Duesy, what does it cost to get into one?

Friends, I am wondering what it costs (rough range) to get into a decent running Duesenberg. Also, have they increased/decreased/remained flat with inflation over the past 5/10/20 years? Thank you very much for your time.

Figure a quater of a million, minimum, for an entry-level Duesenberg J. At least three times that for an SJ or an open car. The cheapest one I've seen lately was at an auction where a '29 Murphy 4-door sedan (the most common of the Js) sold for about $270,000.00.

As far as appreciation, I think these cars will always be worth about what they're worth now. There will always be demand for them, but the days of an old car appreciating 50% a year like we saw in the '80s are long, long gone. If you're looking for an investment, there are much better places to put your money than in an old car--even the mighty Duesenberg...

Hope this helps.

Regarding Matt's observation on an old car as investment:

The ONLY time an old car is an investment is when you bring another one home and your spouse asks, "Why did you buy that thing?"

The only acceptable answer is, "But honey, it's an investment."

Otherwise old cars are an expense, unless of course dealing in old cars is your business.

I sure hope Duesenbergs get cheap 'cause I always wanted one.

I really think the engineers of Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg should be proud of themselves (where they might ever be.. up in th clouds?) . When they look at the prices of these cars today(More expensive than any other car from that era)! (OK oK They should be proud about what they created in those days also! )

Thanks fellas - I have always hoped to own one someday (I guess like every other old car nut) and wanted to get a feel for the current market. Quite frankly, I thought they were more expensive than they are until I saw some recent auctions listed. I have read the occasional article saying they will devalue due to the aging enthusiasts for these cars..but I agree this is doubtful. Appreciate it!

Just a joke. How many arms, legs or first-borns do you have??

Like the old saying goes, "If you have to ask....."

Not enough arms and legs at this point, but a boy can dream! Thanks for all of the info!

Curious, anybody have any experience with them? Are they tempermental? Tough to maintain e.t.c. Thanks again. I have never been able to find much info about them except for how expensive they are, how many Leno has e.t.c. Like I said, its part of a long-term plan -

Why not join the ACD Club? Their web site is www.acdclub.org

Worked on two J's years ago, well made but didn't leave me with the same impression of a Bugatti of the same era. Got a ride in a 1915 Dusenberg INDY car this fall THAT was impressive!

The Duesenberg engines are quite reliable, and because they are Lycoming engines most parts can be found. E.L.Cord also owned Lycoming, and I have found some parts from Aunurn and Cord owners associations. The more "special" Duesenberg you get (superchargers, etc) the more difficult it is to find resources. The engines themselves, being twin cam, 32 valve types, are marvelous pieces of machinery. Try to get a Murphy bodied one. They are reasonable in price and since they were coachbuilt in Pasadena, California, they tend to have been usedregionally in the Southwest. My family has collected them throughout three generations. Goodluck to you.

While it is true that the Duesenberg J engine was built by Lycoming, it was engineered by the Duesenberg brothers. It was farmed out, so to speak to Lycoming, which was part of the Cord Corporation at the time. I have to tell you, I have a Lycoming engine in my Auburn, and it bears no resemblance to or shares anything with a J engine. I don't think you will find Duesenberg engine parts to be very plentiful.

That said, it is possible to get into a Duesenberg, the A, for a good deal less than 100K in most cases. They may not have the glamour of the J, but they are all Duesenberg, and beautiful machines in their own right.

Mike ,I was in the company of a guy talking Duesys a few years ago and this man BRAGGED he had 3 Duesys....My friend Bill Longley asked him how many Js??? He said none,all modelAs... My friend Bill asked him "What the hell are you bragging about" It was very funny at the time.The As are great cars ,but nothing to the REAL THING.

There's a gentleman in my area (I'll refrain from naming him for privacy reasons) who owns 20 or so Js, including Clark Gable's SSJ roadster (it is now black and red). I recall when I was a kid and doing some research on the Duesenberg brothers for a school paper (car guy to the core!) that he had several cars that were rumored to have been destroyed during the war. But one day, he just shows up at a local show in one of them and everybody went nuts saying it was a missing car. Turns out he had several such specimens and even a bare chassis with 0 miles! I've seen a few of them at shows, but he's very reclusive and doesn't share his entire collection. I wonder what else he has squirrelled away there? It's tantalizing to think about it!

My step-grandfather also claimed to have scrapped several Duesenbergs during the war. Apparently, they were more valuable as scrap metal than as cars (they were just used cars in the 1940s, I guess). I dearly hope he was mistaken on that...

Then there's the 1929 LeBaron dual-cowl phaeton (sent back to the factory in 1933 for the SJ update!) that I had the honor of helping to restore when I was an apprentice in the mid-80s. The car was found in Argentina with the back half of the body cut away to make way for a tow-truck crane apparatus. It was a sad sight when it arrived, but when it left, it was spectacular: black and gold with chrome wire wheels, tan top and natural leather interior if I remember it correctly. I took a few rides in it and it accelerated like a car half its size and the torque was astounding. I recall the restorer with whom I worked telling one of the guys who was driving the car to the storage area: just put it in third and forget about it--it could easily be launched from a dead stop in top gear! And when you opened the exhaust cut-out, it thundered down the road with a sound that still gives me goosebumps to think about today--nothing short of an open-exhaust funnycar comes close.

