The Great Duesenber Mercedes Match Race

The Marx Brothers Mercedes just sold for $3.4 million hammer bid at Gooding.

As far as I know its numbers have never been traced.

OK,so maybe,sorta,kinda we might know what happened to the sedan but what about the Judkins coupe that was in an accident? Was it junked,sold for parts,buried or what?

All you need is ground penetrating radar mounted to a golf cart.

Good luck!

Justin

The story of the German name is only partly true. What really sent her over the edge was Arden having a virtually identical car on the next farm over.

There was a move to develop the farm into high-end condos a few years back but the Lexington historical folk got it stopped. It remains as the faculty and alumni club for U of K although I think they've opened the membership to anyone.

I'm going there in two weeks as part of the Keeneland Concours. Only 1,000 acres to search [url:128xvo0o]http://www.spindletophall.org/Home-1.html[/url:128xvo0o]

The Judkins Berline was given to a WW2 scrap drive. I heard the owner,Pansy didn't like the German name. It was supposedly later discovered being used by an Army officer for personal transportation and she reclaimed it. I also was aware of the Judkins Coupe being wrecked in a DWI episode.Nothing like a powerful car and some liquid dumb ass to create an event. The story that turned out to be bogus doesn't seem to fit the Yount cars. Pansy seems to have been a 5 star head case and should have been in the care of a keeper. It would be consistent with the described lunacy that she might have buried the Judkins. Parry Thomas's speed record car was buried after he was killed trying to set a new speed record and was finally exhumed and made sorta/kinda operational again. A metal detector just might be the thing unless the property has been made into a residential development.

Greg Riley wrote: One account claimed she buried the car somewhere on the thousand acres near where she buried Yount's world champion saddlebred horse "Chief of Spindletop." My speculation is that they tried to cut up the car and decided it was too much trouble and buried it. She definitely buried all sort of other weird stuff.

Sounds like someone should head out there with a good metal detector!

Justin

Bob Roller wrote: Another tale that turned out to be more hogwash was the one about some woman that hated the Duesenbergs her husband bought new and after he died,she paid to have them cut up with an acetylene torch while she supervised. Former Duesenberg historian and personal friend Ted McPhail did some looking and found out it was all a fabricated story.

Bob, with all due respect the story about cutting up the Duesenberg with an acetylene torch is apparently true. M.F. Yount purchased three Duesenberg's new. It is will documented that Pansy Yount donated the Judkins Berline to a WWII scrap drive (photos exist on this site.) The story gets a little foggy after that. Apparently the car didn't go to the scrap drive as she intended, and she found out about it and retrieved it. This story has been repeated for generations in Lexington, KY and at Spindeltop farm.

One account claimed she buried the car somewhere on the thousand acres near where she buried Yount's world champion saddlebred horse "Chief of Spindletop." My speculation is that they tried to cut up the car and decided it was too much trouble and buried it. She definitely buried all sort of other weird stuff.

Pansy had a well documented history of such acts including burying and digging up her husbands body several times. She also built his a mausoleum for a horrendous sum, and tore it down a few years later for no apparent reason. She also tore down the family mansion which was in pristine condition because she said she didn't want it to "become a funeral home." I could go on and on.

This Judkins Ladies Berline was delivered the day of Yount's death, with some speculating it was not for his wife Pansy but rather for the then wife of "Uncle Catty Corner" Cape Grant; Nola. Note that about the time of the Duesenberg's destruction Cape Grant and Nola divorced and he and Pansy married. In 1958 she went after him and his new girlfriend with a 30.06 rifle after they had a tryst on her yacht "Spindletop."

It is also a fact the Elizabeth Arden purchased the adjoining farm early in WWII and also had a nearly identical Judkins Berline.

I have also documented that he (Cape) totaled Yount's Judkins coupe in a 1935 drunk driving accident, with multiple sources from Spindletop Farm corroborating. The fate of the Willoughby sedan us unknown but it was likely destroyed in a 2nd drunk driving accident in Nome, Texas when Cape ran a stop sign and broad sided a car nearly killing him and Pansy.

