In the early 1950s, Gil Curtright worked in the wind tunnel at North American Aviation, where he built precision scale models used in aerodynamic testing. One of his co-workers there was a man named Tom Magee, a fellow car enthusiast, who found two derelict Duesenbergs in a Los Angeles junk yard and told him about it. At the time of discovery the car was located just three miles from downtown Los Angeles, and about ten miles from where Curtright was living in Hawthorne in late 1952.
Picture taken at N. Z. Transmissions; Gil Curtright on the right.
On December 6th, 1952, Curtright saw both Duesenbergs at N. Z. Transmissions, at the northern end of Avalon Blvd. One was a Derham phaeton, car 2136, J-116, and the other a convertible berline by Kirchhoff, car 2208, J-186. Curtright was to buy the berline and Magee the phaeton. They were purchased for $500 each, and four days later, Curtright, Magee, and a friend of his, Lassiter (Red) Hoyle, helped tow the cars away, using Hoyle's 1929 Graham-Paige. When all was said and done, though, Curtright ended up with both of them.
The Curtrights had only recently purchased their first home, and it had no garage, so initially the cars were stored at the home of Jennie Blood, Curtright's wife's grandmother. A large garage was built at the back of their new property, a narrow, deep lot that filled up with old cars within a few years. Once the garage was built, the Duesenbergs were moved into it, and there car 2208 was disassembled.
The body of 2208 was in good condition, but engine J-186 was badly damaged. A broken connecting rod had blown a hole in the lower part of the block on the right side, damaging the crankshaft, oil pan, and oil pump flange in the process. The broken rod also broke the piston and gouged the wall in cylinder three. When discovered, the cylinder head was loose and partially disassembled. Many things were missing from the car, beginning with the Duesenberg emblem plate on the firewall, the electric fuel pumps, tail pipes, radio, radiator ornament, one horn, and the chrome strips from the gas tank cover.
Gil Curtright first saw car 2208 at a hot-rod show in Los Angeles in 1946, when Lee Blind was the owner. The car had just been painted black. So he may have recognized it in the junk yard, and maybe that's why he chose to keep it. But I prefer to think that he kept Kirchhoff's berline instead of Derham's phaeton because of his admiration for the workmanship of the body. In his own words, "All structural wooden parts are supported by heat-treated aluminum castings, and large sections such as the cowl are entirely cast aluminum, yet in spite of its stiffness and structural strength, I can easily lift the stripped body." (Curtright to E. O. Franzen, 27 April 1965) and "His cars were unique in design and execution, as I think I told you. He used heat-treated cast aluminum all over them: body support brackets, belt moldings, door internal hardware, etc. He was a glutton for pattern work. All the structural wood in my J body is fully finished. I haven't seen this on any other coachbuilder's bodies." (Curtright to S. MacMinn, 4 July 1968).
It is arguably the best-executed body on any Duesenberg. When it was re-installed on the frame in 2007, very little adjustment was required to align it with the frame. The doors also required very little adjustment. In fact, the body structure was not restored or disassembled and remains intact since Kirchhoff himself last tightened the last bolt.
The choice to keep 2208 left Curtright with an engine that required very expensive repairs. It proved financially and mechanically easier to find replacements for the most damaged parts. Correspondence began in 1953 to search for information about the car, seek advice, and locate replacement parts. Over a period of several years the car was disassembled, preserved, and stored away, and a variety of parts were acquired or manufactured to replace missing or undesirable ones. The frame was restored and primer applied to preserve it. A substitute engine (J-260) was acquired in the summer of 1954 from Glenn C. Short for $150. The fuel pump was restored in the late 1960s, but had to be restored again in 2009.
The major components for the restoration are: frame and firewall #2208, which originally accommodated engine J-186; the engine block, crankshaft, and cylinder head from engine J-260, and the bell housing and clutch from J-186. It is also possible that some of the parts now on car 2208 are from car 2136, J-116. The remaining parts of engine J-186 were sold - all the aluminum pieces, except the bell housing, and the cylinder head, were sold to Bill Craig. The block and crankshaft were sold to Phil Renick of Fullerton, who installed them into car 2597, J-491x.
In about 1961 Curtright contacted Joseph Kirchhoff at his home in Pasadena, and the entire family was invited over for an afternoon, a visit which resulted in the acquisition of Kirchhoff's various patterns for the cowl and other parts of the car, several examples of coachwork plates, and the bumpers from car 2514, J-497, the long wheel base town car bodied by Kirchhoff in 1931. These bumpers are now on car 2208; the original bumpers may have been sold to Ray Wolff, who had expressed an interest in them more than once.
Car 2136 was sold in 1962 to John M. Thorpe for $1750. Thorpe hired Bill Craig of Reno, Nevada to do the restoration, then rented it out for use in the Elvis Presley movie Spin Out in 1966. It has changed hands a number of times since then, and has been re-restored twice more.
Car 2208 in the early sixties.
During the 1960s Curtright decided to add a supercharger to this car, and spent a considerable amount of time creating patterns for the castings. Since few Duesenberg superchargers are ever available, the plan was to privately manufacture a few. Most of the interior parts were acquired, but the project was eventually abandoned due to technical difficulties. Eventually the patterns were sold to Randy Ema.
During the 1970s another engine, J-419, virtually unused, was acquired and for a time was to be used for the restoration of car 2208. However, for unknown reasons, it was sold in 1978 for $700.
Long periods of time often passed without progress, as the distractions of life and the lack of space and money kept Curtright from working on the project. Over the years most of the parts had been accounted for, but he never started the assembly of 2208. In the fall of 1993 he was diagnosed with lung cancer and died the following March.