DOUG NYE
“A glorious home win for Ernest Ballot’s team had been predicted”
One hundred years ago come July 25 – America (with help from German and Irish immigrant genes) won the 1921 Grand Prix of the Automobile Club de France. That first post-WW1 international Grand Prix race comprised 30 laps of the 10.75-mile Sarthe circuit at Le Mans. A glorious home win for new French manufacturer Ernest Ballot’s team of 3-litre straight-8 twin-overhead camshaft cars had been predicted, but it had been foiled.
The German-born brothers Fred and Augie Duesenberg had entered their own team of similarly specified Indianapolis-bred cars, and with their fearless and relentlessly rapid lead driver Jimmy Murphy – son of Irish immigrants – they defeated the French on home soil…
While none of the Duesenberg children had much formal education, both Fred (born Friedrich) and Augie (August) showed mechanical aptitude. Fred began racing bicycles, built his own, then in 1900 attached a petrol engine to one. Through creating Rambler, then Mason and Maytag-Mason cars the brothers developed 4-cylinder and then straight-8 designs which quickly earned respect. In 1913 they founded the Duesenberg Motors Company Inc and in 1914 Eddie Rickenbacker placed 10th in the Indy ‘500’ in a Duesenberg.