Reviving a Legend: The Duesenberg Attempts

You know you've made it in life when your car is used as an expression of excellent quality. , Ultra Luxury and Extreme Performance, the real American company that competed with companies like the continental Rolls-Royces and Bugattis, but due to the Great Depression in the 1930s, the parent company that owned Dusenberg went bankrupt and with that the

legend

ary brand as well He disappeared. Welcome everyone to a Doozy. Episode 59 of the Automobile History Series where we will take a look at some of the

attempts

that were made to revive this

legend

ary brand, as it turns out to be much more difficult than it seems.

Dusenberg Motors Company was established in 1913. Originally from Germany, the Dozen Brothers already had a long history in racing, whether bicycles or automobiles, and decided to take the what-you-make-on-Sunday-sell-on-Monday approach to finance their racing antics. They sold a few race cars converted for personal use, gained great recognition for their craftsmanship, and won quite a few major races around the world. This went quite well until the mid-1920s, when they could no longer afford to do this anymore and were bought out by the court. car company, Court's management decided that they wanted to turn Dusenberg into an ultra-luxury car brand that would rival the other major luxury brands that existed at the time, so in the late 1920s, just before the accident 29, Dusenberg released the last of the Great Cars the model j an absolute pinnacle of craftsmanship and engineering everything about these cars was expensive and impressive these cars were favored by Jet Set royalty and important people of that era who bore the name to the stratosphere and found the cream of the crop Under the hood, an 8,420 cubic inch or 6.9 liter inline 8-cylinder engine was capable of generating an amount of power never before seen in its iteration final and, with exceptional characteristics, could generate up to 400 horsepower, a record that would not be surpassed.

Over the next 20 years, Dusenberg offered the Bear chassis and transmission so customers could send it to a coach builder for a custom body. A great example is the 1933 Rolston Arlington torpedo bodied Dusenberg SJ, with a retail price of $20k, this seems like a reasonable price for a new C today, but it was money from the 1930s, the famous History goes that the average annual salary of, say, a police officer was about $1,500, meaning one would have to save all their money, buy nothing, pay nothing. rent not eat anything and could afford ad dusenberg after working over 13 years, but hey, you know what they say, you can live in a car but not build a house, unfortunately by 1937 the Depression had reached dusenberg's parent company, Court Automobiles, and the company.

They went bankrupt, the legendary dusenbergs were no more and the attractions and names were sold, but that didn't stop certain people from trying to revive the company again. The first attempt to revive the legendary name Dezenberg cannot even be seen as complete. -Revival, but more like a reboot or continuation of the then recently discontinued brand. Some sources mention that that same August, one of the two Dusenberg brothers had ideas to revive the brand and bring it back into the public image around the mid-30s he envisioned. an update to the current models, but shortly after, in 1937, the parent company went bankrupt and all assets, including Dusenberg, were sold, so the first attempt to continue the brand went nowhere and the r name and all What was left was bought by an American businessman who used it to continue producing spare parts and take care of the aftermarket and customer side and everything was quiet until World War II broke out a few years later and then things They became even quieter when the entire American automobile industry came to a complete collapse. stopped and had to change the production of war materiel, meanwhile, the American businessman who bought Dusenberg sold it again to another businessman who was clever enough to once again persuade August to try to give it another chance as soon as the war will end the demand for new materials.

The cars were huge, so this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity where the cars would practically sell themselves. The idea he first began to upgrade those wonderful engines with the latest and greatest in engine technology; think fuel injection and new high strength alloys. He ups those numbers next, how about a whole new business model instead of selling cars? Potential customers would rent them, but the cars would remain a company asset according to the businessman. If you had one, you would be a member of an exclusive society. That's the same marketing I hear today with several car brands.

You are a member of a Mobility Society. Imagine being so rich that you can even afford not to own it at around the same time when these wonderful ideas began to emerge, another radical newcomer car company. had roughly the same approach, Tucker, you know the three-eyed car and if you don't know it well, here you can go see it in an effort to acquire some starting money. The tuo corporation sold various souvenirs and equipment before the actual production of the car to future customers. who already signed for the car and asked for the deposit considering the consequences of the whole Tucker story and reading it in the newspapers, the gentleman behind the attempt to revive Dusenberg in a similar way decided to abandon him in the second attempt to create a worthy successor to The Duesenbergs of the 1930s weren't even a serious attempt, more of an amateurish approach and therefore a false start, but in the early '50s there was a man named Mike Collins who particularly liked them In fact, in 1950 he bought an old Model J right around the time Dusenbergs were at their lowest value.

They were 20-year-old cars, after all, he imagined what an updated Dusenberg would look like for the 1950s and '50s, so he shot. He removed everything except the engine transmission and a few other parts, and then took a new 1950 package super convertible and tested Shu's Dusenberg engine in that car. This was quite a challenge, however, the engine being an upright straight eight in a row led to an unusually tall engine block that would not fit under the Packard's rather flat hood, so Collins decided making a bulge in the hood that folded neatly over the engine and meanwhile gave the car an impressive and powerful look.

