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Any discussion of Duesenbergs invariably leads to engines and Lumpini Park Bangkok – https://bangkok.thaibounty.com/2020/05/21/how-thai-apartment-bangkok-changed-our-lives-in-2020/ – horsepower. Doubters have since argued that the actual figure was closer to 200, but there’s evidence the factory didn’t exaggerate. Though the stock engine had only 5.2:1 compression, a modified unit with 8:1 ratio allegedly showed 390 horsepower. Horsepower was advertised as 265, mind-boggling for the time — easily over twice the power of the industry’s previous best, Chrysler. There was also a fabled Lycoming chart listing a reject Model J engine with 208 horsepower at 3,500 rpm, and the late John R. Bond, founder of Road & Track, projected 245-250 at the maximum 4,250 rpm. The Model J arrived with a 420-cid straight-eight built by Lycoming to Fred’s design.
Warning lights reminded you to add chassis oil (the chassis lubricated itself every 75 miles), change engine oil, or replenish battery water. Of course, you bought not a finished car but a bare chassis, which listed for a stupendous $8,500 in 1929-30, $9,500 thereafter. But all this was only typical of Fred Duesenberg’s dedication to excellence — a passion that his cars be superior in every way. E.L. Cord was aiming only at those wealthy enough to afford such prices — and the lofty extra expense of bodywork custom-designed to presumably discriminating individual tastes. Though standard “factory” styles were announced as low as $2,500, total cost with the least costly convertible coupe body, by Murphy of Pasadena, seems to have run at least $13,000. Model J prices have long generated much confusion.
Nor were the brothers very good businessmen. He got it in the Duesenberg Model J, introduced to universal applause in December 1928. With characteristic immodesty, Cord proclaimed it “the world’s finest motor car.” And by most any measurement it was, the product of Cord’s money and Fred’s genius. Thus, after selling fewer than 500 cars through 1926, they sold Duesenberg Motors to the brash Errett Lobban Cord, who also gained control of Auburn that year. E.L. Cord wanted something far more exotic. Fred and Augie stayed on, however, and in 1927 they built a dozen or so Model A derivatives called Model X. But this was only a stopgap.
At least 45 cars had a supercharger at one time during their lives. The plan was for Duesenberg to sell a lot of 500 cars and come out with a new design. Under E.L. Cord, the company wasn’t necessarily supposed to make a profit — just magnificent, cost-no-object cars as the flagships of Cord’s industrial empire. Duesenberg built cars with beautiful plumbing outside, but it wasn’t always connected to a supercharger inside. Then there’s the longtime misconception that any car with pipes snaking out from under its hood has to be supercharged.
