Any Duesenberg is sure to draw consideration, however the automotive featured on this episode of “Jay Leno’s Storage” has at all times stood out from the remainder.
This four-door was constructed as a present automotive for the 1933 Chicago World’s Honest, the place it grew to become well-known in its time because the “Twenty Grand” Duesenberg due to its then-outrageous value of $20,000. Leno notes within the video that the common American automotive price lower than $1,000 on the time, and the common home was lower than $2,000.
The one-off Twenty Grand was not the most costly Duesenberg ever constructed—the 1934 Duesenberg Walker Coupe price $25,000 when new—but it surely was too costly to draw a purchaser the primary time round. Duesenberg repainted it black and introduced it again to Chicago in 1934, the place it was ultimately bought to a rich purchaser. It is now a part of California’s Nethercutt Assortment, the place it is displayed alongside different classics from storied automakers like Bugatti and Hispano-Suiza.
Like different Duesenbergs, the Twenty Grand is powered by a straight-8 engine primarily based on Indianapolis 500 racing engines. This automotive’s engine displaces 421 cubic inches and has a supercharger, producing 320 hp. Just like the automotive’s value, that was an astounding determine within the Nineteen Thirties.
The race-bred engine and the efficiency it offered meant that Duesenbergs had been thought of driver’s vehicles of their time, however this automotive was additionally designed to be chauffeur pushed. Its distinctive coach-built physique features a partition and an entire set of gauges for rear-seat passengers so that they monitor what the driving force is doing. It offers new that means to the time period “back-seat driver.”
The automotive was restored in 1979 and has been proven steadily since then, though due to its worth it is not pushed fairly often anymore. Meaning the driving portion of this video is proscribed to a little bit of taxiing round an airport apron, but it surely’s uncommon to see this distinctive Duesenberg in movement in any respect.
