1935 Duesenberg Model JN

To Be OFFERED AT AUCTION at RM Sothebys The Monterey Auction event, 13 - 15 August 2026.
$5,750,000 - $8,000,000 USD

• Built for legendary actor Clark Gable, The King of Hollywood
• Restyled to Gables wishes by Bohman & Schwartz; a truly bespoke commission
• Used extensively by Gable with his beloved wife, Carole Lombard
• Best of Show at the Amelia Island and Meadowbrook Concours dElegance
• Among the most beautiful, historic, and romantic of all Duesenbergs

THE KING OF HOLLYWOOD

The great automobiles are in the end almost always the product of one man not a team with the ultimate goal being the creation of a beautiful object. Every great piece of coachwork was one person creating for one person, and the Gable Duesenberg is the absolute embodiment of that. S.M.

The creator, in the instance of this Duesenberg, was Clark Gable, The King of Hollywood, the most famous and successful actor of his era and the man he was creating for was himself. It was Gable who ordered one of the four Rollston-bodied convertible coupes built in the so-called JN series, the last two-seater open cars delivered by Duesenberg to customers. While in typical Duesenberg fashion, no two of the cars were alike, they all shared J. Herbert Newports basic graceful design, with subtly skirted fenders flowing around 17-inch wheels, a low and raked windshield, and a disappearing convertible top, and were mounted low over their chassis, eliminating the battery and tool boxes found on earlier Model Js.

Gable was not content to settle with a factory-delivered automobile. He was a connoisseur in the true sense of the word, a man who studied the finest automobiles on the market and came to know who drew them, who crafted them, and who built them, and the intricacies of what lay beneath their hoods. Only then did he make his selections from the likes of Packard, Mercedes-Benz, and, yes, Duesenberg, and had each tweaked to his individual and very good taste.

The JN was shipped directly from Rollstons New York City premises to Bohman & Schwartz, the Pasadena, California, coachbuilder favored by denizens of the movie colony. Gable worked with their staff designer W. Everett Miller, literally sketching up the lines of what he wanted done to his new automobile at Millers shoulder and passing them over to the professional. These sketches, copies of which remain in the file, were faithfully translated by Miller, first to paper and then to a clay model, and show that not only did this hands-on client know what he wanted, but that what he knew and wanted was beautiful.

Working from Gable and Millers collaboration, Bohman & Schwartz extended the cars hoodline over the cowl in the fashion of Dietrich Individual Custom Packards, and in the cowl installed ventilators to draw fresh air into the cabin, a touch appropriated from early biplanes. The windshield itself was aggressively further angled by a few degrees, necessitating the design of a new top lowered to suit it, in a color chosen for its transitional hue so that it seems to blend into the remainder of the body. Similarly, the radiator shell was painted in the body color, to further provide the illusion of length. Fender skirts were installed in the rear, as were dual rear-mounted spares and wheel covers, all of body color.

The creation of his Duesenberg paralleled another significant event in Gables life, his courtship of the actress Carole Lombard. Gable brought Lombard to Pasadena to review the work in progress and finally to collect the finished automobile, accompanied by sandwiches and champagne for the Bohman & Schwartz team. There was only one problem: The car was not yet ready. Christian Bohman had a solution: His son Chriss college formal was that evening at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where, conveniently enough, Gable was living at the time.

Thus, several hours later, final delivery of the JN was made by a very thrilled young Chris Bohman and his equally excited date. To say that Gable was pleased with his Duesenberg would be an understatement. He stopped by the dance after, joined the Bohman table for dessert, had the first dance with Chriss date, and then, it was reported, proceeded to take a spin around the floor with every girl in the room!

Quickly, the Duesenberg became a part of Gables life and aura; he was so associated with it that numerous studio promotional photographs were taken of him with the car, some of which are now among the most famous of all Duesenberg portraits. It appears that the Duesenberg itself became something of a minor star, as it was supplied for the filming of the 1938 Hal Roach picture, Merrily We Live, alongside Brian Aherne and Constance Bennett temporarily painted a dark color, using a water-soluble finish.