Like the original, he also modified the engine and improved it in various ways, eventually claiming that the engine produced 400 horsepower, which would be a very impressive number. Think of it as a thousand horsepower by today's standards and I like to think of that number. It wouldn't be too far off considering that the original engine already had a horsepower of 200. To top it off, he replaced the car's grille with a genuine Dusenberg grille and made some other modifications after quite a few years, in 1958, the car was finished and therefore , this car is officially known as a 1958 Collins l Grant completely with its own personal badge, but unofficially this could have been seen as an experiment, an attempt to show what Dusenberg would have looked like in the 1950s as a two-seat Road with an extremely powerful engine after Home's exclusive garage enthusiast, Collins LR Dusenberg, once again everything was quiet until the 1960s, around this time some cars from the 1920s and 1930s were old enough to to be considered classic cars and had risen in value.

Classic car collecting began to emerge, but there were some people who wanted the look of these cars, but not the hassle of driving and maintaining them, so a parallel industry of so-called neoclassical cars began to emerge, as well as mixed vintage looks. with new technology. with a retro or k feel if you want it and if you want to know more, you'll get it and in this automotive environment, a reintroduction of what is arguably the most legendary car of the 1930s would be the right choice and it was, according to Fritz Dusenberg . August Dusenberg's son this time is not a Hocus Pocus fan but the real deal, a full-fledged company dealer network and, above all, a car built by a custom coach builder and designed by an act designer.

The ambitions were certainly ambitious, it just had to be a modern Dusenberg, a car that knew no limits and was built to the highest standards or even beyond that, this was expressed through things like a larger overall size than anything on the road at the time and an engine that was bigger than any engine at the time. say 500 cubic inches or 8.2 L and made more power than any other engine at the time, breaking the previous record held by Dusenberg. I guess 500 horsepower would be enough and all of this would be sold to the wealthier buyers of the M.

Add up and there it is again 20 grand when it comes to American luxury, you have your Cadillacs, you have your Lincoln, but the Dusenberg would be far behind. Above it, a true American Rolls-Royce with a price that would otherwise buy you two of the best. Meanwhile, state-of-the-art Cadillacs, father and son had found a designer willing to work on the honorable task of designing a modern interpretation of an ancient legend and there is Virgil Exner again. I have to confess here that the only reason I made this video is to talk about this man again. I just love him and his work so far.

I've already made two or three videos where I talk about it, including a recent review of the car and yes, you can watch that one too anyway. Virgil Exner was a visionary designer always one step ahead of the competition, most of the time in the second half of the 50s he worked for Chrysler Corporation designing the so-called forward-thinking cars, these cars were his rise and fall, but In the early 60s he designed quite extravagant cars that were not well received, then he was fired, but he decided to start his own design consulting company with his son because the man was very interested in introducing vintage style elements into modern cars, Call it retro style like independent headlights on Imperials, finally a magazine asked him to do some sketches for some dead brands from the old days like Bugatti Packard and also Dusenberg.

These sketches became known as the Revival cars and show some strange vehicles that are obviously a 1960s interpretation of the 1930s, the doen bks heard about these sketches and contacted exner to ask if they would help them design and shape the new car they had planned because well, he already made a sketch specifically for the brand without even asking them. Exner couldn't. They not only shape his ambitions, but also give advice on clever ways to build the car to keep production costs and complexity down. Furthermore, a real production model the dusenberg model D most of the previous Ambitions were realized but of course some aspects were softened a bit.

It is possibly the largest passenger car of the era, even wider, longer, and heavier than many other American luxury land vehicles, weighing nearly 6,000 pounds or 3 metric tons, measuring more than 20 feet or more than 6 m in length. and just over 80 inches or 2m wide absolutely gigantic, the car rode on a Chrysler imperial platform and also had a Chrysler transmission, the big 440 cubic V8 would do the job, this is a slightly smaller engine than the engine proposed 500 cubic inches, but not close enough as Dusenberg would put it. They would put a different carburetor on it and increase the power a little more.

The bodies would be built by hand in Italy and then flown to the US where they would become the Chrysler Chessie and would naturally be completed with every possible option, luxury item or gimmick from the 1960s. was part of this car, everything was electrically assisted and on top of that you get additional air conditioning gauges that give information you wouldn't normally get on the Luxury Cars cruise control and then some leather on the interiorIt was the best leather that money could buy in the wood. The nicest of Mahogany's interesting details is the use of two fuel tanks totaling 36 gallons or 136 L, but considering the total package, you would probably have already burned through one of the two tanks after reaching the end of your driveway, but Can we talk about its design please, in an effort to design a card that looks back in time?

Exner accidentally designed a C that he proved to be ahead of his time. The Model D features many design elements that would later be adopted by virtually all American automobiles. industry, let's deconstruct it the car features hidden headlights this has been done before but this configuration was unusual for the mid 60s in the 1970s however many cars featured hidden headlights the card features a dominant central vertical grille which is A throwback to the grills of the 1930s, many grills in the mid-60s were very horizontal until the 1970s, when vertical waterfall grills were in fashion. The car has a black vinyl top.