Pansy was a very complicated and unbelievably rich lady who did anything she wanted...mostly because she could.

Tom, Yes indeed,the tales do add some what to the overall stories we hear but some times it is best to keep the Beef steak separated from the BS. Early American History is a lot of truth but spiced with the BS at times.The story of George Washington is one and Davy Crockett was supposedly a drunk and did die at the Alamo in 1836. We have in our art museum here,a fine gun collection and in it is an authenticated Daniel Boone rifle,a fine flint lock.I was asked by a man in Germany to see if I could find out the length of the barrel so I called the curator and asked her if we could get the rifle out of the case and she said,yes. I have a privilege there as a known researcher and they will let me look at and handle anything in the collection.Boone has been described in places as another Paul Bunyan but his surviving clothing shows a man of about 5 feet and 2 inches.This rifle has a barrel 51 inche long and it was taller overall than the curator who said she is 5 feet and 3 inches. Boone would have to stand on a stump to load this rifle.
Grand rank automobiles like the Duesenberg also come down thru time more magnified than diminished and I guess we will just have to try to keep the story straight as we can for the future generations. I have asked people in years past about their Duesenbergs and am apalled at the lack of knowledge they display. I think their ownership is sole predicated on watching the value go up and then unloading them at such profit as can be derived.
I subscribe to Jay Leno's idea of driving it if you own
it,enjoy it and share with others you know that you can trust and let the next owner restore it again.

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the clarification on the Marmon story. As I said, I considered it to be Urban Legend, so it's interesting to me to hear of a related published source.

I think that as long as fact is kept clear from fiction, tales about milestones just add to the joy of history. Where would we be without the tall tales of Davy Crockett's younger days, George Washington's cherry tree encounter, and UFO encounters? In some ways, these tales are the spice of life, well-shared over a couple of brews.

Thank again for the backgound on this story!!

--Tom

Tom,
This story occurs in J.L. Elbert's book,"Duesenberg,America's Mightiest Motor Car".
As told there,it was about a man that said he would buy the Marmon if it could out run his Duesenberg,supposedly an SJ. One of the Duesenberg factory men,I think S.D.Mitchell went for a ride with the fellow and was unimpressed with his ability as a driver and told him to leave the Duesenberg in second gear.The tale concluded by saying that he was NOT compelled to buy the Marmon 16. Whether or not this is true we will probably never know but the race at Lake Muroc is documented and photographed. Another tale that turned out to be more hogwash was the one about some woman that hated the Duesenbergs her husband bought new and after he died,she paid to have them cut up with an acetylene torch while she supervised. Former Duesenberg historian and personal friend Ted McPhail did some looking and found out it was all a fabricated story. One more was about a "J" given as a graduation present in Paris to a young woman who fled France after Hitler marched in and the car was appropriated by the Nazis and used as an ambulance later on. Again,a fabrication according to McPhail. This rubbish makes for interesting reading but there is already enough true stories to make the car more than interesting and these BS and lying tales serve NO purpose whatsoever.

If this is the same story, I had long ago heard the Urban Legend Version of it. It went like this as it was told to me, a wide-eyed teenager with a love of cars:

"A Duesenberg owner and a Marmon-16 owner got pretty well lit up at the Yacht Club bar one night and bet their respective cars that each owner's car was the faster. The bet included the fact that the OWNER had to drive the car, and the race was to be the next day. The Duesenberg owner sobered up (somewhat) over night, remembered what he had done, and then realized with horror that he didn't know how to drive a car! All attempts by his chauffeur to teach him to shift gears failed, so when race time came that afternoon the frustrated chauffeur told him, 'Look, Boss. Just put it in second and leave it there.'

"The Duesenberg won the race..."


Has anyone heard this story before? Is it an outgrowth of the Great Duesenberg-Mercedes race?

BTW, I asked my folks for a Duesenberg for HS Graduation. I got a camera...

