The Duesenberg-powered 1934 Rigling & Henning ''Wonder Bread Special,'' took third place at Pebble Beach in 2010. Yes, the paint scheme is authentic.

This 1931 Rigling and Henning 'Wonder Bread' Special crossed the auction block in 2005 and found a buyer willing to part with $125,000 for it.

It’s all Duesenberg, chassis and engine, with a two-place body for the driver and riding mechanic.

Herman Rigling and Cotton Henning were based in Indianapolis and renowned for their race winning chassis and proven 'Specials.'

Their specialty were using Buick straight-eight engines mounted in steel-rail frames. Phil Shafer of Des Moines piloted his Rigling Henning Shafer 8 to a very impressive 12th-place finish at the 1931 Indianapolis 500 race and in 1933 it finished in fifth

https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/hmn/2011/01/Monterey-Weekend-2010/3693931.html#PhotoSwipe1537214980394

Getting the history of US built cars that participated in the Indy 500 is probably one of the more difficult challenges a car historian can undertake, in part because the open wheel scene was largely a cottage industry and in part the low tech, low cost, so called Junkyard Formula of the post depression years 1930 – 1939 are particularly hard to discern because of low budgets and unannounced deals that took place to keep the grids full.

8 of the 40 starters of the 1931 Indy 500 are credited with being built by Rigling.

My thanks to Geoffrey Horton for sharing his photo’s of the #54 Wonder Bread Special seen at Concours on the Avenue, Carmel by the Sea in 2012.

and here at Pebble Beach

http://www.psychoontyres.co.uk/tag/wonder-bread-special/



https://www.conceptcarz.com/view/photo/588850,13669/1931-rigling-and-henning-wonder-bread-special_photo.aspx
https://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z13669/rigling-and-henning-wonder-bread-special.aspx
https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2012/06/07/history-on-the-bricks/

rich people are spending more for cars, and setting records for how much cash they'll part with for the exact car they want the most

Duesenberg

A 1935 Duesenberg SSJ Roadster also sold Friday at Gooding and Co. for $22 million, breaking the record for the most expensive American car ever sold at auction.
That's what Gooding does, auction ridiculously expensive Duesenbergs.
There were two made for hollywood, with a specially shortened, 125-inch wheelbase and a supercharged straight-eight with double overhead cams, able to produce around 400 horsepower and a top speed of 140 miles per hour. It features a lightweight open-roadster bobtail body produced by LaGrande. This one was owned by Gary Cooper, who sold it to Briggs Cunningham, the other was owned by Clark Gable

It also appears to have become the most expensive American collector car ever sold at auction, eclipsing the very first Shelby Cobra ever made, which sold for $13.75 million in 2016.

Ferrari 250

A Ferrari 250 GTO was sold at RM Sotheby's on Saturday night for a record $48.4 million as part of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.
It was bought for 5 million 18 years ago. That's a whole lot of profit, but, it's no surprise that a 250 GTO sets, or re-sets the record for the most ever spent on a car

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/27/most-expensive-car-ever-sold-at-auction-fetches-48-million.html
http://www.thedrive.com/news/23166/1935-duesenberg-ssj-sells-for-22m-becomes-most-expensive-american-car-sold-at-auction
https://www.autoblog.com/2018/08/27/1935-duesenberg-ssj-record-22-million-gary-cooper-pebble-beach/

the Duesenberg with a diesel...

Taking advantage of revised rules which encouraged a return to racing of regular automobile manufacturers and production-based vehicles, the Cummings Engine Company of Columbus, Indiana, fielded a diesel-powered car in the 1931 Indianapolis 500. Housed in a specially-built, shortened Duesenberg Type A chassis, the 360 cubic-inch, four-cylinder Cummins Diesel was able to complete the entire 500 miles without making a single pit stop, the first car to ever do so

five hours and 48 minutes at an average speed of 86.170 mph.

https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2016/10/did-you-know-cummins-diesels-were-used.html

Clessie Cummins, the founder of Cummins Diesel Engines of Columbus, Indiana commissioned August Duesenberg to modify the Model A passenger car chassis to accommodate the 85 horsepower, 4-cylinder Cummins Model U marine engine.

