Duesenberg

Model J

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RM Sothebys

To Be OFFERED AT AUCTION at RM Sothebys' Monterey event, 15 - 16 August 2025. rn$4,000,000 - $5,000,000 USD rnrnOne of the five original Torpedo Phaetons built to Gordon Buehrig's masterpiece designrnThe 1936 Los Angeles Auto Show car; featured in the film 1,000 Dollars a MinuternFormerly owned by Fred Guyton, John Mozart, and General William LyonrnRetains its original chassis, engine, firewall, and coachworkrnA significant design statement of its era, with folding windshields and disappearing toprnThe first original Torpedo Phaeton to have been available in two decadesrnAn absolutely exceptional Duesenberg by any measure and staturern rnrnPlease note that this lot it titled as a 1936. rnrnTHE TORPEDO PHAETON: FROM FAN MAIL TO MASTERPIECErnrnGordon Buehrig's design for the Duesenberg Torpedo Phaeton is justifiably famed. With its firmly rounded lines, disappearing fabric top, folding dual rear windshields, and rear compartment instruments, it is taut, sleek, and unabashedly, fiercely sporting, in a way that few Duesenbergs, for all their beauty and glory, actually are. It looks like a gentleman's sports car-specifically, a young gentleman's sports car. That is no coincidence, as that is exactly what the design was created to be.rnrnOne morning, Duesenberg president Harold Ames received an eight-page letter from Marcus Jay Lawrence of Washington, D.C., declaring that he wanted, as Ames told Buehrig, a Duesenberg built to his own ideas. He has a Model A Ford with racing equipment on the engine that he wishes to trade on the Duesenberg. Neither Ames nor Buehrig took the letter totally seriously, but it inspired Buehrig to sketch out, as he put it, something we would want to build for an auto show, meeting Lawrence's request for a body with a convertible sedan's features, such as roll-up windows and a neatly folding top, but the lines of a phaeton. Buehrig drew the car up and Ames obligingly sent it with a polite letter to Lawrence, who responded with a request as to what the car would cost; Ames quoted $19,000. Lawrence wired back, Proceed immediately.rnrnThe young fan was, it turned out, the twenty-something heir of a wealthy Washington, D.C.-based publisher of farm journals, who reportedly had a $5,000-a-month payout from his trust fund during the 1930s. He lived as fast as his automobile drove, yet obviously had a gentlemanly side. Buehrig recounted that when young Lawrence visited Duesenberg to take delivery-indeed in his hot rod Model A, but chauffeured-he walked among the factory handing every workman a five dollar bill!rnrnThe Torpedo Phaeton was the only Duesenberg body that Buehrig ever created as an individual, from-the-ground-up design for a specific customer. That did stop the beauty of its lines from being duplicated, however. After the original, built for Lawrence to Buehrig's design by Brunn of New York, four additional cars were produced. The first two were built by the American iteration of Weymann in Indianapolis; when that firm folded, the second pair were completed by the A.H. Walker Body Company-which more or less continued Weymann's work, out of the same factory-and adapted Duesenberg's trade name of LaGrande. All were among the most beautiful dual-cowl phaetons, and among the most beautiful Duesenbergs-and all thanks to a young man whose spirit for life carried through to an automobile design that outlived him.rnrnJ-548: THE SILVER SCREEN, SHOWS, AND ST. LOUISrnrnThe car with chassis number 2583 and engine number J-548, offered here, is one of the two original Walker-LaGrande Torpedo Phaetons, both of which were fitted with the later skirted Model J fenders as well as 17-inch wheels to suit. In addition to having been the only Torpedo Phaeton originally delivered without side exhaust, it can be told apart from its sibling by the location of the exterior courtesy lights, which were mounted underneath the rear doors rather than at the center of the car.rnrnDuesenberg historian Ray Wolff recorded that J-548 was built for Hallie