When most car buffs think of the Duesenberg automobile, they think of the classy, luxury car that was reserved for the wealthy like Mae West, Clark Gable and Prince Nicholas of Romania who all owned one. Watch the Barrett-Jackson auto auction on TV and if one is sold, it will usually sell in the seven figure range. There's no doubt about it. Brothers August and Frederick Duesenberg from Lippe-Detmold, Germany built the finest, most luxurious car on the road back in the 1930's. But long before they built their first passenger car, the Duesenberg Model A in 1926, they were building racing cars for competition in the Indianapolis 500.After coming over from Germany as very young boys, Frederick learned automobile engineering at a very early age and along with brother Augie, they began building some of the most reliable cars to hit the bricks of Indianapolis. For twenty-two straight years from 1914 to 1935, every Indy 500 had at least one Duesie in the field, including a record eight of them in 1922 and a low of one in 1916, 23, 33 and 35. Add to this the fact that in this span, only four of those years a Duesie didn't finish in top ten. This made it pretty evident that although the car was much bigger and heavier than most of its competitors, the Duesenberg was always a strong contender.In Duesenberg's first 500 in 1914, Eddie Rickenbacker had a tenth place finish. The following year, Eddie O'Donnell gave the Duesie it's first top five with a fifth place finish and one year later in 1916, Wilbur D'Alene chased Dario Resta across the line for second place. The Indy 500 was suspended and not run during WWI from 1917-18. Following the war when racing resumed in 1919; Duesie did not start off very well. All three cars in the field dropped out. DAlene with a broken axel, O'Donnell broke a piston and Tommy Milton's mount threw a rod. So after a little re-organizing over the winter, 1920 would be the start of a comeback when three of the four Duesenbergs in the field finished in the top six. When 1921 rolled around, there were seven Duesie's in the 500 in which all of them finished in the top ten. Proving that 1921 was no fluke, the following year there were eight in the field in which seven of them recorded a top ten finish. Following this banner year, a Duesie, driven by its founder Frederick Duesenberg, was the pace car for the 1923 IndySuperchargers at Indy have been around for many years and it all started with the twin brothers. Their automobile was the first car at Indy to be equipped with a supercharger and Joe Boyer, who started all the way back in 21st, pulled into victory lane in 1924 to give Frederick and Augie their first Indy 500 triumph in a 122 cubic inch supercharged engine. Ironically, Boyer and another Duesie driver in the race, Eddie Ansterberg, were both killed later that year, Boyer at Altoona, PA on September 24th and Ansterberg at Charlotte on October 16th.Pete DePaolo made it two in a row for Duesenberg when he won in 1925. Knoxville, Tennessee's Pete Kreis, a rookie in his first Indy 500, finished eighth in a Duesie this year. This was the first 500 that a driver would average more than 100 MPH for the entire race and DePaolo's Duesenberg did it at 101.13 MPH. Two years later in 1927, rookie George Souders went to victory in another one of Frederick and Augie's creations. The old slogan "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" sure applied here. Sales of the luxury car skyrocketed. Unfortunately, Souders victory would be the third and final win for the Duesie at Indianapolis. What is amazing is that many teams were now running a supercharger and in the four-year span from 1925 to 1929, eleven cars dropped out of the 500 with supercharger problems and not one of those were a Duesenberg.There were sixty-three Duesie's that raced at Indianapolis from 1914 to 1935. Indy 500 standouts Pete DePaolo, Tommy Milton, Jimmy Murphy, Joe Boyer, Ralph DePalma, George Souders and Fred Frame have all graced the cockpit of a Duesenberg at sometime in their career at Indianapolis, including Milton, Boyer and Souders who went to victory lane in one. But that bad word progress that we have all learned to hate was starting to affect many of the automobiles that raced at Indy and the Duesie was one of the hardest hit. As progress continued into the 1930's with smaller, lighter and less expensive cars due to the Great depression, the Duesenberg was surely not on the list of progress. To add insult to injury, Frederick and Augie were now in trouble as the great depression saw the sale the most luxury cars on the market drop to almost nothing, as the Duesenberg automobile was not affordable to most people. Then, just five weeks after the 1932 Indy 500 on July 2, 1932, Fred was involved in a highway accident near Jennerstown, PA where his car overturned on him. He died three weeks later on July 25th. August died of a heart attack on January 18, 1955. Both brothers are buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana.Sadly, the class of the speedway finally saw it's last checkered flag drop just a couple years later. After starting twenty-eight and finishing a disappointing thirty-first after a rod let go just sixteen laps into the 1935 Indy 500, Philadelphian Freddie Winnai became the last driver to tour the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in competition driving a Duesenberg automobile. Of the sixty-three Duesenberg's that raced at Indy, thirty-five of them finished in the top ten, eleven dropped out due to mechanical problems and seventeen were eliminated in a crash.