slower. It was possible to purchase an SJ, drive it from the showroom to the open road and reach 60 mph from a standing start in about 9 seconds!
When the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg empire faded in 1937 only 650 Duesenbergs had been built, but each one was a masterpiece.
Today the cars are worshiped by historians and prized by collectors, who pay prices beyond one million dollars. More than 75% of all Duesenberg still exist today. 55% are still operable.
