"Challenged to design the best car in the world"

In American autodom there is no better embodiment of the spirit of entrepreneurial success than the Model J Duesenberg. The Duesenberg family immigrated to the United States in the early 1880s when brothers Fred and Augie were young children. They lacked formal education in engineering, but similar to the Wright brothers’ story, they began racing bicycles in the 1890s and graduated to gasoline engines around 1900. The Duesenberg brothers experimented with automobiles both for road and racing. When the clouds of war formed, they were granted a contract to produce a Bugatti-designed engine under license from the French government. Armed with new engineering and technical expertise, Fred designed a new straight-eight that was produced under Augie’s manufacturing direction.

The new engine was placed on the freshly designed Model A chassis and was not only the first U.S.-built straight eight, but also had the first four-wheel hydraulic brakes offered on a U.S.-built automobile. The car was an engineering success but a commercial failure. In 1926 transportation industrialist E.L. Cord purchased the Duesenberg company and challenged Fred to design the best car in the world. Following over two years of development, the Model J was introduced to much fanfare. The 420 cid Model J engine produced a respectable 265 horsepower with the help of dual overhead cams and four valves per cylinder; top speed was well over a hundred miles an hour. The initial price of the bare chassis was $8,500 with the cost of coachwork most often doubling that price.

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