Jim Hoe

Fascinating stories! The collector may have been D. Cameron Peck, who was the largest collector in Chicago at the time. Many of his cars are in the Museum of Science & Industry's collection today.

I was scrolling around on the web and found this site...I grew up with Jim Hoe's family in Weston, and in fact lived just around the corner...if you could call it a corner. Our families were great pals...much boozing into the wee hours. I remember one time having a ride in Greta Garbo's Duesey...what a thrill. My family was into classic cars then, and we had nothing as swell as the Duesenberg, but we did have 2 Jaguar sedans...or saloons, I think...a Mark IV and a MarkV...as well as 2 MGs...a TC (which became mine upon graduation from high school), and a TD. I learned to drive in the TC. My sister used to hang around the Hoe's at the time, she was a great friend of Vaughn's. I used to baby sit the 2 younger kids,,,and Later on I met Richard and became friends with his family. Perhaps you might remember my sister, there was a photo of her in some paperback book I think about Duesenbergs, she was around around 10 years old at the time, Debbie Dalzell. I'm sure this is totally boring for anyone, but there are a lot of memories there for me. When I was married, around 1957, my husband asked me to look around in France, I was working there for a time, to see if I could find him a Talbot Lago...I failed, but upon my return there was one in Greenwich, which we bought. As I remember it cost around$1500....a huge sum for us at the time! We drove around in it, and displayed it it a couple of shows until it broke down and needed parts...of course there were none. We eventually sold ours to a collector in Chicago (who?I don't know) for parts. WHAT A GIANT MISTAKE!!! Those were the times...

I didn't know Jim all that well, though I dropped in to see him whenever I could. He also did an extensive engine rebuild on the Buehrig-designed Judkins coupe (J-137), which I owned at the time. This would have been about 1950 or 1951. I wonder if you worked on it?
Cordially,
Eric A. Bardeen

I think it's safe to say you're one of the luckiest car guys on Earth. I never knew Jim Hoe but have great respect for him as one of the first to really help preserve our favorite car.

I have just joined the ACD, and no, I do not own a Duesenberg. I worked for Jim Hoe in Weston, Connecticut in the 1950's, so I have worked on them! I also drove a number of them, to pick them up, or deliver them to owners. One of them was an SJ convertible sedan from Trenton NJ, which was quite a thrill, but this was topped by the "Giant" car as we called it, the one used in the movie "Giant", and driven by James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor. I drove this to and from a car show in Hartford, Connecticut. It came from Santa Barbara, California, driven by Jim and his wife Libby. I am sad to learn that Jim passed away, and sadder that I didn't keep in touch. I would like to hear from former employees of Hoe Sportcar, and from friends of Jim, and maybe current owners of some of the Duesenbergs work we worked on in the '50's.