The finished car weighed over 3,380 pounds and was the second heaviest on the grid, but it still managed a top speed of 96.871 mph.

In 1931, Chessie Cummins drove this car on Daytona Beach setting the record for a diesel-powered car of just over 100 mph.

Diesels had some advantages over their rivals, which were mostly fuel economy related. The diesel engine could go much farther on a single tank of gas. Another advantage that since less fuel was needed, it meant a reduction of overall weight.

https://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z15198/duesenberg-cummins-diesel-indy-racer.aspx
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202681028335793&set=a.4705775571281.184479.1501025670&type=3&permPage=1

a couple images from the annual open house at Bob Bahre's private collection (thanks Michael S!)

Above, the last Duesenburg

spare engines

nice ol bus!

1921 Mercedes, one of the three Mercedes owned by Count Zborowski that raced at Brooklands in 1921-24, they inspired the nick name Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and the book was made about them, and written by Ian Fleming, the guy who wrote the Bond movies

http://isserfiq.blogspot.com/2018/07/gone-to-paris.html

I just learned something interesting in an article on Jay Leno's 1934 Duesenberg Walker Aerodynamic Coupe

for full gallery:  http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2016/05/jay-lenos-aerodynamic-walker-bodied.html

In contrast to it being the most expensive Duesenberg ever produced, $475k in today's dollars, it was damaged and reduced in grandeur when one owner used it as a tow truck and sold it for the lowest amount I've ever heard a Duesy sell for, $400.00.  From high to low prices, this car hit both record numbers.

Seriously... this car was a tow truck, after it's new car-ness wore off, and it was just a powerfully motored old car.

Anyway, Autoweek July 2nd issue has an article on it, and Jay Leno, now a feature writer at Autoweek in addition to many other magazines, tells about it, and what it took for him to buy it, a story I've never heard before.

The previous owner who'd bought it for $400, well, he knew what he had, and exactly what it was going to take the next millionaire to get him to part with it. A half mil.

But? He wasn't going to accept the payment, even after handing over the keys and car to Leno, until the capital gains tax was reduced. See, he simply would NOT pay what he considered too much gains tax. So, Jay had it for a couple years, and even had it restored to Pebble Beach 2nd place in class award winning stature, before the tax rate was reduced, and then the guy selling it was 88 years old.

Leno made yet another in a series of calls to ask the guy to accept the payment, and yet again, was told no, the tax rate was too much. A month later Leno gets a call, the tax rate was finally lowered to 15% and he'd take the payment now.

He died 2 weeks later.

People, for pete's sake, what the hell is money for? Why do you want it? To use to get what you want? Or to compete with other rich people to see who has a larger number in the monthly bank statement? The last owner didn't need the money, so, why ask a half mil for it? Then, wait years to save a few bucks in taxes that would have been a moot point by the money that could have been made by investing the rest of the half mil?

The world is a crazy, greedy, complex place. And so are most people.

Autoweek, July 2nd 2018, page 16

Gary made a model of Howard Hughes' glider towing Duesenburg

http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2016/05/howard-hughes-had-this-duesenberg-body.html

Thanks Gary!

engine porn... coupled Bugatti engines working in concert for a WW1 airplane (thanks Kim!)

During World War I, Ettore Bugatti designed and built a U-16 aircraft engine. The engine consisted of two inline eight-cylinder sections mounted side-by-side on a common crankcase.

Each eight-cylinder engine section had its own crankshaft and was built up of two four-cylinder blocks. The engine’s two crankshafts directly engaged a common propeller shaft.

Total displacement was 1,485 cu in (24.3 L), and the engine produced 400 hp at 2,100 rpm.

Bugatti did not have the production capacity to manufacture the engine, so licensed production was undertaken in France by a group headed by Peugeot.