These were just beginning to gain traction in the automotive market. The car features flat wheel arches which are once again a reference to the split fenders on cars of the 1930s, but these flared fenders were adopted by some cars in the 1970s. Overall, the design influenced two cars. , particularly the 1969 Lincoln Continental Mark III, which looks an awful lot like the Model D and was practically the first regular passenger. The car went full-on joke and bolted Blackhawk, a limited-production Ultra Luxury 7s kitmobile that also rode the retrowave of the 1970s and was a similar attempt to revive a legendary brand.

The cost to build a dusenberg was rumored to be around $60,000, so on that note. The ambition to sell them for $20,000 was not a dream but a necessity and price, of course, was not an issue for those interested in the Target demographic. You could send a $5,000 deposit or actually a new Cadillac Elado convertible and spectacular for its value and up to 25 people were already interested in the car and it was rumored that these were people like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lewis, so everything was ready. A famous designer designed the car which was built on regular production bases by an Italian craftsman and the American Jet Set lined up for the car.

The whole deal was going on until one of the biggest investors decided to pull out and everything collapsed after that. A year and a half after the story of attempt number three ended, only one prototype was built and sold to recoup some of that money to pay the early investors. The car was then sent to the Museum m and not much was heard from Dusenberg again until the 1970s, another decade, again to say hello, dusenberg, eh, we should do something about it this time it was the great-nephews of the original Dusenberg brothers, Haron and Kenneth, who saw an opportunity in

reviving

the Legendary brand once again and hopefully making some money.

Of this, the late 70s was a time when neoc classics or replicas were the most popular, not to mention the so-called brera that was in full swing, practically all normal American cars looked like they came out of the 1930s with vinyl tops, water-filled grills, and Opera Windows couldn't have picked a better time, as the late '70s were also plagued by increasingly stringent safety and emissions standards along with a few oil and energy crises from time to time. when. This time, before starting, the nephews already realized that it would be almost impossible to build their own car from scratch.

The car building game is complex and a lot of money can be made by developing a completely new car, so this was not an option. Instead, they thought what if I built a custom version? in one of the best cars money can buy right now and they discovered that the best car was none other than the Cadillac Fleetwood. The nephews contacted General Motors and asked if they could buy a bunch of Cadillacs, take them apart, and build a custom body. In addition to them, with an even more luxurious interior, after 3 and a half years, the first prototype was ready.

You watch an '80s interpretation of the classic Dusenberg concept. I nicknamed it the Doozy Disco BG because what it essentially is is a heavily rebuilt Cadillac. and isn't it good, once again take a look at the D model, you can see that a designer worked on it, its sculpting is unique, it hides its basic underpinnings very well and there is no car like it on the road, but this thing after 3 and After half a year you came up with this, it looks like it came from the garage of a house where father and son worked on it.

There's no one doing any sculpting except a square box with stacked headlights borrowed from a Chevrolet and a cascading grille from a Lincoln. The only unique element was. The bumper is a direct reference to the Duesenbergs of the 30s and practically the only reference. The interior was not improved over the original, but it was a poor attempt to hide the fact that it was essentially a heavily customized Cadillac with late '70s emissions-throttling Cadillac power and not the performance figures Supreme The Duesenbergs They were famous for not mentioning that nothing else was updated, neither the brakes, nor the suspension nor the underpinnings, the nephew suggested a configuration similar to that of the previous

attempts

, the cars would sell for the sum of $100,000 from the current perspective and adjusted for inflation, that's like buying a Bentley Continental GT and as always, potential buyers had to pay a deposit this time to the tune of $25,000 and did I mention a mortgage is paid for a highly customized Cadillac somehow?

I found enough customizations to justify the retail price, which was six times that of the car it was based on. The deposit was even more than the retail price of the caddy. You can probably see where this story is going too, but don't worry. Once again there were dumb buyers who were interested, but wouldn't you know it? The nephews couldn't get their financing right and also there were some problems in the business organization which led to the collapse of another dream of

reviving

the brand in a couple of years, this retro dream also ended from now on, it's pretty quiet when it comes down to it. is about Reviving Duesenbergs After the last Revival attempt, the Dusenberg Nam still lived on in the form of replica cars, for example, a 101 copy of the original from the 1930s, but with slightly improved equipment, such as brakes and transmission, and with no original engine, these cars are almost identical to the original, but their correct model years are like 1988.

You have to appreciate the work that went into these cars and that's pretty much in the 2000s. There were some rumors that someone was once again trying to make another one in Reviving The Brand to the point that it became a design sketch, but other than that, it's really the same cycle over and over, every now and then a new company claims that they are I'm going to do it and for real this time and then it's silent again, what doesn't help is that it's been so long since the name Dusenberg was alive that most people have forgotten it , there's no wave of '30s retro Nostalgia to ride. and almost no people actively remember what a dusenberg is, but that does not mean that the original cars have also been forgotten, quite the opposite, in fact, classic

duesenberg

s are the cornerstone of expensive car collecting, many are still found in excellent condition, often found in cars. museums, prestige car shows and private collections occasionally one is sold through auctions and still sells at very high prices rivaling the original retail price adjusted for inflation, of course the many attempts could never replace the original as worthy successors, but believe me, dusenberg is gone but not forgotten