--Tom

Didn't the Duesenberg win by default?? As I recall the story,the Mercedes started misfiring because Harpo hadn't authorized "racing spark plugs". The SSK had a larger piston displacement and was lighter and had an acceleration advantage which it held until the ignition started acting up and put the outcome firmly into Eddie Miller's hands.I haven't read the story for years but maybe someone who has can clarify it. The Model "J" had the reputation as being the fastest full bodied luxury car and maybe it was.Does anyone have any performance figures on the Hispano-Suiza V12 to compare with the published figures on the "J"?

The Marx SSK used in the Match Race will be sold at Gooding & Co.'s Pebble Beach Auction this August, the first time it has been sold publically...or so the mailer that just arrived in my mailbox claims.

Now all we need is a few million dollars, Ray Bowersox's Duesenberg, a dry lake, and an understanding insurance agent.

Maybe the details have evolved, but a photo like that don't lie! Sounds sort of like a hare brained race that a couple of hot-rodding kids in V-8 Fords might have come up with. Just substitute some of most famous celebrities on the planet, and the best machinery too.
You would have thought that this group in particular would have thought to film this.

I recently bought the book,"So-Cal Speed Shop" which goes into much detail on the legendary shop that's been around since the beginning of hot rods. Much of their success was on the salt flats. Early in the book, there's apicture of the Duesenberg and Mercedes taking off from the starting line. The caption reads," Here, at Muroc Dry Lake, in 1933, Zeppo Marx's supercharged Mercedes, runs against Phil Berg's Duesenberg. Berg was Clark Gable's agent and had made a $10,000 bet that his Duesy was faster than Zeppo's Mercedes. In front of a crowd that included carole Lombard, Al Jolson,Mae West, Wallace Beery and Gable, the legendary Harry Miller flagged them off and Eddie Miller Jr, driving Berg's Duesenberg, won."
Like many other stories, many of the details have probably evolved over the years.

That is a great story, one of my very favorites! I have read it many times over the years, I even read it to the wife and kids, and it held their attention.
it is in Volume XVIII, Number 3 from the 3rd quarter 1980.

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I have a picture and story (not the one from Automobile Quarterly) floating around that I will scan if I can find it.

Somewhere on here, in another post, is Coop with the stripped Derham Tourster, prepared for racing. Anybody who hasn't been awake for 24 hours want to find it?

I know Ray Bowersox has Berg's car, J-299, but does anyone know if the Marx Mercedes still exists?

I read the coolest story in an old Automobile Quarterly. It is about the match race between the Model J owned by Phil Berg and the Mercedes SSK boattail of Zeppo and Chico Marx.

What a cast or characters! Hollywood was represented by the above mentioned Berg and all of The Marx Brothers, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Al Jolson, Carole Lombard, Mae West, Ben Lyon, Leila Hyams. The automotive side was represented by Eddie Miller, Harry Miller, and Joe Reindl. Rounding things out were E.L. himself, and oil tycoon Earl Gilmore.

It apparently all started with a discussion over bridge at Al Jolson's house as to whether Zeppo's lighter Mercedes was faster than Berg's Duesenberg. The original idea as a "stop light Gran-Prix" from Jolson's Sunset Boulevard home to the beach at Santa Monica. Cooler heads prevailed and it morphed into a match race at Muroc Dry Lake.

The initial $10K wager eventually morphed into a $25K stake after all the bets were in. Once when Berg was asked if he was accustomed to betting on such a scale he responded, "You're not gambling, unless it can hurt you."

Both cars were stripped for racing with the Duesenberg being prepared for racing by Eddie Miller with the enthusiastic approval of E.L. Cord. The even tried Gary Coopers car but found the longer wheelbase car to be 8 mph slower.

The race started at 6:30 a.m. on a September 1932. The Mercedes sprinted ahead supercharger wailing, but the Duesenberg caught the lighter Mercedes on the first lap, and it was all over. Eddie Miller said that he shifted the Duesenberg into top at 5,200 rpm. The engine blew three quarts of oil out during the 109 mph run.

The photos that were published with the article are amazing. The Mercedes does appear to be more of a racing machine. As the 'ole saying goes, "there ain't no substitute for cubic inches."