Plaisted of Beverly Hills, California, and delivered in November 1935. It made a cameo appearance in several scenes of the 1935 Republic comedy film, 1,000 Dollars a Minute, which immortalizes on-screen the car in its original delivery trim, complete with wheel covers and the late-production JN skirted fenders. In this same form it went on to appear on the Duesenberg stand at the 1936 Los Angeles Auto Show, as proven in a photograph published in the Winter 1975 issue of The Classic Car. Soon after the car was traded back and sold to Dr. W.B. Dallas, a St. Louis insurance executive and breeder of pigs and cattle, and moved east to that city. It is believed that the current supercharger-style side exhaust was installed by the car's delivery to Dr. Dallas.rnrnIn 1947 J-548 passed from Dr. Dallas to the collecting partnership of William Banks and Frank D. McPhee of Centralia, Illinois, then the following year to early enthusiasts Clifford Greve and Norris Allen, returning it to St. Louis. Greve and Allen were part of a small and close-knit cadre of pioneering Full Classic connoisseurs in that city, and were both Duesenberg fanatics. Greve eventually bought out Allen's share in the car.rnrnOne of the young collectors mentored by Greve and Allen was an architect named Fred Guyton, who had much admired both men's automobiles. Guyton began acquiring fine pre-war automobiles himself in the early 1970s, and in 1972 became the next fortunate owner of J-548, retrieving it from the Greve carriage house (and, not long after, moving into the Greve residence-bringing the car back home!). The Duesenberg remained as-acquired, in largely original and unrestored condition, and oft-driven.rnrnVery few cars that entered The Guyton Collection ever left it during his lifetime. Alas, circumstances forced J-548 to become an exception, and in 1984 it was acquired by yet another prominent figure of the St. Louis vintage automobile scene, Fred Weber. Mr. Weber had the car restored by Fran Roxas in its present livery, after which it was exhibited at events all over the country, winning its class at Pebble Beach and Meadowbrook as well as its Primary First at the ACD Club National Reunion in 1986, and achieving two perfect 100-point scores in CCCA Grand Classics in 1987.rnrnFrom the Weber stable the Duesenberg passed in 1989 to the renowned collector John Mozart of California, in whose ownership it appeared in the famous 1990 book, The Classic Car by Beverly Rae Kimes. It was not long after sold by Mozart to General William Lyon, himself owner of numerous extraordinary Duesenbergs, and later into the collection of its present owners. The restoration has been well-preserved within their collection, with the recent addition of correct wheel covers, as fitted when it was new; in fact, in 2024 it achieved Third in Class at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.rnrnTHE SURVIVORSrnrnOf the five Torpedo Phaetons produced, Marcus Lawrence's Brunn original was, alas, damaged beyond repair in an early accident, and its parts scavenged. The remaining four have survived to be prized-and that is no understatement; an original Torpedo Phaeton has not been sold, publicly or otherwise, in two decades.rnrnJ-548 is not only the first to be released in recent memory, but is an inarguably outstanding Duesenberg by any measure, having been loved since it was just a seven-year-old used automobile in 1942; since World War II it has been in the hands of men and women who appreciated it, and thus it has remained, while restored, absolutely intact, with the chassis, firewall, engine, and body with which it departed Indianapolis in 1935. Few Duesenbergs can so claim to have been so loved; even fewer are one of Gordon Buehrig's unrivaled masterpieces of design, and fewer still, to put a fine edge on it, are available for sale.rnrnThe Torpedo Phaeton still shines. It still roars with potency. It is, in a word, youthful.rnrnAnd that is exactly what it was created to be.To view this car and others currently consigned to this auction, please visit the RM Sotheby's website.

