Hemmings "Classic"car magazine &SJ528

Hello,

RM auctions offers J-528 at its Pebble Beach auction in August.


Cheers

Matt

Car sold yesterday for a hammer bid of $1.3 million.

Thanks for the pictures. It sure didn't look like that when we were working on it in 1953.Those small wheels and skirted fenders did NOTHING for that car not to mention the color scheme that Harry Schulzinger had done to it. All 3 of the Brunn Riviera phaetons are now looking good like they did "back in the days". Of the 3,SJ525 wasn't victimized by trying to make it look like a 1937 Dodge with the fender modifications and the 17" wheels.

When I was at O'Quinn's I was told that the supercharger currently on the car is a Joseph reproduction. The car has undergone significant restoration since its "Hot Rod Harry" days. Whether the engine has been entirely swapped back for J-528 I don't know, but I do know that all of the performance modifications, for better and for worse, were reversed during the car's Rick Carroll restoration.

I love every Duesenberg ever built, but there's special places in my heart for some. J-528 / 2551 is one of my very, very favorites.

According to the ad I saw today in HCC magazine my old friend from my erstwhile youth,Duesenberg SJ528 will come up for sale soon by RM. It mentions a blown engine at one time and I am assuming this was the failure of the original engine that occured while Jack Irwin and I were coming down Bridgeport Hill (Rt50) near Clarkburg WV.
A timing chain tensioner spring either broke or came loose and got ito the oil pan where it was impinged between a rod and a cylinder wall an broke a hole in that particular cylinder and dumped hot coolant into the oil pan. The car then belonged to Harry Schulzinger of Cincinnati,Ohio.
Raydon Thompson and I removed the engine when the car was towed back to Huntington and I personally dismantled it. Mr.Schulzinger then acquired the engine,J467 from the dismantled Willoughby sedan that I had mentioned earlier and it was that engine that was bored out to 3.875 and the Jahn's high compression pistons were installed in.We used the SJ steel rods and sent them and the motor block to Federal-Mogul to have them rebabbited. While this was happening,I took the head apart and and using a scraper/cutter,very lightly reconditioned the valve seats.New valves were bought and I lapped these in with fine Clover valve grinding compound.After that was finished,I started the job of reassembly which is a time consuming task on that particular head. I got it done and made sure all 32 valves were within correct clearances.It was also during this time the Clark 5 speed transmission was added to the car.
This ad in HCC says the body is now on chassis 2551.I thought that was the correct number for this car.I am too tired to go look it up in Fred Roe's book but maybe Chris can see what is right here.We did do a body/chassis swap from the Derhan sedan that once carried SJ551
and the Brunn body.I think the Derham chassis was very low mileage and thus the switch out. I heard much later that the Brunn body was reinstalled on the original chassis and that engine J528 was repaired and also reinstalled.
Maybe so and it makes no difference to me one way or the other.
I have also heard that the supercharger on it now may be from the Mars Town Car.Mr.Schulzinger said he had a supercharger but we thought that with the high compression pistons that this might be problematic if the cylinder pressures were too extreme a blow head gasket would be a certainty and maybe premature rod. bearing failures. The HCC ad says that it is one of two surviving Brunn Riviera Phaetons which is NOT right.There were three of these built and all still exist and I have seen them. Two had superchargers and one did not.