The final instalment of the Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg tragedilogy.
The Duesenberg family originally came from North Rhine Westphalia in Germany. They left their home country in 1885 and relocated to the state of Iowa in the United States, accompanied by their two young sons, Frederik and August. It quickly became apparent that both brothers were passionate about anything mechanical. They spent their time repairing, modifying and tinkering with agricultural equipment and also building their own bicycles, while Fred competed in amateur cycle racing.
At the threshold of the nineteenth and twentieth century, one specific new-fangled contraption was, of course, the centre of attention for those with a penchant for mechanics. Fred and August were no exception in this regard and designed their first automobile as early as 1905, when the brothers were 29 and 26 years old respectively.
The brothers’ talents did not go unnoticed. In 1906, lawyer Edward R. Mason arranged the financial backing for the establishment of the Mason Motor Car Company, of which the Duesenberg brothers were put in charge. Right from the start, their ambitions were clear: the first model was presented as ‘The fastest and most powerful two-cylinder car in America’. Two years later, Fred L. Maytag — of German origin like the Duesenbergs — acquired a majority share in the company, which was henceforth named the Maytag-Mason Motor Car Company.
A four-cylinder model was added to the catalogue, but the Maytag-Mason always remained little more than a bit-player among the big brands. By 1912, Edward R. Mason had bought out Maytag and the company was once more known as the Mason Motor Car Company. Sensing that staying at Mason would ultimately lead them nowhere(1), Fred and August left and established the Duesenberg Motor Company in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Initially, Duesenberg produced engines only: a 65hp four-cylinder purchased by several smaller American car brands, and larger marine engines with six, eight and twelve cylinders, some of them sporting four valves per cylinder as early as 1916. Participating in the war effort, Duesenberg designed and produced aircraft engines between 1915 and 1918. The quality of both the design work and manufacturing greatly impressed the military and helped to establish Duesenberg’s reputation. After the hostilities ended, Duesenberg sold its St. Paul plant and moved to Indianapolis.
The new location was not coincidental; the Duesenberg brothers — one of their engines powering a car to 10th place in the 1914 Indianapolis 500 and almost winning the 1916 event — wanted to transfer the know-how they had acquired into victorious racing cars of their own manufacture. Alongside this ambitious goal, they planned to introduce an extremely high quality, fast and luxurious passenger car true to their values, implementing in its engineering the lessons learned at the racetrack.
Victories at the Indianapolis 500 followed quickly: Duesenberg took home the winners trophy first in 1922 and for three years in a row from 1924 to 1926.
Meanwhile, the first Duesenberg for public roads had become available in early 1921. It was known as simply as the ‘Duesenberg Straight 8’ and only later became known as Model A after the later Model J had been introduced. As was to be expected from the company, the Model A utilised racing competition practice in its engineering. It was the first American car with a straight-eight engine and also featured an overhead camshaft. A few years after its introduction followed another American first: hydraulic brakes on all four wheels.
The 100hp Model A was meticulously constructed and finished, although somewhat nondescript in its appearance, especially when considering the dizzying prices charged: the two-passenger roadster started at US $6,500 and prices went up from there all the way to US $8,800. This stratospheric price level meant only a very small number of potential customers(2) but, more ominously, even at the prices charged, Duesenberg made almost no money on the car, a consequence of the Duesenberg brothers’ obsession with making the best car in every aspect, combined with insufficient business sense. Within a few years, Duesenberg was perilously close to collapse and its shareholders urgently pushed for a buyer that could turn things around.
Enter Errett Lobban Cord, who greatly respected and admired the quality and performance of the Duesenberg car and could not resist adding the brand to his business empire, as the crown of his automotive arm. After acquiring the company and aware of their undeniable talents, Cord relieved the Duesenberg brothers of their management concerns and appointed Frederik to vice president in charge of engineering, with August as his assistant. The goal of Duesenberg remained the same under Cord’s rule: surpass any and every rival — both domestic and foreign — in every field. What Cord and the stylists employed by him would add to the mix was the one thing that had been to some extent missing thusfar — dashing, unforgettable looks.
