I think they are the best cars in the world, still to this day.

A guess a modern equivalent would be a Veyron?

The super charged Duesenburg straight 8 was the most powerful production engine for what 25 years?

I think its hard today for people to understand how much of a leap they were, since nothing comparable really exists today.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

There was a Veyron on loan for a a while. It was "owned" by that SOB Timothy Durham who put a serious black eye on the museum and greatly affected my friend who was the curator.

Consider this, the J engine is 265HP from 420cu. in. (6.9L). Not impressive by today's standards, but that was done with only a 5:1 compression ratio!!! The SJ was simply bolt-on super charger for 8:1 compression ratio to boost the power to 325HP. Last year at the festival some of the J owners went to a local drag strip and raced. Many people could not believe that anyone would do that. I would tell them 'that engine is not even working itself for its power'.

The Model A Duesenberg was an 88HP engine from a 251 cu. in. (4.1L) block. That was unheard of power from displacement off of the race track in its day.

Years ago I asked an old mechanic what was the reason for the V-12 and V-16's. Power? Nope. According to him it was smoothness.

Back in the 30's spark plugs just did not last more than than 8,000 miles if even that much. If a plug stopped firing and you had a four you could really feel the engine shake. If you had a six not so much and if you had an eight cylinder you could feel it but it was not that bad.

However, if you had a v-12 you could not feel it at all since you had 11 other cylinders firing. With a v-16 the smoothness of the engine was almost perfect, but the pistons were starting to get rather small which led to problems of its' own.

All in all it is amazing that Cord could get so much right when all he had to work stuff out with was a slide-rule. I guess they made up for a lack of modern tech with good old craftsmanship.

Last year they were drag racing on a temperarly closed airport runway. If I remember corectly, the FAA required that their had to be some planes on exhibet in order for the air strip to be closed.

The concern about running them hard, according to several owners, was the crankshafts are know to become "brittle" from their age and breaking one could get quite expensive.