The German brand Dussenberg was an automobile manufacturing company in the early to mid-20th century, founded in 1920. The company is based in Iowa, USA, and was co-founded by brothers Joseph and Fred Dussenberg.
Duesenberg cars are known for their luxury, high performance and unique design. They were among the most luxurious and impressive cars of the era, and are often considered one of the outstanding representatives of the Art Deco style.
As we all know, Rolls-Royce and Bentley are super luxury brands in today's car market, and from the bloodline point of view, these two brands are British, but they were acquired by BMW and Volkswagen in the later period. Many friends may wonder why these ultra-luxury car brands often originate from Europe, and why the United States, which has a deep car-making heritage, has not born ultra-luxury car brands?
In fact, a long time ago, all major car systems actually had super luxury car brands, but in the long years, many super luxury brands with serious losses gradually disappeared because of poor management and can not find a replacement man. Today's Rolls Royce, Bentley, Maybach, Bugatti, etc., are just very lucky to find the catcher, so they did not break the heritage. And many brands that did not find the catcher naturally disappeared.
The vanishing American luxury brand
A hundred years ago, there were many super luxury brands in the United States, such as Duesenberg, Auburn, Cord and so on. These brands at the beginning of the last century is not comparable to the existence of Rolls-Royce, but the late serious losses unable to operate, in the market and can not find willing to buy partners, and finally the United States super luxury car brands all disappeared. In fact, in terms of the world, such ultra-luxury car brands are difficult to survive, so there are only two and a half in the world so far.
The Duesenberg SSJ, pictured above, was the new favourite of the pompous world at the turn of the last century, surpassing the Rolls-Royce and Bentley. "The Great Gatsby" this film many friends have seen, the film of the grandiose, purple drunk gold fans to achieve a tight depiction, and in such a tight environment appeared in the luxury car is this Dusenberg. While the Rolls-Royce and Bentley grades of the same period are not enough, how expensive is the Dusenberg SSJ? The car sold for more than $200,000.
Of course, the Rolls-Royce of that era was also expensive, as shown in the picture above, the Rolls-Royce Silver charm, which costs only $16,000. It doesn't seem expensive, does it? A Model T Ford was $500 back then. So a Duesenberg SSJ at that time =400 Ford Model T cars, this value is far more than today's Rolls Royce. It only sank completely during the Great Depression in the United States between the two wars, and then it tried to comeback many times, but it failed because of various problems.
The rise and fall of Duesenberg cars
In fact, many of the luxury brands in the world today originated before the First World War, because there was still an aristocratic class in many parts of the world. The reason why these luxury goods were born is also because of the powerful purchasing power of aristocracies, such as Rolls Royce, Jaguar, Rolls Royce and so on. The range of the early luxury brands targeted at the audience was very small, which also resulted in their products often sold at astronomical prices. The Duesenberg brand was born before 1913, and the founders were the Duesenberg brothers, of German descent. Europeans clearly know better how to build luxury brands.
The brothers started out in the bicycle business, but with the introduction of the automobile, there were many car companies in the United States in a short time (over 3,000 at the peak). It was also during this period that the Duesenberg brothers opened their car factory, initially focusing on the track, because good results on the track in the last century were the best way to advertise. After years of trying to win five Indy 500 trophies with the Model A, Duesenberg became famous. The brothers seized the opportunity to mass-produce 300 Model A (civilian version) cars.
However, because this brand is not deep in the luxury car field, it did not achieve too good sales. Secondly, there is a passion for the race, racing is how much money everyone knows, so in 1926, Duesenberg could not operate and filed for bankruptcy. After the acquisition of Duesenberg by the well-financed Corde Motor Company, Duesenberg created a generation of pompous king - SSJ, with V8 supercharged engines, and even the use of DOHC - dual overhead camshafts, DOHC was a quixotic idea at the beginning of the last century.
In fact, in the 1990s, and even after 2000, there is still a large number of civilian vehicles that use SOHC, and there may be many so far. So the Duesenberg SSJ dared to sell for such a high price in those days. Originally, the brand was able to survive this development, but then came the Great Depression in the United States in 1929, which led to the bankruptcy of Duesenberg's parent company, Corde Motors, and thus Duesenberg also went bankrupt. And after that there will be no soil for these ultra-luxury cars to survive.
World War I, World War II, multiple oil crises, etc., these emergencies destroyed the soil for the survival of ultra-luxury cars. Not only Duesenberg, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Maybach suffered the same, are struggling, but these brands barely went bankrupt. It was not until the late 1980s that BMW bought RR, Volkswagen bought Bentley, and Mercedes stopped hiding Maybach that the ultra-luxury car market really revived. But at this time, the market has no Dusenberg figure.
The reason is very simple because after the war, Duesenberg also wanted to obtain funds to complete the reorganization, but unlike RR, Bentley, Maybach as lucky, did not find the replacement man, Duesenberg can only disappear completely. And now this brand has long lost the design language, lost the heritage, just like the German Borgward in previous years, no matter how much cattle, lost the design language = worthless. All in all, there were actually a lot of super luxury car brands, and the United States also has brands comparable to Rolls-Royce. However, after the two years, the ultra-luxury design brands of the French, Italian, American and German departments went bankrupt, and only RR, Bentley and Maybach survived.
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