A stop-gap evolution of the Model A, the slightly more powerful Model X, was introduced while work on the actual successor went ahead. Duesenberg set to work on a new car that aimed to put all others in the shade. The powerplant (by Lycoming Motors in Pennsylvania, which had also been acquired by Cord) was based on the straight-eight used in the Model A, but enlarged to 6,884cc (420 cubic inches) and fitted with four valves per cylinder and double overhead camshafts, with no less than 265hp as a result — an unheard of rating for passenger cars in 1929 when most other luxury cars could muster only about half that at best.
Despite the very heavily built chassis and engine alone already weighing over 2,000kgs (4,400 lbs) the Duesenberg J had no problem reaching a maximum velocity of 100-105mph (160-170km/h) depending on the bodystyle.
At 25 years old, Gordon Miller Buehrig had already worked in the styling offices of Stutz, Packard and General Motors and was recruited as head of Duesenberg styling in the spring of 1929. Buehrig created styling — with input from Cord himself — for the five variants initially offered: four-door sedan, four-door torpedo, four-door phaeton, two-door coupé and two-door convertible. Though its dimensions were very substantial, Buehrig’s talent managed to make the Model J appear ‘just right’ and not as enormous as it actually was(3).
There was no disguising the huge price tag, however: a Duesenberg Model J could cost — depending on the bodywork chosen — four to five times as much as a Cadillac, and twice as much as the Rolls-Royce Phantom II.
Many Model J customers would have special bodywork fitted by Derham, Holbrook, Murphy, Rollston or LeBaron. A few were even bodied in Europe by for example Graber and Franay. The bare chassis these specialists bought from Duesenberg for this purpose at US $8,500 were fitted with engine and drivetrain, front wings, grille, running boards, engine cover, head and tail lights, bumpers and dashboard.
With special orders like these, the sky really was the limit in terms of cost. Revealed at the New York Motor Show, the Model J was a sensation. Virtually nobody who encountered the Model J there could afford it, but the wave of publicity caused by the awestruck press quickly found its way to the top echelons of the American elite.
The keys to the first Model J’s were handed over to their owners in the summer of 1929. But, while the twenties were still roaring, a financial storm was brewing on the horizon. After Wall Street crashed, many individuals and companies alike would become victims of it, but at first Duesenberg sales were hardly affected: about a year before the stock market crash, the introduction of sound with films shown at the cinemas had created a new group of extremely popular — and wealthy — stars of the ‘talkies’ whose fortunes were not connected to the workings of Wall Street. Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Mae West, Gary Cooper and more — they all owned Duesenbergs(4). Apart from these new movie stars, diplomats, royalty, maharajahs and the like continued to be able to afford luxuries of this calibre.
E.L. Cord envisioned 500 Model J chassis to be manufactured, without a specific deadline as to when they were all to be sold. By May 1930, more than 250 chassis had already been spoken for and, in 1931, sales remained relatively strong despite the economic hardships hitting more and more businesses.
The Model J benefited from continual incremental small improvements, but in 1932 a very noticeable addition took place: the Model SJ, whose straight eight pumped out a phenomenal 320hp thanks to the addition of a supercharger and could propel the ‘lightest’ variants of the Duesenberg to a speed of 125mph (200km/h). This notable achievement would be shaded by disaster that same year, however: Frederik was killed in a crash while testing a Duesenberg prototype. It was a great loss because, of the two brothers, Frederik had always been the one more inclined to the development and manufacturing of luxury vehicles, while August preferred racing competition.
On top of this, the effects of the economic crisis deepened and made themselves felt ever more widely. Between 1932 and 1935, only 32 Model SJ’s were sold — its even higher price than the Model J certainly did not help, but the fact that most among the small circle of movie stars and financial high rollers now already had a Duesenberg in their garage was also likely a factor. E.L. Cord remained confident about the prospects for his automotive crown jewel, however, and planned to add a less expensive Duesenberg model to the range to increase sales. This would, however, not happen and the car instead became the Cord 810/812.
Instead, a facelifted car, renamed JN or SJN, replaced the J and SJ. Aesthetically, it was not nearly as pleasing as its predecessor and failed to sell in sufficient numbers to save the prestige manufacturer. In total, 481 Duesenberg J/SJ/JN/SJN models were manufactured(5), almost reaching the goal set by Cord in 1929- but it took eight years to get there. With his entire automotive empire at death’s door in 1937, Errett Lobban Cord declared bankruptcy for Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg simultaneously.
