A 1938/40 Duesenberg SJ convertible, the last “new” Duesenberg made by the company and assembled in Chicago, sold Saturday at a Christie’s sale in Tarrytown, N.Y., for $1,267,500.
Known as one of the maker’s most fantastic cars–the interior leather and carpet are violet–the long-wheelbase (20 feet, 7 inches) black convertible is the Bauer SJ, named after Rudolf Bauer, the German painter who ordered it in 1937. It was to have been shipped to Berlin for a Bauer-designed body, but the rise of the Third Reich intervened. When the Duesenberg factory closed in late 1937, the SJ chassis was shipped to Chicago, where it was assembled by a team of Duesenberg employees and inspected by Augie Duesenberg.
Bauer later supervised building of the body in the U.S. by Rollson Coachworks. Outfitted with a leather trunk equipped with a custom set of matching suitcases, the car was completed in 1940 at a total cost of nearly $21,000.
