1929 Duesenberg Straight 8 Engine

With LS engines constantly flooding our social media feeds, its refreshing when we get to highlight a vintage engine like this 1929 Duesenberg Straight 8. Find out what went into the rebuild done by Auto Machine Inc. in St. Charles, IL, and why it was the highest horsepower OEM engine until the 1950s.
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[@colinvoss8484]

A friend of mine had a Checker Manhattan that had a straight 8 would cruse nicely at 85 mph all day long and and never sweat.

[@brianlynch2512]

Jay Leno, has a couple of these cars and said it’s the only vintage car that can handle the driving conditions of today. He also said the curb weight on the Duesenburg was over 7,000lbs.

[@deanstevenson6527]

🥝✔️ It was a great engine, in every sense of the word. Thanks Greg 🫡

[@reelreeler8778]

Naturally aspirated the J engine was 265 hp...the supercharged SJ was rated at 320 hp....and in 1935 the supercharged twin-carburetor SSJ was rated at 400 hp. Duesenberg only built two of the SSJ.....one owned by actor Clark Gable and the other owned by actor Gary Cooper.....One of the two SSJ Duesenbergs was auctioned by Gooding & Company at Pebble Beach in 2018 and sold for $22,000,000.....The highest price paid for any American car.

[@manga12]

daang and I thought the engine in the l37 cord was fair sized on power, got to sit in the one owned by the grandson of E.L. Cord his mother was the daughter of Mr Cord the guy that was presedent of the auburn auto company at the time it went under, and let me tell you the interior is something else, very futuristic looking for the time and lots of chrome, but 400 hp, daaang, though Mr Cord s grandson siad the value of one of those cars produced by the auburn company depends on the liniage of it who owned it, not always as much on how pristine it is though thats part of it too, and if you are going to own one its a must to be a member or the acd club it will put you in touch with all the propper people to take care of and maintain and learn what there is to know about the cars, though you dont have to own a car to be a member and many dont they are expensive and rare and not that many to even go around, its not even astranomical its like around 50 us dollers a year. and they have other events thoughout the year if your interested those that read this, people say there isn't much to a small town life but when you live by auburn indiana you get so see auburns and dussys around the city of 15thousand several times a summer and at car shows they have at least once a month in the summer. as for the engine yea I saw in the museum they have display of cast aluminum pistons and dash frame on display and mentions that of the antique car era pre war the engine in one of the cars had the highest horsepower of them all in that era for regular cars found it facinating though that they were using aluminum even back then thought it was not till after the 1950's that aircraft aluminum was used, though I did read of its usage in race cars all the way back to the late 20's yesterday

[@Loulovesspeed]

It's too easy to get caught up in the present list of high performance engines. This 420 cu in engine with supercharger was 320 hp which was double the horsepower of the most powerful Mercedes 500 K.....double the power!

[@george1la]

A very advanced engine even today. It made this power with bad gas, low compression and a long stroke and small bore. Give it some compression, good gas, and real carburation and then what would happen? It would be way over 400 hp and over 1hp/ci. I also doubt they were running high pressure on the supercharged engines. No one will do this as they are so valuable as they are. Blow one of those blocks and it would be really bad.