Some Duesenberg resuscitation attempts have been performed over the years, the most notable one being the 1966 effort under the guidance of August Duesenberg’s son, Fritz, and styled by Virgil Exner. Using an Imperial as a starting point, its unorthodox retro-style appearance was certainly not for everybody and it remained a one-off. From the late sixties until the end of the eighties, several replicas (not only of Duesenbergs, but also Auburn Speedsters and Cord 810/812’s) appeared on the scene, with fibreglass bodies mounted on modern underpinnings. Cars such as those are of course a matter of opinion, but their relative popularity — and most were not cheap — speaks volumes about the impact these designs still had decades after their introduction.
One can in hindsight be critical of some of the business choices E.L. Cord made during his relatively short foray in the car manufacturing business, but there can be no doubt that, had he not bothered to save Auburn and Duesenberg and establish Cord, the former two would have perished right there and then and now be but faded footnotes in the annals of automotive history. Instead, E.L. Cord, and his designers, Al Leamy and Gordon Buehrig(6), are to be credited with creating a set of bona fide classics under all its three brands that are on the A-list of any serious collector or museum even today.
(1) The Mason Motor Car Company went into receivership in 1915 and was closed down two years later.
(2) Between 1921 and 1926 only 650 Model A’s were sold.
(3) A few decades later, Elwood Engel managed a similar feat with his 1961 Lincoln Continental.
(4) So did Al Capone, a fact with which the company was probably less happy.
(5) Over 300 Duesenbergs are still in existence today, a high survival rate.
(6) After the Second World War, Buehrig worked with Raymond Loewy before being hired by Ford in 1952. He retired in 1965, and continued to teach classes at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles until 1970.
Postscript:
Should you be anywhere near it at some point and have the time, the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg museum in Auburn, Indiana is definitely worth a detour and visit, if only for the fantastic period architecture of the showroom.
My father-in-law came from the same small city as the Duesenberg family.
Neither he nor anybody else in an official function there knew them and while the location is famous for its medieval witch hunting and torture rooms with a dedicated museum (‘Hexenbürgermeisterhaus’) there is no official reminder whatsoever of the most famous sons of the city.
But there’s a private association that collects and displays memorabilia around the Duesenberg family like their official emigration request (lower right hand corner)
http://www.lippe-auswanderer.de/Artikel/duesenberg/Amtsblatt.jpg
and a Duesenberg in front of the shed on the old family’s farm
http://www.lippe-auswanderer.de/Artikel/duesenberg/Duesenberg-Remise.jpg
In that particular region there is an impressive number of medium sized companies specialised in producing high quality products of which Miele or Phoenix Contact are the most popular.
Companies like Miele or Dürkopp already were in business and famous for the quality of their products when the Duesenbergs emigrated so they most probably grew up in a tradition of quality and engineering.
That’s an interesting point.
Thanks for this extra information Dave- if I read the announcement in the paper correctly Frederik and August had four more siblings. I think the town at least deserves a “Duesenbergstrasse”.
Oh, and for if I ever play scrabble in German, I will remember ‘Hexenbürgermeisterhaus’ 🙂
I wonder does German Scrabble have separate tiles for the vowels with umlauts, or do you have to imagine them? It would be awful if you only had the wrong ‘u’!
1955 Scrabble with Umlauts
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Old_Scrabble_Tiles_German_119.JPG
Why Germans don’t play scrabble
https://i0.wp.com/worleygig.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/german-scrabble.jpg
https://i0.wp.com/blogitude.com/uploads/2015/02/GermansDontPlayScrabble2.jpg
German Scrabble actually has Ä, Ö and Ü tiles. And although it’s common practise to use AE, OE and UE if the umlauts are not available (especially with capital letters), you’re not allowed to do so in Scrabble.
By the way, the Düsenbergs apparently used exactly that and became Duesenbergs in the US.
Thank you Bruno for this awesome series on a family of brands I knew about, but not in any depth. Looking at their majestic cars and their obsession with excellence, I think Duesenberg can be seen as the US counterpart to Bugatti.
A great history, well told. Thank you, Bruno.
