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Until Jay Leno stepped in, just three of the six coupes originally built on the Duesenberg Model J chassis remained in existence. Now there are four.
Thanks to the magic of computers, the craftsmanship of Duesenberg historian and restorer Randy Ema and the passion of Jay Leno, one of the two lost 1931 Duesenberg Model J LaGrande coupes is back on the road as a coupe again.
“The [coupe] body had been thrown away when it was just an old car,” said Leno of his recently restored LaGrande coupe. “I didn’t want to do an original design like the last guy did. He put some kind of horrible-looking thing on it. This was a LaGrande coupe on the long wheelbase so that is the one we decided to replicate.”
Today it seems impossible to improve upon the beauty of an original body on a Duesenberg chassis, but not everyone once thought that way. Since a Duesenberg’s horsepower wasn’t matched by another American production car until 1955, a handful of people took used Duesenberg engines and chassis and created modern bodies for them. At the time, they thought they were getting the best of both worlds — power and modern style — but history has since proven the error of their ways.
One of those errors was the atrocity committed just after World War II upon chassis number 2432, fitted with engine J-415. When Leno bought this long-wheelbase Duesenberg in 2008, the chassis was fitted with that “horrible looking” convertible coupe body that had been built for the chassis around 1945. While this bulbous convertible body appeared modern for the time, it didn’t match the grace of a Model J Duesenberg, nor did the crudeness of its construction equal the typical body quality found on a Duesenberg chassis.
read the rest of the story: https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/car-of-the-week/car-of-the-week-1931-duesenberg-model-j-lagrande-coupe