More significantly to the owner, it was the JN in which he continued to romance Carole Lombard, as they traveled California coastal roads, including occasional trips all the way up to Vancouver, location of Lansdowne Park, their favorite horse-racing track. Ideally suited to one another in a way that few stars have ever been, they eventually married in 1939, and settled into life as one of Hollywoods happiest couples.

Alas, the idyll was not to last. In 1942, Lombard, while playing her part for the country, entertaining the troops and selling war bonds, was killed in a military plane crash in Nevada.

At the time of Lombards death, J-560 was actually stored at Lansdowne Park in Vancouver. This was a fortunate coincidence, as by all accounts Gable never wanted to see the car, so filled with bittersweet memories, again. Accordingly, he dispatched David Jordan, an attorney and trusted friend, up to British Columbia, with directions to sell the Duesenberg to a buyer outside of California. It was driven back to the Golden State only long enough to be sold, through the auspices of either Bob Roberts or Peter Satori.

MODERN ART

The car wound up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with early Model J enthusiast Don Ballard, who in the late 1940s sold the car to local dealer S.P. Motors, which installed the engine of J-521 while, it appears, retaining the original numbered J-560 bell-housing. The car subsequently passed in August 1951 from Albuquerque resident G.W. Cleven to professional wrestler Robert Hans Hermann the partner of Killer Kowalski then to Richard S. Luntz of Indianapolis, who consigned it to the renowned and prolific trader in used Duesenbergs, John Troka of Chicago. Troka sold the car to Paul V. Colianni of Arlington, Illinois, for $4,500 at the time a record figure. Colianni shortly found that the new acquisition did not fit into his home garage, and so it continued to be stored at Trokas, then was moved to legendary Model J technician and restorer M.T. Joe Kaufmanns shop in Wisconsin. It appears to have eventually been sold to Ed Jurist, of the Vintage Car Store in Nyack, New York, perhaps for his client George Huguely.

Charles Johnson of Florida, a longstanding Kaufmann client, succeeded in purchasing the Gable Duesenberg in late 1973. Following a restoration in cream with red moldings and interior, it was shown all over the country with award-winning results, as well as exhibited in 1979 in the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum in Auburn, Indiana.

The following year, J-560 was purchased by dealer Jerome Sauls of Pennsylvania, who passed it in 1982 to P.A. Parviz of London, England. Mr. Parviz apparently never took the car overseas, in 1983 it was sold out of a Beverly Hills garage to Tom Barrett, and shortly joined the original Blackhawk Collection, at the time being built by Don Williams for developer Ken Behring. Like many of the Blackhawk cars, the Duesenberg was later acquired in 1995 by a prolific overseas collector, but remained on display in the Blackhawk Museum for another decade.

Sam and Emily Mann acquired the Duesenberg, following many years of admiration, in 2005, and submitted it to Stone Barn of Vienna, New Jersey, for a complete restoration back to its original condition. In typical fashion, Sam Mann delved deeply into the cars history and specifications, corresponding with numerous Model J historians, as well as with Joe Kaufmann who graciously supplied a cutting of the original upholstery from 1935 wryly asking, before sending it, whether Mr. Mann wanted the sample to be from her side or his.

The completed car, finished as when delivered to Gable, was debuted at the 2007 Pebble Beach Concours dElegance, where Duesenberg was the featured marque, and received the Gwenn Graham Trophy for Most Elegant Convertible. It went on to add further laurels, including Best of Show at the concours delegance at Meadowbrook and Amelia Island, both in 2008, and appeared as part of the record-setting gathering of Duesenbergs at the ACD Club National Reunion in 2010.

Like all of the Manns cars, restored with both showing and driving use in mind, it was piloted on multiple iterations of the 1,000-mile Duesenberg Tour created by Sam Mann, in Virginia, Texas, and Californias Central Coast. The car drives as it looks, Mr. Mann notes, light for such a large car. It is fast, reliable, and it is hard when driving not to let ones mind wander to its two original owners: young, beautiful, exciting, and immortal.

Further, in recognition of Sam and Emily Manns longtime effort to see the finest automobiles recognized as true art, J-560 was featured in The Art of the Automobile, an exhibition at the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia. Most recently, it was displayed at the Concours dElegance of America in 2018, as part of th