I have a kidney, half a liver, a lung and an eye for sale if anyone wants to trade for their Duesenberg. I'd even be willing to produce a child or two just for the honor...

<span style="font-style: italic">(just kidding, guys, just kidding!)</span>

The attachment is a photo of the '29 J I helped restore. Sorry about the lousy photos--I was only 14!

Here's a shot of the front of the '29 I helped restore. That's a 14-year-old Matt sitting on the driver's side running board. For those of you in northeast Ohio, this was at the 1984 Hale Farm & Village show.

This photo and the one that follows are two of the reclusive gentleman's spectacular Js, a phaeton and a sedan with a split windshield. I think the sedan is one of the rumored "missing" Js. If you've got good eyes, you can just make out the gentleman's last name on the license plate of this photo...

Last one. Sorry about the poor quality of the photos--I was just a kid when I took most of these and was overwhelmed by the quality of the cars!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">There's a gentleman in my area (I'll refrain from naming him for privacy reasons) who owns 20 or so Js, including Clark Gable's SSJ roadster (it is now black and red). I recall when I was a kid and doing some research on the Duesenberg brothers for a school paper (car guy to the core!) that he had several cars that were rumored to have been destroyed during the war. But one day, he just shows up at a local show in one of them and everybody went nuts saying it was a missing car. Turns out he had several such specimens and even a bare chassis with 0 miles! I've seen a few of them at shows, but he's very reclusive and doesn't share his entire collection. I wonder what else he has squirrelled away there? It's tantalizing to think about it!

My step-grandfather also claimed to have scrapped several Duesenbergs during the war. Apparently, they were more valuable as scrap metal than as cars (they were just used cars in the 1940s, I guess). I dearly hope he was mistaken on that...

Then there's the 1929 LeBaron dual-cowl phaeton (sent back to the factory in 1933 for the SJ update!) that I had the honor of helping to restore when I was an apprentice in the mid-80s. The car was found in Argentina with the back half of the body cut away to make way for a tow-truck crane apparatus. It was a sad sight when it arrived, but when it left, it was spectacular: black and gold with chrome wire wheels, tan top and natural leather interior if I remember it correctly. I took a few rides in it and it accelerated like a car half its size and the torque was astounding. I recall the restorer with whom I worked telling one of the guys who was driving the car to the storage area: just put it in third and forget about it--it could easily be launched from a dead stop in top gear! And when you opened the exhaust cut-out, it thundered down the road with a sound that still gives me goosebumps to think about today--nothing short of an open-exhaust funnycar comes close.

I have a kidney, half a liver, a lung and an eye for sale if anyone wants to trade for their Duesenberg. I'd even be willing to produce a child or two just for the honor...

<span style="font-style: italic">(just kidding, guys, just kidding!)</span>

The attachment is a photo of the '29 J I helped restore. Sorry about the lousy photos--I was only 14! </div></div>

Matt,

If you are talking about the owner of the "Clark Gable" SSJ, that would be none other than Al Ferarra, who is anything but reclusive! Ferarra's Duesenbergs show up all over the midwest--I've seen them at the Gilmore, at Auburn, at Meadowbrook Hall. And, Mr. Ferarra isn't at all shy or retiring--he's taken the time on several occasions to share his vast knowledge of his Duesenbergs with me, as I've researched them on show fields for scale modeling purposes.

Art

I guess the cat's out of the bag. Yes, that's the gentleman I was talking about. I have never personally met him beyond having him pointed out to me at a gathering, but in the stories I've read about his collection (one book in particular had a great piece on the SSJ), he kind of seemed shy of the public eye. At any rate, I didn't think it was my place to "out" him as the Duesenberg collector we all wish we could be, especially on the Internet. I guess I erred on the side of caution. I hope someday to meet him and talk about his collection, perhaps even see the entirety of it. He doesn't live far from me, perhaps I should just go up and knock on the door!

And now that you mention it, I think I have one of your models--Mr. Ferrara's SSJ, in scale, complete with the Ohio license plate. Is that your work, <span style="font-weight: bold">Art</span>? It's one of my favorites!

Best regards,

The gentleman to which you refer does not own 20 J Duesenbergs, he owns 6, plus a couple Model A Duesenbergs. If you want to meet him on a casual basis, go to the Alpine Valley AACA meet the last week of August on the East side of Cleveland. He's always there, usually with a car. This is a small, low key meet, without all the snobery of Meadowbrook or a major Concourse. The sedan you showed a picture of with the split windshield is not, and never was owned by him, it's owned by another collector in PA. Also, the Clark Gable car was never a "lost car." It's history is well documented going back to the late 1940's when it was in Chicago.

I saw Mr. Ferarra last month wandering the flea market at Hershey. Nice guy, always willing to talk. Don't think I've ever seen him not wearing a coat and tie, even in the Hershey flea market.

