The Castle Duesenberg: Luxury Legend

So much of the evolution of our lives and our culture and our landscape has been connected to the automobile. Duesenbergs were always one that pushed the mold in engine power and speed, styling, putting a racing pedigree engine into a passenger car. This is a unique story. This isn't passing down your grandmother's china. It is the first ever passenger Duesenberg to be sold to the and it has been in the same family for 100 years. So it is also known as the Castle Duesenberg. The first one was ordered by Samuel Northrup Castle. He knew he wanted the fastest and the best. It was their very first iteration of your own personal sports car. This is a top-of-the-line automobile and it is the epitome of luxury. It is the finest of the fine. It's a Duesenberg. Frederick Samuel Duesenberg and August Samuel Duesenberg were born in Germany and emigrated to Iowa at a young age with their mother. It was from there that they got into bicycle racing. Fred Duesenberg for a while was a state champion in the very late 1800s. So they started a bicycle shop there, building, selling, fixing, and they even went and attached a one-cylinder motor to one of their bicycles. It created like a very early motorcycle, as you could call it. It was from there that they really started engineering technology, really developing that passion. Augie Duesenberg, he was very much into the racing aspects, into the speed and everything that goes into racing these early cars. And Fred was more of the engineering, engine building technology guy. And those two just really complemented each other in making powerful engines for their time. Then they started working with an automobile company that would later be known as Mason and Mason Maytag. The management there decided we want to get Masons into the early racing scene and asked Fred and Augie Duesenberg to design and build racing engines for their Mason motor car. They were met with varied success at first. Not the best, but definitely not the worst. They weren't racers themselves, but they were able to see how the cars were doing in their racing and make adjustments, engine position in the car, for example. But it was there that they were able to kind of refine their engineering and their racing prowess. Well, in the early 1910s, around 1913, 1914, Mason was starting to get out of the car business. They left Mason and basically said, yeah, we're going to do our own thing. Because they wanted their creative freedom to build whatever type of engines they want. They were trying to kind of build a name for themselves at this time too. If you look at Indianapolis 500 results or something, you'll see a driver and then the Duesenberg name. It would be a Duesenberg engine in this car. By 1914, Eddie Rickenbacker won the Indy 500 for driving a Duesenberg and he won a 10th place. So the name and the company were getting to be synonymous with racing and success. They had a reputation already, so they continued to refine. And amazingly enough, Duesenberg won the Indy 500 several times. They were always pushing the limits in terms of engine speed, engine design, trying to squeak as much horsepower out of as small of an engine as they possibly could. While they were doing the racing portion, at the same time, they were building engines for automobiles, airplanes, and for boats. So that helped fund their racing endeavors, which was really more of what they cared about. In 1918, the United States government contracted the Duesenberg Motors Company to build airplane engines for them. They designed, with Bugatti and King, a U-shaped aircraft engine. And they produced about 50 of those, but the contract was never fully completed because World War I ended. So then they decided to go to Indianapolis and in 1919 created the Duesenberg Motors and Automobile Company. And that's when they really started focusing on the passenger automobiles and taking what they had created and put into racing vehicles into vehicles available to the public. Following the end of their contracts, they were really gasping for money at that point. They didn't get the full contract money that they were depending on, and so they kind of pulled back from the airplane and largely pulled back from the sea engines. And they were looking for more financiers to kind of help put the company out of a receivership situation. So they were able to find some who decided, well, these Duesenberg guys, they build big powerful engines and they have race cars that are getting good results. Let's take this big horsepower engine and let's put them in passenger cars. Starting in 1919, they started to develop what later became the Duesenberg Straight 8, which was the engine that powered the Duesenberg Straight 8 or Model A as we know it today. Fred Duesenberg was a bit of a perfectionist. So his first design for the Straight 8 engine was side cam, side valve version. He decided basically at the last minute, no, I want to change the layout of this engine completely. So that required new tooling and dyes, new setup to cast the block and all the parts. And through those two years of his experimenting and his adjustments and changes, came up with the single overhead cam Straight 8 engine that eventually made it to the car. It was a radical idea. You are basically creating a race car that's going to go on all the public streets. This vehicle was known for being able to go 100 miles an hour or more. The amount of horsepower that it has, this is atypical for the time period. It was 1921 that their largest breakthrough. Just prior, Fred Duesenberg had patented four-wheel hydraulic brakes and they were able to use those four-wheel hydraulic brakes on their Duesenberg race car to go to the French Grand Prix, which later became the 24-hour Le Mans and win the French Grand Prix resoundingly using those four-wheel hydraulic brakes. And that was their huge racing breakthrough. So they were always in the racing scene. That was what propelled the passenger car, their Straight 8 to a higher echelon because it had a name and these people, Fred and