1929 Duesenberg Convertible Sedan Murphy Body Classic Car

Duesenberg was the first production built automobile that boasted the ability to maintain 100 miles per hour. This custom coach built Murphy Bodied Convertible Sedan is one of three bodies built in this configuration and one of only two remaining. The other one is a Packard. The thing that is most unique about this car is that a tray folds out of the back of the front seat and a windshield folds up for the rear seat passengers.

A car of this size and length, undoubtedly allowed a lot of wind to hit the rear passengers, so it was a real advantage to have a windshield for the rear too.

Dual Cowl Phaetons were fairly common in this era. The dual cowl would also have a windshield for the rear, but it wouldn't stow away in the back of the seat like this Murphy bodied convertible sedan. The difference in a convertible and a phaeton is that the convertible has glass side windows and the phaeton has snap on curtains on the side.

We rebuilt all the wood in the body of this car with the exception of most of the door wood. There were quite a few parts missing from the top and fortunately I was able to see pictures of the Packard in order to copy the design of the missing parts. Actually, I remade all the irons in the top including one of the top bow mechanisms that was missing completely, because the originals were so damaged from careless re chroming.

This picture was taken of me sitting in the car at the 1993 Pebble Beach Concours d' Elegance. It was quite exciting at the end of the awards ceremony because the judges had a very hard and time consuming decision process for the Best of Show Award. They went back and forth between this car and Ralph Lauren's Mercedes, numerous times before making the final decision to give the award to Ralph.

This photo is quite a contrast to the photo that was taken of me in a pedal car, 40 years earlier.