Challenge; US Grand Marque

Is it possible for the US to have a Grand Marque in the vein of Ferrari, Aston Martin, Mercedes Benz, Lamborghini? The interwar Duesenburg seems to fit the bill, but they didn't seem to progress much after the early 30s and died out.

The requirements are that the company had strong links with racing and use their own high-end engines rather than Detroit iron.
 
If you want Duesenberg to survive, you should change what happened to Cord Corporation (which owned it, Cord, Auburn and Lycoming). Perhaps it stays under the control of E.L. Cord, or perhaps Avco decides to keep the car factories running alongside Lycoming as a sort of American Rolls-Royce.

The best alternative IMO is Stutz- but the original Stutz, not the bizarre 70s "revival". Other possibilities are Marmon and Mercer. Cunningham (either the original or the 50s cars) might also work, though the latter didn't build their own engines. Outside possibilities- mostly luxury-car companies that got involved in a bit of racing- are Packard and Pierce-Arrow.
 
I don't particularly want Duesenberg to survive, but Duesenberg seems to fit the bill; French GP win in 1921 and Indy wins in 1924/5/7. In the 30s the road cars were very fast and had a lot of star power, what's more they used a unique, sophisticated engine but their lack of racing and development is a problem.
 

wormyguy

Banned
Cadillac might work too - but I think the main difference here is a difference of philosophy. The prevailing view in America is that the automobile was the conveyance that offered both freedom and cheap, fast transport to the masses. The prevailing view in Europe until very recently was that the automobile was either a tool for tradesmen or a toy for the wealthy.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Hudson might actually be a good entry for this. The Hornet set some records for nascar that still stand back in 1951-54. The super-six and 1st gen Hornet were Unibody cars that far outperformed any other American car. They were perceived as Luxury cars, often ranked higher than Cadillac in buyer's minds.
I just have no-idea how to do it beyond getting Howard Hughes to buy Hudson.
 
Not so sure about Hudson/Cadillac. Cadillac was an arm of GM almost from its inception, and Hudson made great stock-car racers but never Le Mans winners or a true supercar.

I sort of like the idea of a surviving Cord Corporation something like today's BMW, with Cord for luxury cars, Auburn for sports cars (like the 6-series) and Duesenberg as the Rolls-Royce equivalent. Of course, instead of BMW's trademark rear-drive straight-sixes we'd have Cord's front-wheel-drive V-8s (Oldsmobile Toronado anyone?)
 
we might not see the death of American Autos as industry leaders. It took detroit forever to realize that you can make a good FWD car and is one of the reasons they are playing catch up to Japan right now.
 
The Hudson is a sedan, not Ferrari-esque, as is the Caddilac. I used the Duesenberg as an example because of it's race wins in the 20s, it's advanced engines and it's mystique. It is in no way a musclecar or hot rod.

The US has no trouble making advanced racing engines; the Offy 4, Miller straight 8 and Novi V8. But what about getting these engines into a road car much like Ferrari did? The Novi is only a couple of years older than Ferrari's V12, what about having someone squeeze one of these into a medium sized sportscar?
 
The US has no trouble making advanced racing engines; the Offy 4, Miller straight 8 and Novi V8. But what about getting these engines into a road car much like Ferrari did? The Novi is only a couple of years older than Ferrari's V12, what about having someone squeeze one of these into a medium sized sportscar?
I think you might want the 1955 Cunningham C6R, then:
briggsbyc6600x388.jpg


The 3-litre Offenhauser four, tuned by Meyer-Drake with Weber carbs, developed 260 horsepower. Unfortunately, mechanical problems forced it to retire at both Sebring and the infamous 1955 Le Mans race (where 85 people were killed when Pierre Levegh's Mercedes 300SLR flew into the crowd).
Oddly enough, Briggs Cunningham originally wanted the car to use Ferrari's 4.5-litre V12...

Cunningham did build a road car (the C3) and racing coupes, but all the Cunninghams other than the C6R used big American V-8s- Cadillac in the C1, Chrysler in all the others.