Augie, their reputation behind it that helped push consumers like, hey, this is actually going to be a really good, really powerful, solid car. They're creating a product that nobody else can create. So you could spend the amount of money to purchase a vehicle like this, which for the chassis and body at this time period, looking at 1920, 1921, about $7,000, when at that time you could buy a Model T for $450. When you bought a Duesenberg, you bought the engine, the chassis, the suspension, everything you needed except the body. You would have your own custom coach or body put on the car just to make it unique. So here you have the fastest car on the road, the most expensive car on the road, but the most extravagant car on the road as well. They started some advertising saying, look out, here comes this Duesenberg automobile, and it was from there that I believe Samuel Northrop Castle saw that this was happening. So he reached out to the Duesenberg Motors Company and said, whenever you guys have this done, let me know because I want to buy it. He was of a very well-known family in Hawaii, the Castles, that were missionaries. At that same time, his dad started a sugar plantation out in Hawaii. So he inherited that sugar plantation and used it to build it up. So that's where his money came from to even consider purchasing the Duesenberg Straight 8. He worked with the Duesenbergs to order the first one, and then with Bender Body out of Ohio to create the body for it. That sweeping rear part with the trunk, the high-level windows, and the unique front of the body as well, all together composed as one package, that's unmistakable as that vehicle. There's no other body like that. Another thing that makes the car very unique is Mr. Castle was seven feet tall, about 300 pounds, and he had the body custom-built to accommodate his large frame. So the pedals are very far back, and the way it sits, the center of that vehicle is very tall. It has a look about it that really distinguishes it from other vehicles, and especially other Duesenbergs. It's a very beautiful vehicle, very understated elegance. They were wanting in 1919 to start production of around 400 to 500 cars. Since Fred decided to change the engine on the two prototypes, there were production delays. So actual delivery of the vehicle was not done until 1921. There were so many setbacks where they were supposed to start having the cars out in 1919. The fact that they didn't put their first one out until two years later really put them in a financial bind as well. They were just starting out a brand new automobile company. They had the experience coming from Maytag and Mason, and while they were fantastic engineers and did amazing things, self-admittedly, they were not businessmen. But they were so in on their product that they thought, well, hopefully this won't be a big deal. Once we have the final product out, it'll speak for itself in just the luxury of the car. The Duesenberg brothers, their popularity spiked in 1921 when they won the French Grand Prix. They thought, and the financiers as well, thought they were on top of the world, like this is really going to push their cars. And unfortunately, that did not. They never got to the point of selling as many vehicles a month as they thought that they would. They were hoping to have around 2,400 cars per year. At the end of production from 1922 through 1926, when they went to receivership, they produced approximately 650. So they were nowhere near their projections. There were several factors that kind of stood in their way. One is that they were very, very expensive cars. So their market was very small. They were hoping with more production to get that price down a bit, but because the buyership was so low, they weren't able to do that. Two, Fred Duesenberg was a perfectionist. While they were producing these cars, he was still trying to do upgrades and updates and changes to the engine at the same time. So there was a bit of conflict there too. Three, the Duesenberg brothers, they weren't salesmen. They weren't financially sound in the way they dealt with things, and they bought parts and service and such. So that didn't help things either. And it was towards the end of 1926 that they had to stop production of the Duesenberg Model A completely. In 1924, E.L. Cord, Eric Lubin Cord, came to work for the Auburn Automobile Company as general manager and took a very small salary but wanted stock options. So the Auburn Automobile Company at that time was not doing very well. The financiers and bakers that owned the company at that time said, small salary, stock options, what's to lose? We'll make that happen. Well, E.L. Cord was a salesman. So he took the backlog of Auburn's, freshened them up, maybe gave them a fresh coat of paint there and used his sales ability to really sell the cars and start turn the company around. He acquired so much stock option by 1926, he went from general manager to president, fully owning the company outright. So at that time, Duesenberg was at a low. Their passenger cars had ceased production. They were just focused solely on racing at that time, their company and receivership. So E.L. Cord was very avid into racing. He attended as many Indy 500 races as he possibly could. So he saw Duesenberg win in 24 and 25. So he was very aware of the name and the fact that they were in Indianapolis, just 120 some miles south of Auburn. So he used the money that he had through the Auburn Automobile Company to buy the Duesenberg Motors Company in Indianapolis with the idea of having the Duesenberg name launch a super luxury marquee with his transportation empire that he was starting to build. He saw a great opportunity because E.L. Cord was always into the next best greatest thing. I think he had his own racing interest in the transportation world was really huge to Cord. He was into Stinson airplanes. He owned Stinson, Lycoming engines. He saw the potential in the Duesenbergs. Duesenberg saw a savior. Augie stuck with racing and had a building that was just right across the road from Duesenberg