Oops, this month.

Man, you guys are really a wet blanket. <span style="font-style: italic">Mea Culpa!</span> Mr. Ferrara is somewhat of a legend in car circles around my area, and as a young kid, I ate it all up. Whether it was conjecture on the part of other enthusiasts or wishful thinking or whatever, it looks like the story changed each time it was passed on. I do, however, very clearly remember a big to-do over one of his cars showing up at a show--perhaps the Stan Hywett meet sometime in the late '70s or early '80s when I was about 10, but I can't be sure--a Duesenberg that wasn't supposed to exist any more, yet there it was. My father made a point of taking me over and explaining the car that the crowd was clamoring to see. It was a large sedan like the one in the photo, with blackwall tires, which appeared very odd to my 10-year-old eyes.

Like I said, I've never met the man, but I thought his was a great story that had some bearing on the discussion--who doesn't like the story of eccentric (I don't know whether Mr. Ferrara is or not) car collectors hoarding incredible collections of cars (the Schlumpf brothers, for example)? All my knowledge and the photographs are at least 10-15 years old, filtered through other enthusiasts like folklore. 20 cars was the number I've heard many times, so I thought others would enjoy the story and passed it on. If six is the real number, it's still damned amazing. <span style="font-style: italic">Sorry.</span>

I've driven by the Alpine Valley show as it was ending and saw what had to be one of Mr. Ferrara's Duesenbergs pulling out. I followed it for a while, thrilling to the sound. I know he lives out that way somewhere, and I know he likes to exercise his cars regularly.

<span style="font-weight: bold">PS:</span> I never said the SSJ was "missing." If you're going to pick apart my story, at least pick apart what I actually said. I guess I'll keep my comments to "Yes" and "No" from now on. Anytime I say anything else or try to lend some color to a discussion, I get attacked. I've been around this hobby all my life and have collected a lot of memories, experiences and stories, especially those from northeast Ohio (including Mr. Ferrara, the sad tale of Isquick's 1911 Mercedes from another thread--again, I was attacked there for lending a little background to an excellent discussion--Leonard Sotz and his Rolls-Royces (including one with a copper body), the late Sey Rosenblatt's amazing collection (that's his black and gold Duesey I worked on), etc.). Now I look like a damned liar and feel like an ass. I'm going out to the garage. This Internet stuff is for the birds. <span style="font-style: italic">Feh.</span>

Matt don't feel like an a## - you brought out some great info and stories which I really enjoyed reading. While I can see how it sounds like some of the comments come off in a scathing manner, perhaps (hopefully) its due to the nature of the written word which can easily be misinterpreted. Thanks for all the great info guys!

Matt:

I have to agree with the last post. It is wrong to interpret emotion in the plain(without punctuation, or hi-lites) written word. I read all of the posts and I do not get the impression that you were attacked. The posters only used the knowledge they possessed to shed additional light on the subject.

Al from the Packard forum.

Mike Dube was right as far as A's go, they are/were the last good deal out there in the prewar car world, although dont look for that to last as there arent very many of them, about 50-60, as opposed to j's-about 300.

Personally I like A's better than J's. Mrs Duesenberg was quoted as saying "now this is the real Duesenberg" when referring to a Model A. These cars were built entirely by the duesenberg bros. here in Indy. the J was as much of an EL Cord idea as it was the Duesenberg Bros. In fact I doubt the Duesenbergs would ever have had the balls to build the J's without EL, having pretty much gone bankrupt building the A's which cost about half what a j sold for. Folklore has it they thought EL was nuts aiming that high.

A's arent as flashy but they were still light years ahead of anything else built at their time. That's why EL wanted the company so badly. they also sound great with the cut out open.

It is interesting to note that the Duesenbergs didnt die rich men, but EL Cord did.

Thanks for the kind words, guys. I was rubbed a little raw in another discussion and perhaps carried it here. Sorry about that. I appreciate the support.

Regards!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Mike ,I was in the company of a guy talking Duesys a few years ago and this man BRAGGED he had 3 Duesys....My friend Bill Longley asked him how many Js??? He said none,all modelAs... My friend Bill asked him "What the hell are you bragging about" It was very funny at the time.The As are great cars ,but nothing to the REAL THING. </div></div>

If all either one of them was in it for was bragging rights, they both missed the point as far as I'm concerned.

I was in the Indy Speedway Museum a while back, it surprised me that they made no mention of the fact that the Duesenberg Model A they have was Augie's personal car.

Like Shawn, I always had the impression that the Duesenberg Brothers prefered light agile cars, as they were race car builders first. Like Ferrari, they got into road machines only to pay the racing bills. They never achieved Enzo's success that way, tho their racing cars ran with and often beat the best of that era.

The other SSJ is located in my hometown of Naples, Florida. It's own by Miles Collier, or at least by his 501©(3)IRC automobile museum. I have driven a 1929 Duesenberg Long Wheelbase Murphy bodied Convertible Sedan (owned by Jack Miller)for a few miles. It's faster than Packard Twelve...by a lot! I would say Convertible Js in decent condition with correct bodies start around $500,000.