Duesenberg hp and other balloon popping

Who cares?

Anyone here going to turn down a Duesenberg in your garage? Anyone?

I thought not.

Rich men's toys! And I am not against Rich men or their toys.

I will probably never even SEE a Duesenberg, let alone drive one. Marvels of the time? I guess. Today we have four cylinder cars that could run off and leave them. At a fraction of the price. But who wouldn't want one if he could afford one?

I agree with the article.

Ben

In my experience anyone that disparages the Model J has not driven one, or least has not driven enough other prewar cars to understand the difference. Would be interested to know what Mr. Simanaitis's experience is with prewar cars. Especially 1929 era cars. The only thing that I have driven that compares with a Model J is a Speed Six or an Eight Liter Bentley. I have never driven an SS but would certainly like to.

Like so many before him, Simanaitis has his head up his arse………I have driven Model J’s thousands of miles, at speeds that fewer than 20 human beings still alive have done………there is no handling issue with them, except they are a very fast dump truck. A Speed Six is a very fine machine and a toss up with a J. Obsolete two years after 1929……..absolutely anyone who would say that has zero clue. I have driven almost every great early platform….. I will take the J, thank you very much.

Have to say thank you AJ and Ed but I'm just a SV Stutz guy can only imagine!

Every discussion of the Duesenberg J generally centers on developed horsepower. In the relatively lower compression/long stroke era, developed maximum torque at what rpm would seem a better metric to understand the usable power of an engine.

was there any other engine that used the same firing order?

Ben

At just 4,000 pounds, the Packard 734 Speedster would be competitive with the 5-6,0000-pound Duesenberg. At least it would be if I was driving it.

I, too, am curious as to why no current engine builder has ever revealed the real horsepower rating of a Duesenberg. Certainly they've been put on dynos.

I've owned a Duesenberg J, Packard Super 8, super-charged Auburn, and a couple Locomobile Model 48s, and driven early 30s Cadillacs and LaSalles. By comparison, the Duesenberg engine is head and shoulders above these others, particularly considering the heavy weight it's pulling (my dual-cowl weighed 6,000 pounds even). Punching the throttle was awe-inspiring at any speed. Sorry, I've not owned some of the other outstanding marques, like Pierce, Marmon, etc., so my comparison is sort of limited. But having owned a Duesenberg, it gets my vote every time for power. Mine had 7-to-1 compression, so it was really peppy. As far as driving dynamics, it's had to beat a '35 Super-Charged Auburn.

Expected this defensive golly gee whiz rah rah car porn. The Walter Mitties are impressed, the vestigial 12-year-old in us all stirred. Does n o t address the points Dennis Simanaitis makes nor questions i asked.

Is English a second language here?

Dennis has long experience with everything Abarth to Zagato, i Auburn through Zephyr, and again, a friend's on his t h i r d J.

Big, rorty engine, nice sounding exhaust, unpassable in the day on long straight road. Impressive beasts. We get it.

F o c u s . Price point. The much missed Special Interest Autos ran a driveReport back in the '90s about a '31-'33 Chrysler Imperial entitled "Better Than a Duesey?' We get it. That's a stretch. Or, adjusted for price variance, is it? Again, for those bereft of critical thinking: Are dohc, box of gears flashing lights at fluid intervals, and another 10 mph top speed worth four or five Imperials or an entire neighborhood of upper middle-class homes, an entire street of mayors' and bank presidents' houses ?

Perhaps there are reasons it took eight years and several iterations to dispatch 480 Js? Even during and just after the Depression, there were still plenty of wealthy folks. They were uninterested, despite many of them liking mass, flash, dash.

Everyone knows about twin cams and the craftsmanship. But did it cost four or five times the price of an Imperial to build a Duesenberg? I think we're getting carried away.

Let's allow that a J was fully twice as good as a Marmon 16. Was it three or four times as good? Because that was its price. See where we're going with these questions? Let's cool it with the barroom rants about who has how much money. We're here gathered as vintage car buffs harking to perspective, regardless whether driving customers' cars, friends', or your own. Machinery at a price.

Why is this important? It's not, other than raving about a cost little object supercar diminishes too many fine cars costing a fraction the price, their owners tired of being second-tiered by something adjusted for price having explaining to do.

Dennis Simanaitis made and brought up good points, yet unanswered. And 265 hp was advertising bolshoi. Remember why adroit car salesman E. L. Cord picked that figure, and asked a stiffer price than it cost to build, return healthy profit margin, but to enhance desirability. Marketing 101. Except Cord overdid it, stepped on his ...., another reason for sparse sales over eight long years.

BTW, Cadillac never turned a profit for GM until 1949. Cord knew his supercar was both vanity project while imbuing run of the mill Auburns with panache. But unlike GM, he couldn't afford the advertising write off, another reason Js were so expensive, A-C-D a money loser, gone after 1937, Cord having moved on to real estate, radio stations, uranium, politics.

Cord had some fun building a ridiculously expensive world beater for a very few. He was a stock market marauder the sort the SEC was created in '34 to police. To escape litigation, Cord kept a manse in England, citing concern for his then teenaged son and daughter, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping still in everyone's mind. Fred Duesenberg wanted to build something the size of his earlier Models A and X, about that of a Stutz SV16/DV32. among others.

Double clutching reduces crash box graunch. My old ex-War II Pacific motor pool staff sergeant, Packard, Hudson, Pontiac dealership wrench setting up winning Hudsons for the Capitol and Sacramento speedways before starting his own renowned shop in 1958 tuned my friend's first J. He wasn't impressed beyond the size of the engine, the obvious build quality.

In 1940, Augie Duesenberg was selling a marine version of the 254-ci Hudson L-head inline eight. A couple Sceptered Isle Railton owners reported 200,000 miles before major engine work. Ever take out a Railton 8? No dohc, but faster than a Bentley for a third the price. Like the J and others, it also makes enchanting sounds.

Class envy? You miss the point, only lob another low and outside.

Ball one.

Long sigh. Hardly an attack on E. L. Cord, BradLad. Only a two-sentence overview, again, that vaunted p e r s p e c t i v e seeming to elude some here gathered. Cord was obviously a quick study, sharp, despite nearly blind in one eye, learned to fly in two weeks, and endowed a classical music station in Los Angeles simply as he thought LA should have one. Two thumbs way up, a solid 10 on that latter one alone.

BTW, those wanting more on E. L. Cord, as well as 1936-37 810-812, should order a copy of the masterful tome published by my longtime compatriot and stellar graphic artist Bob Pease, written by the late Josh Malks, Cord Complete. cordbook@yahoo.com (925) 899-3411

The respected engineer and auto historian writer Maurice Hendry and others compiled lists of vetted hp/torque of various '30s heavyweights. But that, Brad, is not the point. Not remotely. As Special Interest Autos and others pondered, let's say a J is fully t w i c e the motor car as Chrysler Imperial by virtue of the former's dohc and box of gears tripping fluid check lights,

but is it f i v e times the car? Of course not. The kneejerk surface read accorded my posts tantamount to kids' ire over suggesting Superman or Batman not all that, overlooking my acknowledgements.

We get it, some of you, even if not owning, have worked on and/or sold such behemoths. Like Yankees fans, you've ego and interest invested.

Plenty of impressive barouches from the '30s, or like the J, the late '20s, inc. Bugatti Royale, certainly the Bentley Speed Six and Eight Liter. Was a J f o u r times better than a Pierce 12? Or, conversely, but half the car as a Bugatti Royale?

Calm down, sports fans. What was IBM's slogan? Think.

High and inside. Ball two.