Other

To Be OFFERED AT AUCTION at RM Sothebys' Monterey event, 15 - 16 August 2025. rn$2,300,000 - $2,750,000 USD rnrnA beautifully restored, award-winning, outstanding Model JrnFormerly owned by Evert Louwman and John ShiblesrnFull restoration by the renowned Steve BabinskyrnFirst in Class at the 2014 Pebble Beach Concours d'ElegancernBest Duesenberg at the 2014 ACD Club National ReunionrnMost recently again an award winner at Pebble Beach in 2023rnACD Club Certified Category 1 (D-233)rn rnrnAmong the most famous body styles produced for the Model J Duesenberg was the elegant convertible sedan by the Walter M. Murphy Company of Pasadena, California. Murphy was a great promoter of this design, variations of which were used on most all the great chassis of the Classic Era, perhaps because it was so well-suited to the sunny Golden State lifestyle. It was a beautifully proportioned work, with simple, classic lines, including the coachbuilder's signature narrow Clear-Vision windshield frame. Duesenberg's customers were very fond of the style, ordering some 45 examples before Murphy's operations were shuttered in 1932.rnrnDuesenberg Model J number 2225 was one of those outfitted by Murphy as the convertible sedan, and has a rich history entwined with Southern California and its colorful citizenry. Its earliest known owner was Roland Rich Woolley, a Los Angeles attorney known for his starry roster of clients and expertise in resolving their very high-profile marital squabbles. Most famously, he had represented Lita Grey when she was awarded what was, at the time, the largest divorce settlement in American history from film legend Charlie Chaplin. It is unknown which of Woolley's not-inconsiderable legal fees funded the acquisition of the Duesenberg!rnrnThe car was eventually returned to the Los Angeles factory branch and, after some mechanical and cosmetic freshening in their hands, was sold in September 1935 to Harriet Moffat of Upland, who drove it across the country to her son's graduation from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. They were accompanied back home to California by young Moffat's college roommate, Jim Hoe-Hoe's first experience with a Duesenberg, the marque in which he would become a renowned technical expert and restorer during the 1940s and 1950s.rnrnHollister Noble, a novelist and screenwriter, next acquired the Model J from Mrs. Moffat in 1940, and would own it for 10 years. It then passed to John Sheppard of Carpinteria, California, who exchanged its original engine, number J-204, with J-355 from chassis number 2374, and then to Ben Lowe of San Bernardino, who would keep the car for over a decade.rnrnIn 1962 the Duesenberg was sold to Pete Warvel of Gillett, Wisconsin, one of the period's most avid collectors and enthusiasts of Model Js, who displayed it at that year's CCCA Midwest Grand Classic at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (Warvel's Duesenberg collection was funded, in classic Model J fashion, by a source of wealth both unlikely and obvious: He manufactured the curved wooden tops of the school desks ubiquitous in mid-century American classrooms.) Warvel kept the car for four years, after which it passed to Richard Lutey in 1966, then to the partnership of Ray Wernsman and Bob Adams in 1970. Ed Ivener of Kankakee, Illinois, bought the Model J in 1972 and displayed it in ACD Club and CCCA events for the next several years, before it was purchased by Roy Axford, in whose hands it first appeared at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in 1980.rnrnJ-355 / 2225 was acquired in the mid-1980s by the Imperial Palace of Las Vegas, at the time building what remains the largest collection of original Model J Duesenbergs ever assembled, eventually numbering 50 cars. The convertible sedan was featured in their famous Duesenberg Room until the late 1990s, then became part of Evert Louwman's renowned Louwman Collection in the Netherlands, displayed alongside many of the finest coachbuilt classics in Europe.rnrnIn 2012, the Duesenberg was purchased by the late John Shibles of Sea Girt, New Jersey, an enthusiast well-remembered and loved in the collecting community for his generous, buoyant personality and colorful charm, as well as the quality and presentation of his automobiles. Every car in the Shibles Back Door Garage was given a fond nickname, usually referencing a past owner or, in the case of Murph, its coachwork.rnrnIn Mr. Shibles' ownership the car underwent a two-year restoration in the hands of Steve Babinsky's Automotive Restorations in Lebanon, New Jersey, which has produced several award-winning Duesenbergs over the last four decades. Finished in deep, rich Knot Green, and retaining the side exhaust added in its prior restoration, Murph debuted in 2014, winning First in Class at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Soon thereafter, it went on to achieve the Fred and August Duesenberg Award for Best Duesenberg at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club National Reunion, itself a momentous and significant honor. At the same event, it was inspected by the ACD Club and received its Category 1 Certification, paperwork for which is included in the file. At the 2015 Classic Car Club of America Annual Meeting, it achieved its Senior First Prize with that organization as well. It was, simply, one of the cars to beat, wherever it went-and it was seldom beaten.rnrnMr. Shibles prized Murph was one of the centerpieces of his collection, but was nonetheless persuaded to sell it to the current owner, himself an avid Duesenberg connoisseur, in the spring of 2022. Since preserved in the owner's collection, it was shown at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in 2023, achieving Third in Class in the highly competitive Duesenberg class. Today it continues to present superbly, with the quality of its finishes and Mr. Babinsky's workmanship still present throughout, and it is still well worthy of continuing its concours career with a new owner.rnrnUndoubtedly this is one of the finest restored examples of the Murphy convertible sedan, among the best-known, most iconic, and popular body styles on the revered Duesenberg Model J. It is a car worthy of its superb heritage.To view this car and others currently consigned to this auction, please visit the RM Sotheby's website.

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