Incorporated where he had the second floor of that building that he used to ship the race cars out of for the various races that they were doing. So Fred and Augie, even though Fred was with Cord at Duesenberg Incorporated and Augie was over here doing his racing stuff, they were still so close together that they commonly, you know, talked shop. So the brothers started working on another experimental design program with the Duesenberg Model X. So they created a new engine, a faster engine. There are several prototypes that still exist, including just a standalone engine. For example, there are two dual Cal Phaetons. There's a Boattail Speedster. So they continue to experiment and push themselves and refine their own craft. And E.L. Cord said, I want you to stop working on the X. I want you to start working on creating a vehicle that is the epitome of luxury that would be purchased by the wealthiest people and really solidify the Duesenberg name. E.L. Cord came in in 1926 to Duesenberg and said, build me the biggest, most powerful, most extravagant motor car you possibly could. Within a few short years, that went from an 88 horsepower single overhead cam Model A engine to the 265 horsepower dual overhead cam, 420 cubic inch behemoth. That was the Duesenberg Model J. So when Duesenberg Model J started making the auto show circuit in late 1928 and into early 1929, it caused such a stir because here is this long car, 142 inch wheelbase for the short wheelbase and 153 inches for the large wheelbase. Huge motor, huge sound, big roar, elegantly designed in its appearance and its spaciousness and its luxury and in its price. It did cause a very large stir in those shows. When you bought a Duesenberg Model J, similar to the Model A, you bought the chassis. The chassis alone was $7,500. After you put the body on it, you were sinking $13,000 into it. The highest that they went up to, I believe, was right around $22,000 or $23,000. So those actually buying these cars would have been politicians, royalty, kings, queens, princesses, princes, some of the more higher paid Hollywood elite actors, directors, and etc. These Duesenbergs weren't built for the 1%, they were built for the 0.1%. It's pretty, isn't it, old sport? Haven't you ever seen it before? It's all a custom job. Supercharged engine. The Duesenberg Model J became synonymous with luxury, class, wealth, a certain high-level lifestyle and attainable only to top-tier individuals. That is where the Ritz and the Glamour come in and makes you think about Duesenberg and it's a doozy and the crystal decanter sets in the back seats and the dual-cow phaetons and limos and really that lifestyle and the famous people that owned them, such as Clark Gable, Howard Hughes, Gary Cooper, William Randolph Hearst, even Bill Bojangles Robinson. So the Model J, the Model SJ, and the Model SSJ were all just the greatest of luxury vehicles. There was the Accord coming on board and really turning that around through marketing, through innovative design and ideas. The marketing material, for example, it's one of the first times that advertisements didn't include the product. It was purely a lifestyle. So you see a woman in her back garden of a grand estate and it says, she drives a Duesenberg. Or a man smoking a cigar at the Great Hall of his English Manor, he drives a Duesenberg. There's no Duesenberg to be seen in these ads, but they sold that lifestyle. And then when they took off, if you wanted to compete, then you had to get a Duesenberg too. In 1929, with the release of the Duesenberg Model J, again, they were at a high that they experienced just so briefly in 1921. And with the unfortunate timing of the Great Depression, that success was also very short-lived. Duesenberg tried to keep selling these cars, even though it was starting to look real bad on some of the elite to be driving around in these super fancy cars while going driving past food lines. Most of the Duesenbergs were built between 1929 and 1930. It took them through 1937, basically, to sell these cars. By and large, the chassis were just sitting at the Duesenberg Incorporated warehouse, waiting for an order to come in. If you were working at the company, and if you look at what was happening behind the scenes at the company, there was no rolling in cash. They usually had to do everything on a very strict budget. Even what we know as the Duesenberg, the radiator mascot that's on the Duesenberg Model J, it was made with leftover pieces. So Kord pushed, and that was part of his management style. He did a lot with a little. So I think all three companies were helping each other flow until the end with the closing of the Auburn Automobile Company, the Kord line, and Duesenbergs in 1937 during the Great Depression. Unfortunately, again, with passenger cars, they had a big high with a sharp drop off, lower production numbers that they intended to. Even so, they still left their mark on the luxury world and incorporated technologies that we still use literally today. Fred was working on supercharging the Model J engine. So he was refining the speed of the supercharging, what kind of compression that they were able to get out of it. So he was doing some test driving where he then was involved in a pretty serious crash. And from that, he developed pneumonia, which he then ended up passing away from. When he did pass, it was a significant blow to Duesenberg because he was basically the rock of their passenger cars. Losing your head engineer, the guy who basically started it all, was a huge blow to the company. Duesenberg just never really could fully recover. Fred Duesenberg was one of those people who had such a prowess behind his name for engineering, design, engines, creating not only powerful engines, but gorgeous to look at engines as well. He was a gentleman that just passed too soon. With Duesenberg at that time, he was working on the supercharged engine. He was also working on some other technological features, such as a very early design for an automatic transmission, more of what we would have thought today's automatic