Bob Roller

From the one photo I have seen of the one that went to Japan when new the control of what the body was to look like didn't make it.

IMHO the Grosser Mercedes is a lot better looking car than the "Throne Car" Those used by Hitler and his entourage were good looking in spite of the absolutely wretched ownership.

The "father"Divine Duesenberg did represent the absurd and nothing more. Wasn't it a Bohman&Schwarz full custom? I have only seen pictures of it.

Craig, I THINK there was a body builder owned by the Cord Corporation called in reality "Auburn Central" and used the upscale name of LaGrande for Duesenberg bodies.If I am wrong,please post a correction.

Roadsters are sporty looking and in some areas unusable in the winter. We had a wonderful mechanic on old cars here in Huntington WV whose name was Paul Hamilton. We had some great conversations about cars of all types. He asked me during one of these,this question, "What do YOU think are two of the developments that were a big benefit to the automobile owner in America? My reply was hydraulic brakes and pressurized oiling systems. Paul said,"Those are very creditable ideas but in my opinion it's roll up windows and heaters that work" I think that runs the list up to four things useful to car owners. He passed from this life in 2009 at age 86 and is much missed by his widow and a lot of others.

AJ, Thanks again. I will admit that I have been blessed with a good memory but it's usually for numbers. I still remember the phone # we had in Chicago when I was in grade school. It was AR4818. My early background is that I was born in Elgin,Illinois on 27 March 1936 and after my father bailed out in 1941 my mother moved the two of us into Chicago into a German neighborhood***. I still remember enough of the language to get rid of bums,panhandlers and phone solicitors. Working with a car such as the Duesenberg makes it easy to remember because of the rarity of the cars and also being curious and inclined to any kind of machinery and hand skills. I am a machinist and have a small personal shop behind our house and I spend time out there with another hobby interest which is muzzle loading rifles. I make precision locks and triggers for those who will pay for the time and skill set involved and it brings in a bit of extra money. We have 2 sons,Robert Mark Roller now almost 48 and Eric Scott Roller who is nearly 46 and 5 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren. Neither son has any interest in cars beyond what they own. I am now 82 and I do want o pass on such information as I know to be accurate while my mind is still working.I will NOT make up any BS to suit a story which also reflects my dislike of novels (fiction). I love history and am very angry at our schools here for not teaching it. They call it Social Studies I call it hogwash. I never try to remember what I had for lunch.I THINK today I snacked on Braunschweiger and saltines............maybe. *** SOME of these Germans were sympathetic to Der Fuehrer and they were visited by the FBI and some of them did go back to Germany.

1937hd45 We were the only shop in this area that would take in a Duesenberg.Our shop was not a show case but we got the work done. We had moved to a larger shop that combined an Ashland oil gas station and a lot more room. We still had the English cars and Goodyear tires and the work area for Duesenberg was in the back of the building.That space on 3rd ave now has a nice high rise apartment building sitting on it. It was 1120 3rd ave. There was a nice 1930 Rolls Royce CC here and a number of Packards but Packard was still in business and they did most of the service work for those who needed them We had mechanics from other shops,dealers and independents stop in and not ONE of them would take on a Duesenberg. NONE of them had any idea as to how the overhead cams worked or why an 8 cylinder engine needed 32 valves.While lapping in the valves on J467 the man that owned the Rolls Royce came in and asked me what I was doing and I told him and showed him. He said "I'll never have to do that on my Rolls" and I told him it wouldn't run fast enough to wear out.He got mad and quickly left the shop. The only American car we serviced besides the "orphans" was a 1952 Cadillac that belonged to a lady that didn't like the attitude of the local dealer. We had Duesenberg owners who found out about us and we helped them whenever we could. Some were high mileage cars and needed a complete rebuild including all bearings but at that time those cars were owned by people of very limited means and we did little beyond plugs,points, water pump repacking. J467's block and head were sent to Federal-Mogul I think in Northern Ohio for rod and main bearing rebabbiting as well as cam bearings.They did beautiful work and the fits and finishes were perfect.Crank shaft was done locally at Huntington Forge and Machine Shop on 2nd Ave which was an industrial are on a railroad line,the B&O single track to Parkersburg WV. There was another inquiry on the subject of Duesenbergs and it was asking about how many spare engines are around. I think it was 2003 at Auburn I asked Randy Ema that question and he said he knew of 60 at that time.

