Looking for pics of early Duesenberg J Town Car

[LDO]

It's on page 127 of Fred Roe's Duesenberg The Pursuit of Perfection. There is only a side view. The body(passenger compartment) is shorter than the Murphy Town Car as modeled by Monogram. There is no trunk. I need to kow what the back end looked like without a trunk there.

It's a long shot, but hey...

[samdiego]

Could you pop in that pic or give a year. I have 7 or 8 references from Automobile Quarterly of Derham/ Duesenberg cars, all in different issues.

[LDO]

I'll see if I can scan it or take a digital pic of the page.

[Biscuitbuilder]

It's on page 127 of Fred Roe's Duesenberg The Pursuit of Perfection. There is only a side view. The body(passenger compartment) is shorter than the Murphy Town Car as modeled by Monogram. There is no trunk. I need to kow what the back end looked like without a trunk there.

It's a long shot, but hey...

I can't imagine a town car without at least a trunk rack, in the pic you see, it is likely folded up, as not all car owners kept a portable trunk mounted at all times, just for trips out of the city.

Biscuitbuilder

[Guest zebm1]

Are these the Derham Duesys that your looking for? 1929.....

You can find more pics and a written description about the collapseble trunk @ http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z13851/...l_J_Derham.aspx

Lots of different Model J's..... have fun guy....

[Biscuitbuilder]

Are these the Derham Duesys that your looking for? 1929.....

You can find more pics and a written description about the collapseble trunk @ http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z13851/...l_J_Derham.aspx

Lots of different Model J's..... have fun guy....

Nice cars, zeb, but neither one is a town car, unfortunately. The top one is a convertible coupe, body by Derham, the lower one is a sport phaeton, body by Derham.

For a town car, think of a limousine or sedan body, but with the top eliminated over the chauffeur's seat up front. Swanky cars, but definitely very formal, used primarily for driving one's employers to the club, a restaurant or nightclub (for a night on the town), or for going to the opera--in short, a car for what definitely were "society" occasions. Occasionally, town cars got used for touring, or long trips, hence the need for a trunk out back--but then, most closed cars used a separate, added on trunk, mounted on a folding rack, the trunk itself being removable when not in use.

Biscuit

[samdiego]

This is the only photo of a Duesenberg-Derham Town Car that I could find. This one is a '29 There were more Toursters and such. Being that this is also a straight on side shot, I wonder if it might be the same as yours. Maybe a factory pic.

Edited May 20, 2008 by samdiego

[LDO]

This is the only photo of a Duesenberg-Derham Town Car that I could find. This one is a '29 There were more Toursters and such. Being that this is also a straight on side shot, I wonder if it might be the same as yours. Maybe a factory pic.

That's the same photo as page 127 in Fred Roe's book. I'm wondering what the back end looks like. I'm not going to get too hung up on making it perfect, just a representation of what it might have looked like.

[Guest zebm1]

But weren't each Duesy individual custombuilt bodies?

[Biscuitbuilder]

But weren't each Duesy individual custombuilt bodies?

Duesenberg Inc. never built any bodies of their own, although they maintained an in-house design studio, of which one Gordon Buehrig headed up for a few years, designing some of the most beautiful of all Classic Cars. Duesenberg Inc. themselves produced the rolling chassis with engine and complete mechanical and electric systems, the radiator and shell, cast aluminum firewall with dashboard mounted, steering column and steering wheel, fenders, running boards, splash aprons, headlights, driving lights, taillights bumpers, and of course, the distinctive 20" Dayton-built but Duesenberg-designed wire wheels with tires mounted. The factory also provided each coachbuilder a set of chassis drawings, showing the complete running chassis, with baseline dimensions for ease in engineering and producing the coachwork. While Duesenberg maintained, for several years, a catalog of body styles, none were completed except to customer order, and with that, colors, details, upholstery and trim were up to the customers' whims. In addition, the larger coachbuilding houses (such as Derham, Rollston, Willoughby, Murphy) also had their own stylists, and a couple of American coachbuilders were actually owned early in the J's production life by stylists themselves (LeBaron, Hibbard & Darrin for example).