transmissions would have been. About that time too, it really seems to me that Augie started to kind of lose his passion for racing. He just lost his brother who he had been working with for 30 some years. He basically lost a half of himself. Duesenberg really wasn't producing or innovating at that time. They were trying to sell these cars that they had already made previously. So Eocord had Duesenberg used in promotions with celebrities, films, but by and large, after 1933, the passenger side of the Duesenberg story just really slumped. It's kind of an interesting story about the demise of the company too, because it wasn't so much with Duesenberg that the people who were buying them can no longer afford to buy them. It was absolutely inappropriate. While people are starving and they don't know where they're getting their food for their baby and driving by in a Duesenberg. So a lot of these cars were put in carriage houses. They were put in warehouse buildings and they were just kind of squirreled away. So Mr. Castle was definitely using the vehicle on the plantation property. He had the 1921 Duesenberg brought back to Indianapolis to the company where they performed some upgrades to it. So it kind of made it a little more modernized for the roads of that time too. He could have bought the brand new Model J that came out in 1929 that was even larger and more powerful, but he had his car upgraded with the newest, greatest brakes and Duesenberg innovations. So he kept the car the entire time he was in Hawaii throughout his entire life. Mr. Castle passed away. And when he passed, it went to his great nephew. And then upon his death, it went to his son, James Christian Castle Jr. And that is who we call Jimmy. And Jimmy's wife is Saran Castle. Saran has a love of being an equestrian. And so she was out on the family property on one of her horses and came upon a barn, went to go look in there, and she saw a big vehicle that was covered up. But she went to her husband, Jimmy, and said, when I was out riding the horse that came upon the barn, what is that, a tractor in there that's all covered up? And response of, oh no, that's the family Duesenberg. And she said, that has to come out of there. I'd say Saran deserves some credit for bringing that into the spotlight again. So they wanted to take this car and bring it back to its former glory. Through a restoration company in California, close to where they lived, they were able to bring through a $10,000, $1 million restoration to bring the car back into its current condition, how it looked when it was first sold. It was five years and 10,000 hours that went into the restoration of this vehicle. When they inspected the car and wanted to do the restoration, the whole car was inspected. This means all upholstery, leather, the engine, the metal work that was on the car, how the body was doing. And it was found out that this needed to be a complete body off restoration. Every single component was removed. And there is preservation and restoration here. So it wasn't to go in and replace everything. It was to keep all of the original components as possible, even original processes. The adhering of some of the material and the textiles was done using the traditional hide glue methods. Every part of the process was really well thought out. This was not just a restoration to bring it up to current standards. This was a preservation project and a restoration project to bring it back to its delivery to Mr. Castle. If you take that vehicle and if you married it up with the original 1921 photo, they are identical. It looks like it just walked out of that photo. The current Castle family took it around to some car shows, to some Concours events, but they did not drive it much. So in 2018 and 2019, they were entertaining the possibility of maybe donating it. So we wrote them a formal letter and said, we're the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum. We represent the history of Auburn Cords and Duesenbergs. Not only those that were built here in the city, but ones that were built in Indianapolis and before. We're the history, the embodiment of these cars and what it means to the wider world of automotive history. And for that reason, we think this would be the best place for this car to be donated. We'll display it. We'll take it to car shows. We will use it. We will keep it out in the public eye. And that was, by and large, their greatest thing is that they wanted it to be out into the public eye. They decided that the right home for it was the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum. So through the graciousness of the Castle family, through the connection of Gordon McCall and Eric Killoran, the museum has been the humble and honored recipient of such an amazing gift. There are so many things I love about the car. I think it's what it represents. It's a family legacy. And being able to tell that story, I'm honored. I'm blessed because it is so significant. The car left a legacy of telling people what could be. You could aspire to have the biggest, the greatest, and the fastest. Racing Innovations from Duesenberg brought out passenger car innovations, and Duesenberg was at the forefront of saying, you can use your racing prowess into your passenger car. Not only do you have something that's long and fast and powerful, but you have something that can be elegantly styled, just beautiful down the road. Even yet today, people are inspired by the looks and the designs of the Duesenberg. We are going to keep that vehicle just like our other collections in perpetuity. So it is our duty to keep these in the public eye. We're in the original international headquarter building where the history happened. The original showroom and climbing the grand staircase. Going into E.L. Ford's office, you are literally walking into history. And it's important for us to share the history and legacy of that vehicle and what it meant to the automotive world and also to the Castle family. They have given to the public a very unique gift that's been in the making for 100 years.