Most of the "Car Shows" today seem to be more like used car lots at least locally. I am assuming in the big leagues that whoever has the most over done car wins. At Auburn years ago I was stopped in my tracks by a Duesenberg that looked like it had been porcealenized . Way over top from new.

I was in a local flying club for nearly 9 years and my favorite old bird was a Cessna 195 with the 245HP Jacobs radial engine. It was said if God had wanted man to fly behind opposed engines then Pratt&Whitney would have made them. I had a friend who lived to be almost 100 and he flew combat in WW2.He was on the other side,Luftwaffe and flew a BF109 and FW190 and was in the jet Me262 program when the war ended.

Continuing my earlier info about J396 BEFORE the engine failure.According to Ray Wolff's notes on it that say it was new in 1931 from New York factory branch with sport sedan body*and later the Packard roadster body NYFB in 1934.Went to W.J.Calhoun Jr in 1936.Conrad Clemans got it in Norfolk Navy Yard in 1946. The man I mentioned earlier,Theodore Cole told me of this car at the National Muzzle Loading Rifle shoot in Friendship Indiana in 1960 or thereabout. He described it perfectly and told of turning it upon one side in a snow bank with no damage to the car or himself.Cole died in 1962 and was living in Wilkinsburg,Pa. I asked him what HE did with it he thought for a minute and said "I sold it to some hillbilly lawyer in WV". That could be the connection as he had NO idea I ever met Melvin Clemans. *Melvin Clemans told me about the sedan being a Derham. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Going back to the earlier Thompson&Irwin car dealership,we had as I mentioned a franchise for English cars. MG,Morris,Riley,Jaguar and others that are obscure and available on special order. Also the "orphan car" service.We also sold Goodyear tires and Don Thompson used to say "Only the best of junk rolls on Goodyears." We were contacted by Harry Schulzinger of Cincinnati Ohio to rebuild the engine on SJ528 and we did that over a period of several months in the winter of 1951 and Spring of 1952. Later I went with Jack Irwin in SJ528 to take his wife to Fairmont WV to see a relative and that's when the timing chain tensioner spring broke and the engine was badly damaged.We were on our way to see Melvin Clemans and bring one of his cars back for whatever reason to the garage in Huntington.Mr.Schulzinger bought J467 and at his request Don Thompson and I did a body/chassis swap from the low mile sedan SJ551 to the chassis that carried SJ528,Riviera Phaeton. We installed the Riviera body on the low miles chassis.Later I personally dismantled engine J467 and then Mr.Schulzinger had it rebored to 3.875 and we fitted it with Jahn's high compression pistons and a Clark 5 speed transmission which gave the benefit of overdrive in 5th gear. I understand he drove it until about 1974 and had no trouble with it so I must assume what we did was correctly done. The Thompson&Irwin partnership came unraveled for reasons I don't know and now never will so I'll close with that.

Pete, I think that sprint car was J105 and Ted put it in the SWB Willoughby and had J452 bell housing. Yes,there were cars cannabilized to keep more desireable body styles on the road.The SJ528 that is now J467 is one of these.Back in the "day" the sedans were not interesting and then some people woke up to the fact that the total number of these cars was under 500 cars total.One of my favorites was and is a Drham sedan with heavily skirted fenders,waterfall grill and bullet headlights and was SJ551. It still exists but I have no idea where it is or what engine#.