At the beginning of Model J production, in late 1928, Duesenberg Inc., upon receiving an order for a particular body style, might well order a couple of duplicate bodies to be built alongside the paid order, the extra bodies being delivered "in the white" (unfinished in primer only, no upholstery or trim) on the speculation that there would be buyers for them (and until the Depression tightened its grip on the economy, this worked pretty well!). Murphy Body Company of Pasadena, California most notably produced more than a few bodies which were for all intents and purposes identical, and certainly they had very distinctive touches that spoke "Murphy" rather forcefully, if politely.

Most all custom coachwork of the day was composite in construction: A frame, made generally from ash, with perhaps a bit of oak here and there where extra strength might be needed, was cut, assembled, with the wood framing being shaped by planing, power sanding, even some steaming and bending, to get the wood frame to assume the general shapes of the particular body. This was then covered in either sheet steel or sheet aluminum, largely hand-formed by craftsmen, generally using planishing hammers and the English Wheel for shaping work--these tended to have little if any filler (which would have been body lead), the coachbuilder expecting the highest craftsmanship from their metal shaping artisans.

Duesenbergs were arguably the most expensive cars ever done in this country (even compared to today, if one factors in inflation over the past nearly 80 years), with the Duesenberg-built chassis, drive train and identifying components priced at a nice, round, $9000 (more than the price of the top line Packard, or enough money to buy 18 Model A Ford Coupes, and have change left over to fill their tanks with 10-cent a gallon gasoline). The least expensive coachbuilt body might run about $5000, the famed 1933 Arlington Sedan by Rollston costing Duesenberg Inc. slightly over $20,000, bringing that car the nickname "Twenty Grand", by which most everyone today knows the car. Only the wealthiest of car buyers could afford one--the list of owners included chewing gum magnate William K Wrigley (4 Duesenbergs went to the Wrigley family), Mrs. John Jacob Astor, William Randolph Hearst bought a Willoughby Town Car for his mistress--the Hollywood actress Marian Davies; Howard Hughes, Gary Cooper (2 cars, including the first of two SSJ's), Clark Gable (2 cars), and San Francisco playboy financier George Whittel, who bought SEVEN Model J's 1929-33. Foreign buyers included the Maharajah of Indore (India), King Alphonso of Spain, King Zog of Rumania, Actress Greta Garbo.

Truly the car for the rich, the famous and the discriminating, Duesenberg Inc.'s sole sales pitch was "He (or she) drives a Duesenberg, accompanied by sketches of the wealthy in poses such as the lady instructing her gardener about how she wanted her property to look, a distinguished-looking man of substance, smoking a pipe as he skippered his huge sailing yacht.

Biscuitbuilder

[Biscuitbuilder]

That's the same photo as page 127 in Fred Roe's book. I'm wondering what the back end looks like. I'm not going to get too hung up on making it perfect, just a representation of what it might have looked like.

The rear of the frame of this car, from my memory of a picture somewhere of it, from the rear, appears to have been simply a sheet metal panel, with horizontal (side to side) ribs for both appearance and to prevent "drumming", AND a folded trunk rack as I had mentioned earlier.

Biscuitbuilder

[SoCalCarCulture]

Don't know if this helps but here's one that was in the Imperial Palace Collection - these shots are from 2000...

[imatt88]

Beautiful cars!

[Harry P.]

Ok, this one definitely wins the "Oldest Thread Bumped Up" Award for today...

[imatt88]

Harry,

Its me again :lol: Guilty as charged

[MikeMc]

Two that the server crashed on......

Edited September 12, 2011 by MIKE THE MANIAC

[imatt88]

Mike,

What pics did you post?