A Duesenberg back to beautiful

In the wake of the Great Depression, Duesenberg found itself with a problem. The economic catastrophe had a dampening effect on the sales of expensive, ostentatious cars. Many would-be Duesenberg owners chose something a little more down-to-earth in which to be chauffeured. It didn’t do to be seen as profligate when the busiest shops in town were soup kitchens and bread lines. Consider that President Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt owned a Brewster town car — on a 1932 Plymouth chassis.

The public also perceived that Duesenberg was in shaky financial condition. It was. This perception was not helped by its showrooms, which rarely kept a car on the floor to display. Of course, Duesenbergs and cars of their class were often bespoke affairs. Customers ordered a chassis and had it sent to the coachbuilder of their choice for custom coachwork, whether entirely original or from a catalog of existing body designs. So there was no practical reason to have a standing inventory of complete and incredibly expensive cars. Duesenberg did have stylists who worked with coachbuilders, but the purchase process remained the same.

In late 1934 or early 1935, Duesenberg management decided to order on spec a small run of more modern-looking bodies to mount on remaining Model J chassis. These bodies were kept at the ready and marketed as ready-to-sell. The idea was to create an impression of greater financial stability, and to sell the last remaining Duesenberg chassis. (Starting in 1929, Duesenberg planned to sell 500 Model Js a year, but by the mid 1930s, it still had not sold all of the chassis and engines from its initial order of 500.)

Duesenberg stylist J. Herbert “Herb” Newport was enlisted to design this new run of bodies while Rollston of New York would build them. These cars are known as JNs (naturally aspirated) or SJNs (supercharged). Ten were built: Four cabriolets, three Berlines (sedans) and three convertible sedans. Of these, two JNs were supercharged, and only one was equipped with the dual-carburetor supercharger — this is that car, still fitted with engine J-571.

Newport and Rollston had a job cut out for them. The Duesenberg J chassis upon which the JN bodies would be installed dated to the late 1920s. The chassis was constructed as sturdily as the Brooklyn Bridge and was almost as high-riding. By the mid-1930s, industrial design and consumer tastes had considerably evolved. Everything from locomotives to coffee percolators was being streamlined. Lower, smoother and faster looking was the order of the day. But designing a lower chassis for the JN was out of the question due to the cost, yet the JNs would have to appear up-to-date to be more saleable.

Behold J-571 (aka SJN-571) today, which still maintains the impression of sweeping grandeur and great elegance. Newport and Rollston skillfully combined the designer’s eye and the coachbuilder’s craft to imbue the body with a cohesive, streamlined appearance in keeping with the trends of the mid 1930s. There’s no fussiness. Brightwork is limited to a few punctuating details. The fenders are low and skirted, and the body is wider, which allows it to extend out and down over the chassis rails, enclosing them. In fact, the bottoms of the front doors are notched so that they may close over the frame. The observer’s eye is naturally led from the front of the car to its tail by a body molding that begins on the hood, just behind the grille surround, and continues rearward and down to terminate at the bullet-like taillamps sourced from Chrysler Corp. The graceful, skirted rear fender echoes this line. Newport’s original sketches depict the car with full wheel covers and blackwall tires, which give a lower appearance aided in no small part by its 17-inch-diameter wheels. Dark sienna brown paint and a tan interior and convertible top complete the car’s subtle, sophisticated look.

SJN-571’s streamlining wasn’t always appreciated. In the 1950s, when the collector car hobby as we know it today was in its infancy, attitudes towards styling and restoration were, at best, cavalier. At that time, after having passed through the hands of multiple owners, SJN-571 was in the possession of New Jersey furrier and enthusiast George S. Kudra. Feeling that the car should look more like a typical Duesenberg of the early ’30s, he had it stripped of its wheel covers, chrome-plated its wire wheels and jettisoned the blackwall tires in favor of wide whites. A couple of unfortunate spotlights and cowl lamps were added, and a superfluous aluminum luggage rack was grafted onto the tail, cluttering the look of the car. A blue-grey paint scheme was applied to set off the gaudy jewelry. To Kudra’s credit, he did have the engine rebuilt.

This was how the car looked when the late Bob Bahre acquired it from Kudra in 1980. Bahre was a self-made entrepreneur and a collector of rarified tastes possessed of an almost supernatural ability to winnow out cars before the rest of the world woke up to precisely what they were. Today, the convertible sedan still resides in The Bahre Collection situated on Paris Hill in Paris, Maine. I spoke with the collection’s curator, Jeff Orwig, about Bob Bahre, SJN-571 and the process of returning it to its 1936 appearance.