 An additional license was sold to the United States (the engine was built as the King-Bugatti by Duesenberg). Developmental and production issues resulted in few Bugatti-based U-16 engines being built during World War I.

the crankshafts drove the propeller shaft through freewheeling (or overrunning) clutch mechanisms. If one eight-cylinder engine section were to fail, the clutch would simply disengage the dead section’s crankshaft from driving the propeller shaft and allow the good engine section to continue to produce power.

https://oldmachinepress.com/2015/01/17/breguet-bugatti-32a-and-32b-quadimoteurs/

Duesey by Bohman and Schwartz, intended for Mae West but instead went to Ethel Mars of the confectionery family

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212647312365472&set=g.712743252141034&type=1&ifg=1

compare the above, to the below similarly described car, but of different year

bottom one was a throne car for Father Divine posted http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2017/04/specially-built-as-throne-car-for.html

Bohman and Schwartz was the coachbuilder possibly most famous for the Phantom Corsair

http://crazyforcars.tumblr.com/image/148078202380

beautiful Duesenburg, body by Judkins

and under the windows, what a cool design element. I've never seen it before.

even the gas tank cap design is fantastic

How interesting, Duesenburg's brake temp gauge. Only one in an old car I've ever seen (that I can recall)

specially built as a "throne car" for the evangelist "Father Divine" it's the largest, and heaviest, Duesenberg ever built. 7 thousand pounds.

In the mid-1930s, at the worst of the Great Depression a Duesenberg chassis was $8500 (almost $150,000 in today’s dollar). The number of buyers was quickly dried up, as the cars weren't modern disposable junk, they lasted for ever, and the desire to replace a car every year hadn't yet been invented by Harley Earl's design studio.

In Pasadena, the Walter M. Murphy company, builder of more Model J coachwork than any other, liquidated in 1932. Its equipment and some of its most skilled craftsmen coalesced into a new company, Bohman and Schwartz.

One of the company's first commissions was a modern Town Cabriolet body on a 1935 Model J chassis for candy heiress Ethel Mars. Designer J. Herbert Newport went with a raked, vee-shaped radiator shell, and created streamlined sidemount spare covers that became the car's signature design feature.

In 1936, the company received an order from “John the Baptist” for what was to be the largest and heaviest Model J Limousine Landaulet the penultimate of the marque.

Wealthy Californians Florence Hunt and her two sons, John and Warner, who adopted new names, Florence taking Mary Bird Tree; John becoming John the Revelator; and Warner, confusingly enough, John the Baptist were caught up in Father Divine’s charismatic preaching, so they donated this Duesenberg to his Peace Mission.

The order included many unique specifications like star quarter windows, a crescent moon-shaped rear window, star-studded white headliner, a hydraulically operated folding landaulet and an elevating rear seat. It was for the Rev. M.J. Divine, "Father Divine."

Father Divine was a charismatic preacher who founded the Universal Peace Mission Movement in the 1910's. The Universal Peace Missions provided lodging, food and a steady diet of Father Divine's messages in return for followers' turning over all worldly possessions and earnings to the Mission.

While his followers labored in support of the "Mission" Father Divine lived a luxurious life while never owning a thing, taking only "loans" of houses and cars from grateful "Angels", followers who had turned over all their possessions to the Mission.

His Missions hosted sumptuous banquets for followers and visitors; in accordance with the Mission's precepts anyone was welcome, drawing thousands during the Depression's dark days.

Father Divine received the Limousine Landaulet Throne Car from Mary Bird Tree as a Peace Mission donation (i.e., he didn’t own it per se, though the car was solely for his use) contrary to his main message to his followers of renouncing worldly possessions.

The throne car’s wheelbase was 178.5 in., 8.5 in. longer than a Bugatti Royale’s.

It went into storage in 1948, with 100,743 miles on its odometer and stayed there because Mother Divine wanted it handy for Father Divine’s return.

The sharks, flippers, and collectors were crazy to get ahold of the unique Duesenberg, and it was flipped over and over again in just 2 years of getting out of Mother Divine's possession, winding up in the Imperial Palace Collection in 1983, where it took a central place as one of the signature attractions in the IP's legendary collection of Duesenbergs until it was acquired in 1999 by the Dean V. Kruse Foundation, still in the badly deteriorated condition in which it had been rescued from Father Divine's carriage house.

