Now offered for the first time in over a decade, J272 marks a significant opportunity for collectors. Simply put, supercharged Duesenbergs are the Holy Grail for collectors of American classics, and J272 represents an outstanding opportunity to acquire an example with strong provenance and beautiful and distinctive Victoria coachwork by the Rollston Company.

Every collector who has ever chased the faint hope of finding treasure at the end of a distant, unpaved driveway has dreamed of finding a forgotten Duesenberg that was stored away in a barn long ago. In the dream, dust is wiped from the master coachbuilder’s engraving on a sill plate and the serial numbers match those written years before in a well-worn spiral notebook. The Duffy SJ is one such car – one of the very last off-the-grid Duesenbergs left to be rediscovered.

The trademark of Murphy body design was the “clear vision” pillar. On the convertible coupe, the windshield pillars were designed to be as slim as possible, creating a sportier, more open appearance. In fact, Murphy advertised that their windshield pillars were “narrower than the space between a man’s eyes”; a design feature that they also claimed eliminated blind spots. Without doubt, the Convertible Coupe is generally considered the best looking of Murphy’s designs and indeed, it was one of the most popular body styles for the Model J chassis.

The story of J-527, the engine now installed in Chassis 2406, begins in November of 1933 when socialite Isabel T. Pell purchased it new from the Duesenberg Factory Branch in New York. Built as a show car, J-527 (LWB chassis 2556) was originally supercharged and featured a beautiful Convertible Coupe body by Rollston. Miss Pell drove her new Duesenberg for a little more than a year before deciding to trade it in. Returning to the New York branch in 1935, she found another new Rollston-bodied Duesenberg on the showroom floor. This car, J-550 (LWB chassis 2576), carried Convertible Victoria coachwork. Miss Pell, however, loved her original Rollston-bodied Convertible Coupe, so on February 15th, 1935 she purchased J-550 and instructed Duesenberg to move her beloved original convertible coupe body to the new (normally aspirated) chassis.

The result was that Miss Pell’s original used Duesenberg chassis now wore brand-new Rollston Convertible Victoria coachwork. H. T. Ames purchased this car on March 25, 1935 and then in October that year, George A. Spiegelberg purchased it. Less than six months later, in March of 1936, William Randolph Hearst, the legendary publishing magnate, bought the car. Some time later, the car was stolen and damaged. Next, Mr. Shirley D. Mitchell purchased it during the late 1930s. At this time, Mitchell also owned J-401, chassis 2406, a short-wheelbase Murphy Convertible Coupe, whose engine had been used in the restoration of a Castagna-bodied Convertible Sedan.

As a result, while restoring the now-engineless Murphy Convertible Coupe, Chassis 2406 in the late 1930s, Mitchell decided to install the supercharged engine from J-527, with the car remaining in this configuration ever since. At this point, the car was sold to Cuban diplomat Norberto Angones Quintana, who took the car with him to Cuba and then in 1939, Quintana accepted a post as First Secretary of the Cuban Embassy in Paris, bringing J-527 with him. In September 1940, he was issued a certificate from the German Military Occupation Administration, permitting him to drive his Duesenberg on holidays and weekends! (A copy of this certificate accompanies the car today). As these operating permits were available only to diplomats, J-527 was accordingly registered during this period on French diplomatic plates bearing the number CD 355X.

In 1941, Quintana was transferred to Cuba’s Spanish Embassy in Madrid, and once again, J-527 accompanied him. At some point after his arrival in Madrid, he sold the car to two brothers, Miguel and Jose Maria Arechavala of Spain. Next, the car was purchased by Pericao Gandarias, a wealthy businessman from Bilbao, Spain. While the timing cannot be established precisely, it is well known that during its time in Spain, the original supercharger was removed from J-527 and replaced with a standard intake manifold.

In a further twist worthy of a Hollywood script, John Ward, a retired U.S. Marine Sergeant who had married a Spanish girl and was running a bar in the resort area of Palma de Mallorca, became the next owner. According to a letter from Nicolas Franco, he and Rafael Estavans learned that Ward had cash flow problems caused by a number of large unpaid bar tabs that were incurred by U.S. Navy sailors. In a remarkable story, one night Franco and Estavans struck a handshake deal with Ward to buy the car for the total of all the unpaid bar tabs – which, when tallied up, amounted to $2,800!

Later, in the early 1960s, Estavans sold his half-interest in the car to Nicolas Franco, Jr. An extensive file of correspondence with Duesenberg historian Ray Wolff documents Franco’s efforts to correct some errors contained in a story on the car published within the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Club newsletter. While Franco owned J-527 for several years, he apparently became interested in selling the car in 1971, when he was asking $35,000. By 1975, he still owned the car, when Jerry Whittaker, an A-C-D club member, wrote to Ray Wolff and reported visiting Madrid in an unsuccessful attempt to buy the car.

Finally, on December 5, 1976, Franco sold the car to Archie Meinerz, who undertook a comprehensive restoration and retained J-527 for nearly 15 years before selling it to Al Webster, a noted Canadian collector, in February 1990. Webster recalls that the car was in very good condition and during his ownership, he corrected only small flaws and details, although he did commission Duesenberg expert Brian Joseph of Detroit to perform a full engine rebuild. During the rebuild, the internal upgrades required for supercharging were found to be present and accordingly, the engine was rebuilt with the intention that a supercharger would be reinstalled.

After showing J-527 at the Meadow Brook Hall Concours d’Elegance in August 1992, Webster sold the car to Robert Gottlieb in November that same year. Gottlieb entrusted the maintenance of the car California-based Duesenberg restorer Randy Ema and on November 11, 1993, A-C-D Level 1 Certificate number D-074 was issued. Gottlieb kept J-527 until March 2000, when New York-based collector Piers MacDonald acquired it. During MacDonald’s tenure, he commissioned the well-respected, award-winning Stone Barn firm of Vienna, New Jersey to repaint the body and fenders, trading the previous two-tone red paintwork for a single shade of Dark Garnet Red. New brakes, a new top and new 19-inch chrome wheels were also installed and then J-527 was shipped back to Brian Joseph in Detroit to have the transmission rebuilt and the car prepared for the 2002 Fall Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Club meet.

In August 2003, J-527 was sold to Chris Gruys, who decided to return the engine to supercharged form, with the necessary work performed by RM Auto Restorations. A new and correct supercharger, one of 10 precise reproductions of the original units, was obtained from Leo Gephardt and Brian Joseph, complete with the ultimate high-performance “ram’s horn” manifolding. During the supercharger installation, the RM team fabricated all of the required brackets, lines and drive assemblies, removing the oil plugs that were added to the engine block and cylinder head when the original supercharger was removed during the process. Once the supercharger installation was complete, the engine was tuned and the mechanical systems were inspected and serviced while the cosmetics were freshened.

Next, the Duesenberg was sold through RM Classic Cars to collector Steve Schultz, who later sold J-527 to the current owner, an East Coast-based private collector. Today, the Duesenberg continues to be highly presentable throughout, complemented by many period correct features including side mounted spare tires, dual Pilot-Ray lamps, cowl lamps, dual “Sport Light” spotlights, dual trumpet-style horns, dual taillights (one optional) and a polished aluminum luggage rack. With its stunning open Murphy coachwork, fascinating history and powerful supercharged engine, this well-sorted and extremely rare automobile stands ready to write a new chapter with a new owner.