That last picture with the Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg together, really highlights the impact Cord and his designers and engineers have had in their short spell – three absolute classics and a heritage many a modern brand would kill for. The Duesenberg brothers sound a bit Lancia-like in their obsession with technical perfection at the expense of – well: expense.
I also reckon Duesenberg in particular embodies the American Dream: emigrate to a land of promise and opportunity, work hard (and get lucky enough for you work to pay off), build the best thing you possibly can, enrich the world – in many ways.
A branch of the Lippe family has ties to the Dutch Royal House: the current King’s grandfather was Bernhard von Lippe-Biesterfeld, or Bernhard Friedrich Eberhard Leopold Julius Kurt Carl Gottfried Peter Graf von Biesterfeld to give him his full birth name… Bernhard was a lover of fast cars (several Ferraris at least), but I doubt he ever owned a Duesenberg.
Bernhard never owned a Duesenberg as far as I know, but he had a Cord 812 Convertible at some point as well as an Alfa Romeo 8C2900 B.
Can anyone explain why so many folk were leaving ‘Germany’ in the second half of the 19th century ? I ‘have’ a German great-grandmother ( born 1858) but I have no idea where she came from, or what took her to England. I always assumed England was attractive because of Royal-Family German connections, but clearly many Germans emigrated to the US as well.
Before industrialisation Germany had a good education system with compulsory schooling in many small principalities already in the eighteenth century resulting in one of the lowest rates of analphabetism in Europe but before unification the country was very poor.
Now when you are relatively well educated and want to escape poverty you just emigrate because for you it only can get better. This was exactly the reason for mother Düsenberg. Newly widowed with six children she had nothing to lose.
In the nineteenth century Germany, or more accurately the German speaking areas of Europe, had an excellent education system and a sclerotic and repressive political one. This diverted talent from entering civic institutions which were permanently dominated by the nobility and forced them into relatively uncontroversial if innovative areas such as industry and manufacturing. If you wanted a bit of freedom with your factory then moving to Britain or the USA was an obvious answer- just look how many famous firms were founded by German emigres. (Royalty had little to do with it- the connections were centuries old, the German Ocean was only renamed ‘the North Sea’ during WW1.) As for the tradition of craftsmanship, strong workers guilds preserved the status quo, and so many potential tradesmen emigrated, particularly to the US, where a consequent lack of skilled workers led to that nation effectively inventing machine tools and therefore twentieth century manufacturing. Which would defeat later aggression from, yes, Germany, who simply couldn’t keep up with the production levels of the USA (and USSR, who followed the American model). What goes around etc
Like every day, today is another school day here at DTW.
I’ve often asked myself the question that Mervyn Scott asked and I’ve had my thoughts.
Nobody has ever explained it to me like DaveAR and SteveJ in short and concise sentences.
Thank you.
Back to the automotive theme: Is there a bigger (pun intended) dream car than a Duesenberg?
Is there a bigger (pun intended) dream car than a Duesenberg?
Yes, the Bugatti Royale. It’s a doozy!
Great question, Bernard. In the case of my maternal great-grandfather, I’m told it was to escape conscription into the Prussian army; he was from a farming family near Pommerzig (modern Pomorsko, Poland). Interestingly he met his future wife on the ship coming out; they were from Dresden, her father was a manufacturing jeweller.
Hi Fred, The Bugatti Royale, of course. It’s a doozy!
I love DTW.
The way automobile, technology, design, arts, and the implications of geopolitical, socioeconomic conditions are interconnected makes for a fascinating read. Thanks for a very educative series of automotive history.
I have a question: what is the level of quality in engineering that makes an automobile twice as pricey as a Cadillac?
And yes, I would need some specific examples if you please.
A fantastic series, Bruno – thank you.
The attention to detail and levels of innovation (double overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder, hydraulic brakes, etc) would not only have taken a lot of time and effort to produce, but would have been made out of the finest materials and to the tightest tolerances by craftsmen. That’s the most expensive way of doing it.
Jay Leno has the most expensive Duesenberg ever made and it includes features such as a switch for changing the oil (no drain plug) – just amazing.
I’m not a fan of Leno’s Duesey – the proportions just don’t work for me, regardless of how many tricks it has.
Not all Duesenbergs are beautiful, I reckon, but this is because of the owner’s taste and their coachbuilder.
