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What state did her parents live in when they owned the car?

Beautiful car.

We've had a couple of Packard 12s in the family and still have one, but the ongoing 40 year long restoration seems to have gone over schedule so I can't comment on driving one. I've always liked the Pierce Arrow, although I've never driven one of those either. I'm wondering how the overdrive gear worked on the Pierce? Was the unit integral with the transmission or mounted behind it. Does it work on all 3 gears or is it like Mercedes where it's an over the top gear off of 3rd?

I don't know about the entire collector car market but it is going to impact the Duesenbergs in a big way - especially if they are selling no reserve. The Harrahs auctions occurred as the economy was in an upswing. These are happening in a down swing. There are just not that many collectors with 1 million plus to spend on a car, it has to effect prices.

Here are a couple of pictures of the two varieties. Are there any Hollywood experts out there?

You put it a bit more clearly then me Bob, but "ugly" is probably about right.

George, the hamb guys want more pictures. Also, why do you think it's rear engined? There seems to be a big transmission tunnel there.

Here you go George

I'm going to be the dissenter on the greatness of Tucker. I like the uniqueness of the rear engine and the multiple exhaust tips are cool. But the styling leaves me cold. I guess in fairness, quite a bit of the styling in that era was icky.

L29 or 810/812? I'm not a huge fan of the late 20s "spin dial" gauges.

If you post this on the hamb with a decent title like "Identify mystery 50s rear engined custom" somebody will tell you exactly what it it. If you want I'll post it for you.

Take some decent pictures of each of them and post them on here. You will probably get a better idea then from the price guides.

Do you know when they stopped publishing those books? Sometime in the 1920s?

If anyone figure out how to get Massachusetts Historical Registration records I would love to know about it. I have some old registrations for some of my cars and I'd love to try to find even earlier owners for them. With the current privacy law stuff I'm not optimistic.

I found a new one to put near the top of my list. 34 Nash Ambassador.

As a general rule, it's best to post pictures when asking questions Pete :-). Be sure to join the Studebaker club. I'm always amazed at how much knowledge is found with the marque specific clubs. I'm a big fan of the 1930 to 1938 time frame, the height of auto manufacture in my mind. Best of luck with it. A.J.

Depends what kind of car you are talking about. For the higher end stuff, the history is very important and many/most of the buyers are interested in it. For musclecars it can make or break the value of the car.

A Duesenberg that has been rebodied is worth significantly less then a factory bodied car.

That would be "no". Each state has individual registration records and in the past some would provide history for a fee. Privacy laws have more or less ended that practice.

I could be wrong, but I think he is selling on behalf of a collector. I agree, tough to chose between the three. The spirt-of-motion is really nice.

Very cool Stutz!

Here is a picture of the car when John's dad owned it and Ted had just restored it (measuring everything along the way). Circa 1970. Tony Pascucci was a really interesting guy with some fabulous cars. There is a good story of how he went to Italy to try to get his barrel side dual cowl (I think that was the car) out of a musuem there. I'll see if I can get that one from my dad.

A very nice car indeed. At this point very rare also. Do you happen to have one?

I should qualify that as Model J Duesenberg and I didn't say there wasn't any in hiding right now I said there hadn't been any discovered since the early 60s :-). I very knowledgeable guy I know thinks there is one still hidden in Paris. There have been a couple of high profile Duesenberg "discoveries" in the last 10 years and I guarantee that Fred Roe and Randy Ema and a few other people knew about those cars forever.

And finally, to my knowledge, there has not been an undiscovered Duesenberg found since the 1960s.