The 1951 C3:
c3.jpg

had a body built in Turin by Vignale, a luxurious interior, and a 5.4-litre Chrysler V-8 with 4 Zenith carburettors which developed 220 horsepower (or maybe 310, my sources differ). It was capable of 140 mph, but was very expensive ($15,000 in 1951 money!) and only 30 were built due to poor sales. Apparently, the low production caused Cunningham to run into problems with the IRS, which resulted in the end of the racing team. Maybe if the C3 had sold better, Cunninghams would have kept racing with high-performance engines, and ended up as an American Ferrari.
 
A somewhat different tack adopted by Packard in the early 1930s might well have done the trick: Packard built a number of V-12 roadsters in those days, and had the engineering capabilities to make a V-16 to rival Marmon and Cadillac. Given an established top-of-the-line reputation and that modest change in direction, Packard could have put out some incredible machines, especially if after the war they got in cahoots with Darrin as a designer.

Pierce-Arrow might also have had a shot had they moved into a sportier model in the late '20s: perhaps an analog of LaSalle would have taken off and pushed Pierce-Arrow into the grand marque category.

Had Cadillac offered a postwar V-12 or V-16 (the former is more likely), especially on a sports-like platform, a grand marque might also have evolved from there. (NOTE: the only postwar V-12 engines were used in Lincolns, and those were pathetically small cylinders. The V-12 Lincolns were routinely outperformed by V-8 engines.)
 
I'd say the best bet for such a brand here is Cunningham. They were effectively carrying the American flag at Le Mans in the 1950s and doing it almost singlehandedly, and the cars of the 1950s were fast.

Cadillac became an Arm of GM very early on, so unless GM wants to fund turning Cadillac into an exotic manufacturer, I doubt that one will go anywhere. Cadillac is getting a mojo now because GM knows that relying on older customers for Cadillac will send them into extinction, and they instead decided to go after BMW, and are doing it shockingly well. Duesenberg is an interesting idea, but they were less into GTs and more into big luxury sedans, so they would likely be more of a rival to Rolls-Royce than to Ferrari or Aston Martin.

If you are willing to do it in later years, you can go with Saleen, Vector or Callaway as well, but these don't show up until the mid-1980s. All three made convincing exotics in the 1990s and 2000s (Callaway C12, Vector W8TT and M12, Saleen S7) but didn't really get considered an American exotic maker. Modern companies can break into that mold - Pagani has done so in the last decade - but its harder now because of the development of such cars being expensive and time consuming.

One other prospect I had in mind was Shadow, the American F1 team that began in the mid-60s. At the time, American companies (Ford in particular) were running roughshod over international motorsport - Ford nailed the quartet of racing triupmhs - Indy 500, F1 World Championship, Le Mans win and WRC champs - all in one year (1968) and some of the designs around at the time were something wicked. I can imagine a Shadow supercar, perhaps using one of the American race engines as a base (or maybe even the Cosworth DFV, for that matter), making for a lightweight, fast car.
 
I had thought of Cunningham but the Detroit iron in the road cars ruins it, it just becomes another musclecar with a nice body. If the road cars used the Offy that would be different. What's more Briggs didn't have much intention to make his own Marque, as soon as the Corvette got raceworthy enough he started using it.
 
I had thought of Cunningham but the Detroit iron in the road cars ruins it, it just becomes another musclecar with a nice body. If the road cars used the Offy that would be different. What's more Briggs didn't have much intention to make his own Marque, as soon as the Corvette got raceworthy enough he started using it.

But that can be changed, can't it? They could use V8s until such time as a light motor which makes similar power - whether that's a four-cam Ford V8 or a turbocharged Offenhauser - is available for use. After all, lighter is better when it comes to sports cars.

America could easily have dominated the world's luxury car markets - between Packard, Cadillac, Lincoln, Pierce-Arrow and Duesenberg having American companies dominating much of the world's luxury car markets is easy and quite possible. But sports cars is harder simply because of the fact that the Americans didn't really begin thinking about sporting vehicles until the 1960s.
 