Orwig explained that Bahre was “ahead of the curve” when it came to identifying extraordinary autos. He had a great gift for “understanding people,” and he relished “making the deal, even if it took decades.” The result of his persistence is a collection of more than 60 rare and exquisite cars with an emphasis on coachbuilt Packards and Duesenbergs, ensuring SJN-571 is in the perfect home. SJN-571 is one of only 38 supercharged Duesenbergs, of which only five or six had this dual-carburetor setup.

It was long known that SJN-571 had been modified from its original appearance, and the sensitive job of setting things to rights was entrusted to Chris Charlton and the team at Classic Car Services of Oxford, Maine. Orwig says they gave it a “fantastic, sympathetic restoration.” Responding to evidence gleaned from research and through the partial disassembly of the car, they learned that it was originally painted a rich dark brown. It was also apparent that much of the red-oxide primer that Duesenberg used to paint chassis frames was still intact. “Rollston never painted the invisible sections of the chassis,” according to Orwig, “much of the main frame rails are the original red-oxide Duesenberg primer.”

After spending two and half years getting the car back to the way Rollston intended it to look, it was finished in March 2023 — in time to make a grand reentry into society at The Amelia concours, where it took best in the Duesenberg class. In Orwig’s opinion, the judges were “smitten by the importance of the car and its startling transformation to what it was originally.”

Orwig and I wheeled the Duesy out into bright New England summer sunlight for photographs, and he gave me a little taste of what the most powerful American car of the prewar era was like on the road.

“It drives so easy,” he says, and the three-speed manual transmission “shifts fine once it’s warmed up.” Although, admittedly, the shifts cannot be rushed, lest the gears gnash in protest before the ’box is warmed through. Of course, maneuvering the car on its 142.5-inch wheelbase is a challenge at a standstill, but it “steers easily” once on the move. Orwig says this twin-carb car is the easiest of the six Duesenberg Model Js in the collection to start from cold, but it still coughs in protest and stumbles until settling into a smooth idle. There are faint rumblings which emanate from the supercharger. The engine is not demure, nor should it be; the single-carbureted supercharged Model J was rated in excess of 320 hp, and this Duesenberg has two carburetors!

Under acceleration, the gearbox emits a tuneful whine, and the big eight pulls well. Still, with around 5,500 pounds to contend with, even the twin-carb supercharged engine dictates the convertible sedan gather speed rather than leap forward. Of course, it must be understood that in those days, a powerful car was one that could throttle down to a walking pace in top gear and pull cleanly away. Using 0-to-60-mph times as a yardstick to judge performance came after World War II.

“The true value of the supercharger is evident at highway speeds,” Orwig reports.

The front footwells of the Rollston body are narrow, and on the passenger’s side, heat-soak from the exhaust is apparent. But rolling over rough pavement, the feeling is one of great solidity; the leaf springs are just firm enough that the great car doesn’t wallow, and there’s not even a suggestion of rattling from the Rollston coachwork. Paris Hill is a place of Norman Rockwellian charm, complete with a village green and white-steepled church. Riding in the Duesenberg here, it was easy to mentally time-travel back to the 1930s and see the world through sepia-tinted glasses, marveling at the readouts from the car’s comprehensive instruments, including an altimeter, all surrounded by a beautiful engine-turned panel.

Orwig broke my reverie, saying, “Slide that lever under your feet to the right.” This bypasses the muffler completely, and the sound of 420 cubic inches is unleashed upon the world at full strength. When muffled in the “town” position, the tone of the Duesy’s 32-valve engine could be likened to fine scotch — smooth and elegant. Unmuffled in “country” mode, it’s pure moonshine, growling with menace under open throttle and delivering Mercedes AMG-like pops and burbles on the overrun. Intoxicating stuff. The joys of this “town and country” exhaust cannot be overstated and must be experienced.

Bob Bahre’s foresight to collect and preserve fine cars and his family’s continued dedication to the collection, along with Jeff Orwig’s work as curator and the efforts of skilled restorers, have ensured that this devastatingly handsome Rollston convertible sedan again looks as its designers and builders intended. It also occasionally accrues real highway miles. As Orwig reports, “This is our tour car!”

The Bahre Collection is not regularly open to the public. However, on the third Saturday of every July, the collection is open for tours as part of the Founder’s Day celebrations. This is a charitable event to benefit the Bahre’s next-door neighbor, the Hamlin Memorial Library and Museum, in Paris, Maine. For more information, visit www.hamlin.lib.me.us.

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