Missing Duesenbergs Found
Who doesn’t dream of pulling back a barn door to discover not just a collection of cars, but a collection of extremely rare and highly sought after classics? Can you imagine the rush that had to be felt when this door was opened only to reveal this 1932 Duesenberg II Dual Cowl Phaeton? It is believed to be one of the two missing Dual Cowl Phaetons the seller has been hunting for the two missing cars for nearly 23 years and finally found not just one, but both of them hiding in this barn in Upstate, New York. They were able to buy both cars and are now selling this one to help pay for the restoration of the other. It can be found here on eBay.
This barn was full of other rare vehicles too. Hopefully the rest of the collection hasn’t already been sold off! If they haven’t, perhaps this seller would be willing to divulge their location… We would love to spend an afternoon just exploring this barn and basking in the glory of so many unique automobiles.
Finds like this sometimes sound too good to be true, and this one is sounding a little too good to us. While we are hopeful it is real, we have our concerns about this cars authenticity. The body looks to be correct, but someone fitted it to what the seller believes is a Chevy truck frame. Without the correct chassis and drivetrain, this car’s value is greatly diminished. It also makes proving that it is one of the missing Dual Cowls and not just a replica a much more difficult challenge.
The closer we inspect this car, the more concerned we become. The interior looks very poorly put together and more like a kit car, than a hand crafted Duesenberg. This doesn’t necessarily disprove the car authenticity, as it could be as simple as whoever tried to restore it was an amateur and didn’t know what they were doing. We would still be leery of this one and we would want to inspect the body very closely to see what it is made of, but then again other then the material its made of, we wouldn’t know what exactly to look for to prove whether it is real or not.
Finds like this can get your blood pumping, but when dealing with what could be rare and valuable cars, it’s important that you keep your wits. If you don’t, you might get tricked into believing that a kit car is the real deal. We know that we almost did! That’s why you need to always check the car closely and make sure you come prepared with as much information as possible. That being said we would still love to have most of the cars in this collection, but if you could only pick one, which one would you want?
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Comments
Why would you put Ford Hubcaps on a chebbie? C’mon, it’s definitely a kit car of some kind.
Don’t forget the Chevy 350 in the hood
i was thinking the same…atleast put some decent wheels on it
The red one is a replica!
My gut also says “beware,” but the guy selling this does seem to know his stuff when it comes to these cars. I don’t know a lot about the Duesenberg II, but I had the impression they were high-quality and expensive cars, which this just doesn’t appear to be. Too much about it looks crudely designed and badly proportioned. But maybe that’s just how these were, and my preconceptions are wrong.
FWIW, those are Ford truck wheels, not Chevy.
They’re both CHEEP replicas. The whole barn looks like a collection of replicas
No way the red one is an original. Check the dash gauges
Also the “Cord” is a replica.
Saw that, too.
These are replicas, note that they are Duesenberg II’s and are not originals.
Looks like a Mustang column with a 38 Ford steering wheel
There have been some pretty good re-pro Duesies over the years, so I wonder if that isn’t a re-pro body on a Chevy chassis.
There’s an “8/10ths” Cord in there, so as others have noted, I’d go with it’s a re-pro.
As Tom says above, this is presented as a Duesenberg II, not an original Duesenberg. The Duesenberg II was a reproduction built on a Ford truck chassis in the 80’s and 90’s. But it was a very expensive and well-made car. To me, this red car doesn’t look like something that would have sold for $200K-plus when it was new, as the Duesenberg II did. I think it’s a kit car.
ALL of the cars in the barn are “replicas” as are the Dusenburgs. You could say they are really Dusenburgs if you wanted to I guess as the company Elite Heritage Motors owned the Dusenburg name at the time they manufactured the II series
Leo
I definitely do not dream of finding a cheap
dusty replicar in some cheesy barn that
someone is trying to pass off as the real
thing. Please stop wasting our time with
this crap.
Know they arent real Duesenbergs.
They are Duesenberg II’s, whatever that is.
Cant be worth a whole lot.
That 8/10s Cord 810 is more interesting, especially if its one of Glen Prays 810 out of Tulsa.
Absolutely authentic ! You can always verify that by the small block Chev. engine with Rochester 2 bbl. and delco alternator.
The teal and silver one looks like it has a chance at being an original, given the leaf spring front suspension and real wire wheels. The red and silver one though is a mutt. It’s got a Ford chassis and hubcaps with off road tires and a Chevy V8 under the hood. The seats seem to be from an eighties Cadillac or Oldsmobile Brougham with the head rests removed. It’s either a kit car or something far worse.
What Jim-Bob said. And since the Cord is also one of those ugly SAMCO replicas, I’d give good odds that the teal one is a fake, er, REPLICA too…
Yeah, I don’t quite get the point of a Cord -replica or not- without the signature hideaway headlights!
The e-bay ad says : “An attempt was made to put these 2 cars together ( the other one I’m keeping for now ) and this car is sitting on what appears to be a Chevrolet truck frame. What you see is what you get ;”
Why is a high end car on a Chevy Truck Frame? Screams replica to me.
I don’t know much about Duesenbergs, but I do know the difference between chicken salad and chicken excrement, and this ain’t chicken salad.
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Can you say “Chicken sh*t” ??
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…..this isn’t BaT, you won’t be deleted.
I would expect a few more similiarities with this one.
http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/duesenberg/ii/1606987.html
The interior is wrong, many of the details are wrong. Not the same quality.