No one put a dime into it's care or upkeep while they raised it's value and their bank accounts, flipping it.

Famous collector John O'Quinn had it restored in 2006, and presented it at the 2009 Pebble Beach Concours

https://simanaitissays.com/2016/10/30/a-divine-dusie/
https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/19363/lot/420/
http://www.conceptcarz.com/view/photo/805281,8971/1937-Duesenberg-Model-J_photo.aspx

Horse carriage stored Duesenburg was stuck in the "barn" for 54 years

Phil Cade bought it in 1941 for $450, it was his wife's daily driver, then he took it racing, then put in a locked three-story brick carriage house in 1950.

The brick building was a true time capsule, the names of horses are above the stalls from the time when the building was home to horses, the walls of the carriage house are lined with racing posters from the 1940s,

Phil had started rebuilding the engine in the 1950s, but some time in the early ’60s, he lost interest in the project and left the straight-eight next to the car in pieces.

The paint on the Derham convertible sedan body had been stripped in the 1940s, exposing its aluminum construction, though the fenders retained their aged maroon color.

Mr. Cade took it racing at Watkins Glen after the family moved to Boston. He stripped the black paint off the Derham convertible sedan’s aluminum body, removed the fenders and top, and painted the number 10 on the car’s side. In Shappy’s opinion, “the car didn’t look like a race car at all.” However, in 1949, the car placed 28th in the annual race at Watkins Glen.

http://www.classiccars.ws/duesn2.htm

The Duesenberg race at Muroc

sold for  $1,292,500 in March 2013

This is one of seven cars built by LeBaron with what is called a “Barrelside” body. Despite having a second windscreen, this is the only car that does not have an elongated rear cowl.

What’s even cooler is that in 1932 this car owned by prominent Hollywood agent Phil Berg - was stripped of its fenders and a number of other pieces to race a Mercedes-Benz SSK owned by two of the Marx Brothers, Zeppo and Chico. Not just a Friday night grudge match, the race was held at the Muroc dry lake in California for a reported $25,000 booty.

By the time the starter’s flag dropped, more than a thousand spectators were on hand. Invited guests numbered about 200 and included Hollywood royalty such as Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, and Mae West. The Duesenberg won the race at the hands of stock-car Ace and Auburn test driver Eddie Miller.

http://cars.girlstalkinsmack.com/cars_motorbikes/rm-auctions-of-may-2013-(part-2).aspx
http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2013/06/did-i-ever-post-about-marx-brothers.html
http://oldschooliscool.tumblr.com/

1932 Duesenberg Model-J 462-2522 Custom Speedster

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/375135843937033013/

the Woods Town Car, the ultimate undriven car, the last unrestored Duesenberg to be with its original owner's family, and the ultimate Duesie barn find. Also known as the NYC parking garage Duesie barnfind Leno found that couldn't get out of the building

Fred Roe, who wrote the definitive book Duesenberg, the Pursuit of Perfection, photographed Leno's car covered in dust in the corner where he found it. "Wood made cars from 1904 to 1930, but in very limited numbers," says Roe, a sprightly 86-year-old. "Their main business was building bodies for commercial cars and trucks, so their car bodies came from contacts with store owners."

The only Duesenberg known to be bodied by Woods, this one, was purchased new at the 1931 New York Auto Show by a New York department store owner, was parked in a New York City garage in 1933 by the wealthy owner who didn't like it.

"The car has covered 7,085 miles," says Ema. "It's the last original-owner, original-condition Duesenberg to be found. There's one other in the original family's hands, but it's been reupholstered."

It Leno heard about it and decided to track it down one day while his wife went shopping. Leno says he paid a fair price for his car, considering it will cost $200,000 to restore. He shipped it to Ema in California, and was thrilled by the expert's condition report.

"I figured it was one of those rumors I heard when I was a kid, like the $300 Corvette somebody died in and they couldn't get the smell out, or the Hemi Road Runner where the guy went to Vietnam and never came back," he says.