I’m sure all of us are familiar with the auto lubrication of the chassis. That little gearbox (a bit like a watch) in front of the carburator of the Duesenberg engine has always fascinated me. After a certain distance was covered (I can’t remember it form the top of my head, but I think it was 700 miles) this clock would engage a plunger that on its turn would create oil pressure in the lines that went to the bits on the chassis that needed lubrication. It was also linked to the electrical system and lights on the dashboard would come on when this system was working and when it was time to check the oil and water levels.
Thanks Charles for the video.
A one-off example of great craftsmanship and design.
Amazing. Thank you Bruno; although I had read about Duesenberg, you have shown me there was far more to the car than I realised.
This seems amazing, in the context of its time. Twice as powerful as anything else, with cost-no-object engineering. Thorough engineering too, not just a mighty powerplant. And the sheer style/ And the quality of the coachwork….
If this was not the best car in the world, it would certainly seem to have been right up there.
It seems almost hard to believe this came from America. Certainly it would never happen in the America we know nowadays; it would have been cost-cut by armies of accountants. and I imagine legions of lawyers and masses of MBAs would have put a stop to the project right early. How are the mighty fallen, etc. etc…..
I think it depends on the product and market. America’s got plenty of high quality, innovative, (upper end) mass market businesses – Apple, Tesla, etc.
That said, there’s probably a greater range of products in the US and the concept of ‘cheap luxury’, as pioneered by some marques in the late ‘60s, is always going to be an oxymoron.
Hi Peter, The Celestiq will not be the most expensive car in the world, but with a base price of 340K this Cadillac will compete with Bentley, Rolls Royce, and those looking for a cheap replacement for their aging Lagonda Taraf.
https://www.forbes.com/wheels/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2024CadillacCelestiq_SEO-1.png
“…what is the level of quality in engineering that makes an automobile twice as pricey as a Cadillac?’
The question makes no sense.
Quality is defined as “meeting the specification”. Quality is not measured as level of luxury, or brand name, or quantity of features/gadgets, or even price. A humble biro can be of higher quality than an expensive luxury car with a well-known fancy brand name affixed.
Does a notional automobile better meets its specification than a Cadillac meets its specification? Without reading the specifications for both products and then examining examples of both products it is impossible to tell whether there is an answer to this.
Now we have to see how any of this relates to price.
Price is determined by the purchaser, ultimately. It is subjective and most often (near always) has little or nothing to do with quality. A prospective purchaser (that is, a person who has sufficient spending power to purchase a product) makes the decision whether to purchase a product at a particular price. If the vendor is asking too much in the judgement of the prospective purchaser, then the prospective won’t decide to buy and will either offer the vender less or walk on by.
If the vendor has set an asking price which is acceptable to the prospective purchaser, he may decide to buy (assuming the product is high enough on his hierarchy of preferences and values). If the vendor accepts an offer made by the prospective purchaser, then the purchase may be made (offer, acceptance, consideration). Note that in many instances were the vendor to pitch a price considered too low by the prospective purchaser, then said prospect may refuse to purchase.
Goods which remain unsold at a particular price do not have the value that has been set for them. That is, a car which a vendor offers for sale at, say, US$10,000 is not worth that amount unless and until a person actually purchases it for that much. If it eventually gets sold for, say, US$8,888 then THAT is its price and not what was originally asked.
The price for a product is what the purchaser pays to acquire the product. The purchaser decides.
Now returning to the question. What is being asked is to compare meeting of a particular specification for one product and that of another specification being met by another product to price. The variables do not have dependency or even direct correlation.
Price and quality are not directly relational. Therefore, answer to question is undefined.
@Charles … it’s irritating to read „Tesla“ and „quality“ in the same sentence. For as innovative and clever made they may are, their built quality is nothing but a joke on the buyer. Simply atrocious. The specimens I have sampled were so shoddily build, an 80‘s Lada would put these things to shame.
Hello onemoretime – I’ve heard reports that quality – fit and finish – can be a bit hit-and-miss, although reliability seems to be good.
Tesla are meant to be a reasonably premium brand and they seem to be selling very well despite sometimes inconsistent quality, so they must be doing something right.
@Charles: quoting a good friend who said „Teslas are brilliant EVs, but sh*t cars“ … and think this about hits the spot.