Ferrari only made about 600 cars in total; road, sports racing and formula by 1956 so there isn't much need for commerical dommination. Indeed quite the opposite, the less sold in the early years and the more closely tied in with the beginnings of US road racing the better.

Kurtis is another possibility. They made virtually the entire Indy grid for about a decade with Offy, Novi and Cummins power. They also dabbled in making the odd sportscar, the 500S between 1953-6 which wouldn't sell in the face of Ferrari and Maserati, possibly because of the Detroit iron engine.
 
The simple answer to the question is No. America can not have a Grand Marque. And Wormguy is 100% right as to why not.

Cadillac might work too - but I think the main difference here is a difference of philosophy. The prevailing view in America is that the automobile was the conveyance that offered both freedom and cheap, fast transport to the masses. The prevailing view in Europe until very recently was that the automobile was either a tool for tradesmen or a toy for the wealthy.

It comes from the class sytem of society. Europe has had different classes in society for well over 1000 years, the US, and Australia, are still very young and basically don't have anything like the class segregation in Euroupe. Even the majority of the wealthy and very wealthy in the US and AUS are what Europeans refer to as "New money", which they still look down on.

This one little picture about sums up the discussion:

Bently ad.jpg

Bently ad.jpg
 
The success of the Duesenberg in the 20s and 30s would suggest that such a view is not entirely accurate. It only takes a few generations for money to become 'old', money made the dirty way in the 1850s is quite OK by 1950s, the Rockerfellers etc were quite respectable after WW2. I think that the Duesenberg made its reputation on the East Coast in the 20s in wealthy and anonymous business circles, and the new Hollywood celebrity money cashed in on that old mystique in the 30s.

I think the attempts made in postwar America to create sportscars were all too 'achieveable' for the old money to want. Anything with a Detroit engine and chassis can be fixed yourself and replaced easily, so is not exclusive and therefore not desirable. I wonder what the effect would be if in the early 50s someone attempted to build a limited production sports car in America with an Offy or Novi and not offer a Detroit engine option at all.
 
One possible idea would be the Avanti descendent of Studebaker. I don't know what changes would need to be made to make Avanti a grand marque. This might mean a smaller continued Studebaker continuing into the present day. I do remember a few years ago that a company was considering bringing out a luxury SUV under the Studebaker name.
 

NothingNow

Banned
The Hudson is a sedan, not Ferrari-esque, as is the Caddilac. I used the Duesenberg as an example because of it's race wins in the 20s, it's advanced engines and it's mystique. It is in no way a musclecar or hot rod.

Hudson would be a Bentley, Rolls-Royce, or Daimler analog. Admittedly with the Mullet of all Mullets, but still.
Give it an Offy or Novi Engine as an option and...
 
Cadillac might work too - but I think the main difference here is a difference of philosophy. The prevailing view in America is that the automobile was the conveyance that offered both freedom and cheap, fast transport to the masses. The prevailing view in Europe until very recently was that the automobile was either a tool for tradesmen or a toy for the wealthy.
Not sure i agree with that, but accepting it for the moment, such could be argued to have began in the Great Depression. Prior to that, there were several hand-built, prestige car companies that did very good business. The Depression and increasing quality of mass-produced cars conspired to kill that. Maybe WW2 served a similar role for Europe. Mid-priced Auburn saw an increase in sales during early Depression years as people who would have bought a more expensive car either didn't want to be seen in such an auto or just couldn't afford it. Duesenburg on the other hand, didn't build any new chassis for something like the last 7 years they were in business. IMO, even before the Depression they were doomed.

Duesenberg is an interesting idea, but they were less into GTs and more into big luxury sedans, so they would likely be more of a rival to Rolls-Royce than to Ferrari or Aston Martin.
Duesenberg had a sportier, short-wheelbase model. Very low-production, but that was probably a result of low demand.
 
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