"I hit about 16 parking garages and asked if they had any old cars upstairs. Then I found this Duesenberg sitting next to a 1932 Rolls-Royce. It was a situation where a great deal of money was owed for parking. The guy was wealthy but wouldn't pay the parking, a lien sale ensued, and I got the car," he recalls.

What Leno bought was the only Duesenberg bodied by F.R. Wood and Sons, a small New York body shop. It's a square, formal Town Sedan, most of which were converted over the years to more valuable open cars.

Duesenberg's New York service department maintained the Woods car until 1937, then it sat until the owner's son inherited it in 1953 and got it running. "He went to a classic car meet, but he didn't like them, so he took it home and parked it," said Ema.

Leno has been quoted as saying it was stuck on the second floor of the garage because the elevator had been remodeled and it was now too long to fit. "No, that's not true," he admits. "I exaggerated so people would think it would have to be dismantled. Hey, it chased people away for ten years."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2006-05-31/lenos-latest-duesie
http://duesey186.com/Datasheets/Model_J_Index/data2467.htm
http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/w/wood/wood.htm

Known in their day for their high quality commercial delivery vehicles, Frederick R Wood and Sons built the world’s first electric ambulance in 1899. They occasionally built a one-off limousine or town car for one of their commercial body customers and are known to have built on Crane-Simplex, Duesenberg, Mercedes, Panhard, Rolls-Royce and Thomas-Flyer chassis.

Although they shared the same surname, Frederick R. Wood was not directly related to Bridgeport, Connecticut's Frederick Wood, a principal of the famous Bridgeport and Manhattan carriagebuilding house of Wood Bros. that operated a number of large warerooms along Broadway from the late 1840s into the early 1880s.

If you know Duesenbergs, you probably have heard of Ema. Obviously, I'm still learning, as this is all new to me

Ema has restored 52 Duesenbergs in his 30 years in business; six Model Js restored by him have scored first places at Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. He reckons he has 28,000 original drawings and 1,000 patterns to make Duesenberg parts. "We can make exact reproductions, as opposed to those which look okay and are a testament to the success of guesswork," he says.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2006-05-31/lenos-latest-duesie

Howard Hughes had this Duesenberg body chopped in half to tow and support his gliders at his El Mirage Soaring School

1947, El Mirage. chassis number 2456 and engine number J-444

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/topic/65803-howard-hughes-duesenberg-at-el-mirage-1947-not-what-you-think/

For a model of it, see https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2017/10/gary-made-model-of-howard-hughes-glider.html

The Tourster body style were built exclusively by the Derham Body Company in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. A total of eight were originally produced, of which this car is the third.

The original owner of this car was comedian and actor Joe E. Brown. Brown retained the car for seven years. It then passed through a Cadillac dealer, who turned it over to Clement Hirsch. Several months later, when World War II began, Hirsch traded the car to his brother-in-law, Mark Jelmeland, who traded it into yet another dealership, Kal Kam Ford. The Ford dealer sold the car to William Hunter, from whom it was purchased by Hughes Aircraft.

The company of aviator Howard Hughes elected to remove the rear body section, in order to use the Model J to tow gliders aloft. The car's torque allowed it to launch even the largest aircraft, and it continued to serve as a test vehicle for Briegleb Aircraft after it was sold to them in 1945.

McGowan sold the finished car to Otis Chandler who would kept the car for 10 years. Chandler showed the car on a few occasions and displayed for the rest of the time in his private museum in Oxnard, California. During Chandler's ownership, the car was awarded a CCCA National First Prize, followed by its Senior Award in October 1989.

In March of 1996, Chandler sold the car to John McMullen, of Michigan. In Mr. McMullen's care, it earned Best in Show at the Gilmore Car Museum's Grand Experience in 2001 and numerous Best in Class and class awards, including, notably, Best in Class at the 1995 Meadow Brook Concours d'Elegance and the Gordon Buehrig Memorial Award for Best ACD Car at the same event the following year.

The car joined the John O'Quinn collection in 2007. In 2013, it came to auction at RM Auction's Amelia Island Sale where it was sold for $825,000 including buyer's premium.

http://www.conceptcarz.com/events/eventVehicle.aspx?carID=14238&eventID=1434&catID=3587