the pinnacle of the ACD empire Duesenberg J

you have seen the Auburn and you have seen the Cord yet one more remains. the mighty Duesenberg J. this was the pinnacle of the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Empire of Erret Lobban Cord after whom the Cord was named. he also owned Lycoming which made the engines for all Cord manufactured automobiles. the Duesenberg J was designed by Frederick Duesenberg at Cord's request for the largest, most powerful luxury car in the world. Duesy's were sold in chassis and engine form so a custom body by one of the many famous body builders of the day could produce the body at the customer's request. Bohmann and Schwartz, Weymann, and others made these bodies for the Duesenberg chassis. the famous twin overhead cam engine was a straight eight of 420 cu.in. and 265h.p. with supercharger this went up to 320h.p. either was a large amount for any car of the 1920's and 30's of the last century. the blown Duesy was able to do 0-60 in 8 seconds and 0-100 in 17 with a top speed of over 130mph. that is pretty quick even today. this is in a very large automobile weighing over 5,000 pounds depending which body one had on his Duesenberg. the supercharged model is popularly known as the SJ and a short wheelbase one was the SSJ of which only two were made. Duesenberg called them all J model. our first picture here is of the supercharged engine. the vertical shaft between the exhaust outlets leads up to the supercharger on top with tubes across the top of the engine to the carburettors and intake ports on the other side of the engine. this engine too was made by Lycoming although designed by Fred Duesenberg. next we have a picture of the dashboard and steering wheel of a Model J. third is a beautiful SJ speedster. fourth is the famous Mormon Meteor a special bodied Duesenberg engined car which set many speed records in the 1930's. it was capable of over 150mph. last is a SJ towncar with custom body by Bohmann & Schwartz. these cars were huge. until you have seen one in the flesh you cannot really imagine their size. i saw one in Chicago in 1962 when i was in the USN. i was driving a 1952 Chevrolet, the Duesy was a coupe driven by a little old guy and his wife, it literally dwarfed my Chevrolet. not quite 500 model J's were produced so it is a rare thing to see. unless you are prepared to give up over a million simoleons you will never get to drive one.