Ericmac, Most of this if not all was recorded by me on cassette for Ted and Gerry McPhail then of Ilderton,Ontario Canada. They are both deceased and someone else has the 2 Duesenbergs. Ted had the Ray Wollf notes and sent them to me when he found out he was Terminally ill.There is a hand written letter with them thanking me for the help I gave them and for making a lot of the small parts he needed for the sedan that was being restored.It was,as far as is known,the only short wheel base "J" with a Willoughby body. There is a bit more about J396-209-434 and I plan to post it,maybe today. In the early 1950's I was a teen aged boy and fell under the influence of Raydon R (Don) Thompson and Jack Irwin. Both are now deceased,Thompson in 2009 and Irwin in 2016.They had J487 and J467 in a garage in the Harveytown section of Huntington WV where we still live. J487 was a LWB LeBaron DC Phaeton and J467 was a sedan of notoriety spoken of in Elbert's book on Duesenbergs. I was immediately interested in these cars mainly because they represented NO ordinary lines of thinking and the performance as compared to the cars of the 1940's and '50's was indeed a source of interest. As time went on I started to come to the garage and helped with different things during the reassembly of J487. It didn't take long for me to figure out how these cars worked in a mechanical way and I got the job of installing the intake manifold and updraft carburetor. I also did most of the dismantling on J467 whose engine now resides in former SJ528,restored and with supercharger.It is one of the 3 Brunn Riviera Phaetons . Thompson and Irwin opened a garage in Huntington and had a franchise for English cars I suppose from Max Hoffman who was the imported car guru back then.I also worked there and we had a facility for any ACD car and other orphans. I came in from school one day and there was a V12 Lagonda with a broken distributor cap hold down spring and I made a new one and the car went on to where ever it was going. I learned spring making from an old gunsmith,George Killen. He and one of the possible owners of J396 were the only two reprobates I ever knew.Evil old men that would easily shoot someone and think little of it. One of them,Theodore Cole was mentioned in the Wolff notes. More later.

Taylormade, I think P.K.Wrigley had 5 or maybe even 6 "J"s he bought new.If nothing intervenes,maybe I can search the "Wolff Notes" and find the one you mentioned.

XANDER, I would guess that the air in the tires on the 20" wheels would have been the minimum needed to keep the snap rings in place. That is only a "Guesstimate".

J434 is NOT a 20 year accumulation of any thing. The original engine failed due to the reason I mentioned. Engine 209 was a temporary thing and I think at one time was installed in an Auburn speedster so it really could be called a "speedster". J434 came from Harry Van Iderstine's car and SJ551 with supercharger took its place,J434 was/is possibly a better engine that J209. Harry told me that Melvin Clemens insisted he use SJ551 in the restoration of the phaeton so that's why it's where it is.

Why would anyone buy a roadster that would only be comfortable in warm weather? A LeBaron style phaeton would be even worse.Side curtains,lap robes,fur coats. Lots of fun

IF I had a cobbled up rebodied car of ANY kind I'd take to any show I could get into and if nobody liked it they could look at something else. The rebodying on J396 was an expedient to get the car back into use and the rest of the history makes it that much more interesting. I will NOT give any information about any car or other subject if I know the chances for gross error were possible.The car in the top picture looks correct to me and it's NOT J396.The lower one has the Winchester "V" radiator core exposed. I remember years ago of using a 22 caliber brush and rod to clean out the bug collection in one of these.I think it was J487,a LeBaron phaeton in rough shape.

The info on J434-209-396 comes from personal knowledge and Ray Wolff's notes AND Fred Roe's book called "Duesenberg,the pursuit of perfection."

