Jay Leno is a massive fan of Duesenbergs. This automobile could seem to be yet one more addition to the sequence of Duesenbergs featured on “Jay Leno’s Garage” over time, however that’s not fairly the case.
This 1920 ReVere-Duesenberg Four Passenger is a product of the long-defunct ReVere model. But it has an engine designed by brothers Fred and August Duesenberg earlier than launching their eponymous automobile firm, which sold its first car in 1921.
Badged as a Rochester Duesenberg, the 5.5-liter inline-4 had an uncommon “strolling beam” design that Leno describes as “a low cost various to twin overhead cams.” Instead of shifting the cams up within the engine to instantly actuate the overhead valves, the Duesenberg brothers designed rods to attach the cams and valves. Their back-and-forth movement gave the strolling beam engine its identify.
That wasn’t the one uncommon characteristic of this engine. It was solid in a single piece with no heads, so the valves stick out of the edges of the block. This eradicated head gaskets—and thus a potential level of failure—but additionally made accessing the engine’s internals trickier than a standard engine design.
The engine proved dependable in racing, and because the Duesenberg brothers weren’t making their very own vehicles but, they used that on-track efficiency to market the engine to different automakers. ReVere was one of many corporations that got here calling. Rather than design its personal vehicles from the bottom up, ReVere assembled them from parts sourced from exterior suppliers—a widespread follow within the 1910s and early Twenties auto trade.
While the top of ReVere appeared to have arrange the corporate as a inventory rip-off, it did produce a few examples of a remarkably good automobile. The Duesenberg engine is a “torque monster” that made the ReVere fairly quick for its time, in line with Leno, and the automobile’s aluminum doorways and an an aluminum radiator shell had been pretty novel options. It nonetheless needed to make due with solely rear-wheel brakes, nonetheless.
Leno estimates that solely 4 or 5 ReVere vehicles are left as we speak out of about 200 constructed, making later cars from the Duesenberg brand appear widespread by comparability. Those vehicles featured a extra subtle twin-cam straight-8 engine, and are nonetheless regarded by consultants as a few of the best American vehicles ever made. And the ReVere-Duesenberg was their prequel.
This article was initially revealed by Motor Authority, an editorial associate of ClassicCars.com.
