Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum/themotorspirit.com

[Applause] the motor spirit is in auburn indiana to visit the auburn cord duesenberg museum it's hard to imagine america's most famous luxury car came from indiana in the early 20th century indiana was a hotbed of auto production with the indianapolis 500 in the minds of every manufacturer and farm boy to race there brothers would pair up to invent things like fred and auggie dusenberg the dodge boys and of course the wright brothers it was much like today's silicon valley college friends who created apple and google the story of duesenberg automobiles comes down to four entrepreneurial americans an executive an engineer a mechanic and a designer well maybe several fred and auggie dusenberg were successful engine and race car builders duesenberg cars won the 1921 french grand prix and the indianapolis 500 four times but they were not successful business people and in 1925 they were bought out by business executive e l cord adding duesenberg to his auto portfolio of auburn and cord fred became head of engineering augie would go on separately to build race cars el cord wanted an automobile to be the best in the world and compete with prestigious and luxurious european cars the car that would become famous is the duesenberg model j the model j's straight eight engine was based on the winning duesenberg racing engines from the 1920s double overhead cam four valves per cylinder 265 horsepower and it could go 119 miles per hour as was the practice then the chassis and engine was bought then sent to a custom coach builder like walter a murphy of pasadena they did most of the jays the duesenberg model j came out in 1929 and captured the attention of the wealthy first in the east but as the depression worsened to new money in hollywood hollywood stars like clark gable and tyrone power and others had one designers gordon bierig allen lemai and a ukrainian aristocrat contributed to the designs of el cord's automobile empire nothing is as elegantly sporty and all-american-looking as the auburn speedster boat tail gordon bierig's 1936 cord 810 was front-wheel drive with pop-up headlights it's been regarded as one of the most beautiful of american cars e l cord owned automobile companies airplane companies airlines engine companies and nearly 60 different businesses the depression caught up with all of his empire in 1937 and it ended he moved to los angeles and made more money in radio and real estate the museum is in the old duesenberg administrative building the main gallery was a showroom for dealers not the public and it has the pomp design and decoration of stylish buildings of the time linger and explore the building and the offices and you get a sense of what it was like to do business back then a time of magnificent automobiles you

Channel: themotorspirit1

Views: 2,250

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Keywords: Auburn automobiles, Cord Automobiles, Duesenberg Automobiles, Jay Leno and Duesenberg automobiles, E.L. Cord, Indianapolis 500

Id: yRXUY1cmB4c

Length: 4min 30sec (270 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 23 2020