OK,J434 is the 3rd engine in this car.It started life in 1933 as a Derham SWB sedan with J396 under the hood.Melvin Clemens owned this car for decades and it was the scourge of Bridgeport Hill in Clarksburg WV. Melvin outran a new Cadillac with ease up that hill and the guy that owned the Caddy took it back to the dealer and tried to get a refund saying that he was outrun by some guy in a clunker that ate him alive.This was about 1952. I have ridden in it a lot of times and drove it as well. The car was hit by a streetcar in NYC in 1936 and the Derham body was totaled.The local Packard dealer looked at it an thought that MAYBE a Packard roadster body would work and he had one left from 1928 and it was fitted to that chassis 2410,engine J396 shown in page 245 of Fred Roes's Pursuit of Perfection. Harry Van Iderstine refinished but did NOT restore this car years ago and said there was obvious damage from the streetcar to the frame still evident.Melvin told me he bought it from his brother for $300 in 1939 and kept it as a fun car. Engine J396 was damaged when a rod went thru the block as the result of being over revved to get 90MPH in second. What the mechanic didn't notice was that the two rear wheels were 20" from an earlier Cadillac and that slowed the speedometer down.They were getting 90 in second but were only showing 85. It was a badly worn engine with and estimated 200,000 miles on it when it failed. Engine J396 has been restored/repaired and I saw it in a repro Torpedo Phaeton at Auburn about 16 years ago.I THINK J209 was used as a replacement for a while and then replaced with j434. Howard Hawks, movie producer owned J434 and IT was replaced by Harry VanIderstine with SJ551 supercharged that originally powered a somewhat modernized Derham SWB sedan.Melvin traded this car which,by the way was green and referred to as "The Green Hornet" by Melvin to a man in Maine (maybe)and an UNrestored SJ which was powered by SJ 572 with dual carburetor blower for a LeBaron barrel side phaeton which was still part of his estate when he passed away. Melvin was happy with the deal because he still had 3 Duesenbergs,a Murphy CC with disappearing top,a Judkins LWB sedan (one of my favorites) and now the DC phaeton. The phaeton was also supplemented in the 2 for 1 trade by a 1932 KB V12 Lincoln ,a phaeton or maybe convertible sedan.. Keep in mind that the NYC accident and body replacement is ALL a part of this car's history and does nothing to degrade it's value,It IS what it IS and I wish I had bought when Melvin offered it to me for $800. Please forgive any typos.I am working with one good eye with new lens insert and one with a cataract and glasses that don't help either.

Sorry for the slow reply. I agree with AJ,Fred Roe's book "Pursuit of Perfection" is THE book on Duesenberg and has "J" numbers and old photos of historic interest. I turned up two unknowns for him and have a "Thanks a lot" letter from him dated & August,1986.One was J402 (Ithink) and J106.Until I made the man's name available to him there were NO known pictures of these cars. This was 32 years ago.I still have Elbert's book I bought for $5 including postage from the publisher in1951 and my wife bought Roe's book for my Christmas gift in 1986. Also have Steinwedle&Newport's book on Duesenberg and added "J" numbers myself. I hear that it's a rare book now and attracted little interest when new.Herb Newport DID do some body design for Duesenberg after Gordon Beurirg left the company. Another interesting "J" encounter was when Melvin Clemens bought J 214,the Wolfington Phaeton. It was a shambles and I thought of it as a parts car. We did get it started and it was completely worn out and smoked like a volcano and sounded like the pistons were changing holes. The story was that it was used to power a well drilling (water) rig and was run wide open in 2nd gear and lightly loaded. I also remember my old friend Bob Wilson who is now dead for 41 years telling me he saw it with that drilling rig running and thought it was a Lincoln. He said he didn't look really close. I have a color picture I took of it with the owner standing beside of it at Auburn. It had an odd paint pattern but it represented ONE man's idea as to what he wanted in a full custom car.

Let's HEAR the story before we comment on it. I have Ray Wolff's notes so post the "J" number and other data.

My 1951 Packard 200 was a basic,bare bones model 4 door. I bought it from the original owner in 1988 for $300,replaced all 16 valves and drove it. I rebuilt the Ultramatic and made all new bronze bushings for it including the bell housing bushing and it worked better than new because of the very close tolerances I made the bushings to. These are not hard to rebuild IF oil pumps can be found that will still work.

I live near Southern Ohio and for years a 55 Clipper roamed those roads and one day I came across it in a gas station with the hood up and under that hood was a V8 Oldsmobile engine with Hydramatic. The owner said the Packard parts were a major PITA and he cured them.

A local man here in Huntington WV was told he could not buy a new Clipper in 1955 with conventional suspension and standard manual transmission. He knew the Ultramatic was a bad idea and had no use for weird suspension systems so he went to nearby Ashland Kentucky and bought justwhat he wanted off the' show room floor and kept it for over 30 years. I bought a 1955 Patrician in 1959 that looked like new but I was soon sorry about that purchase and have thought it was a sad day when a great car makers engineering fell flat on its face and a year later the Detroit plant shut down forever.