That’s more like it. That’s what I remembered the Duesenberg II being. Neither of these cars looks to be remotely that quality.
“no supporting paperwork other than a bill of sale”
“car is sitting on what appears to be a Chevrolet truck frame”
“What you see is what you get”
—————————————————————————
The only thing I’m getting from this is hard sell.
Nothing to see here—move on.
Yea, first thing I noticed were the radial tires and thought to myself “They didn’t make wide tires like that back in the 30s” Also, the seller refers to the them as “Duesnberg IIs”, which means he’s being somewhat forthcoming about what they really are but the ad does read like he trying to get people who don’t know what they are looking at to drive up the bid.
LOL ..that would be my luck …euphoria when first seeing these cars in the barn, then walking up to the Duesenberg and seeing that interior. Talk about extreme high to extreme low, all within a few seconds. Not good at my age.
I especially like the red overspray on the frame and suspension, oh and the plywood gussets holding up the windshield in the rear compartment. The bid is up to fifteen thousand, probably shills…
Just looking at the interior shots screams Kit Car more than the SBC under the hood or the Ford Lower Control Arms. Def isn’t a Chevy or GM frame as I have had all the GM trucks from late 60’s on up.
Kit Car and I would like to see the look on the persons face when they buy it off of Ebay and when they first see it when it gets delivered if they didn’t go and view it before they bought it :(
Wow! What a bunch of haters! The seller clearly indicated that he BELIEVED these to be two REPLICA Dusenbergs known as Dusenberg IIs. Give him a break.
On the other hand…at least the red one could be a home built replica with a body and grill based on the Dusenberg II toolling. The tooling was for sale about 10-15 years ago, along with the Dusenberg name, for $3M. I called about that deal and was informed that there was only tooling available and absolutely zero instructions on how to put one thing together, and no parts. All of it was piled in a building in Wisconsin. The guy sellling it was located in Minnesota, I believe. There could be a link here…
Reminds me of the time in the 1970s when I visited a local Ford/imports dealership. They had an Auburn Boattail Speedster replica in the showroom, and one salesman tried desperately to convince me it was the real thing. Sure. Ford drivetrain and VW taillights were obvious signs of a genuine 1935 Auburn. ;)
So lets summarize.
This guy has been looking for these for 23 years ?
I would think that Jay Leno would have his private detectives all over these like flies on sh*t a decade ago !!
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…if this was anything to write home about…
If its still on E-bay then it isnt a Dusie, otherwise Jay Leno would have bought it already !
I’ve seen some Duesenberg II’s and that red one is not even close in quality to a II. The Duesenberg II used a ford van frame that was narrowed to fit between the running boards. Also they ahd Fords Twin-I-beam front suspension which that car does not. The front of the frame on the red car where its cutoff and filled where the fender meets is super shady.
Yep! They are both authentic replicas !!!
Both look pretty cheezy to me. I have seen one of the replicas similar to the one in the Hemmings ad linked above and I recall it being amazingly high quality.
You know…..I get it… the language has been debased……..the meaning of “is” is elastic, but when a replicar is called a “classic” as the seller does here, we have descended to new lows.
The Duesenberg II is a replicar. So is the Cord in the barn picture.
In this case II = FAKE
The photos tell the story!!
They are replicas, guys. I worked for Elite Heritage Motors (Duesenberg II) for many years. Looks like they may have used some of our parts, but that’s about it. Our cars were MUCH nicer than those, plus we never built anything on a Chevy truck frame. We built our own frames and used some Ford pickup components. (dual I-beam axles) I don’t know the history on these.
Tom, how can you be reached? I have some questions concerning the Elite Heritage Motors Co. Would love to get your advice. Thanks, smagesg
They are both replicas. The red one is a dead giveaway with the rear fender. The real ones have very curvy and the front lights on the bumpers on the real ones are much closer to the middle. Not set out by the fenders.
The eBay advt presents these as Duesenberg replicas, i.e, Duesenberg II’s (and per comments by others, it seems unlikely they are even those) but the barnfinds.com headline “Missing Duesenbergs found” is incorrect or misleading at best. These are not Duesenbergs and have no Duesenberg parts in them. I think barnsfinds.com can do better. So example if the headline said “Missing Duesenberg silly truck-based replicas found” that would at least be accurate.
If you go to ebay for this car and scroll down to the bottom, the owner does admit they are both replica’s on Ford 150 chassis, and built by some?? kit car manufacturer. It sure is misleading in the ebay writeup that these are the real thing!, Ebay should have censored this offer for accuracy or flat out BS. This kind of crap selling gives the hobby a black eye!!
Seems to good to be true. 2 rare Duesies hmmm……
Like I said, They are definitely replicas using some Duesenberg II (modern) parts. I had an e-mail conversation with the owner this morning. He does know his Duesies and is familiar with Elite Heritage Motors who manufactured the Duesenberg II’s. That was the company that I worked for. When the company went out of business, some unused parts were sold and that’s probably where the builder of these replicas got them. I hope that nobody bids on them thinking that they are originals. I’m sure that wise collectors will know the difference. They would be good projects for someone willing to invest $$$$.
If you read his Ebay ad, you will see that he says they are Duesenberg II’s not the original Duesenbergs of the 30’s. These were made in the 80’s when I was working there. Well, the parts were, anyway.
Why all the beating of a dead horse ? They are replicas (poor ones at that) and that is that.. Next barn find?
I agree.