What lucky chaps some of those films stars are. Lots of money, stacks of girls and nice, fast cars. Back in the 1930s two leading men in particular lucked out with the cars (I just presume they did well with the money and the gals), as each was the proud owner of this car, the Duesenberg SSJ, built in 1933. Given that only two of these cars were ever made, they were lucky boys indeed.
For my little diorama where else but a 1930s movie theatre. Now, don't trust this shot for historical accuracy. Not sure where the theatre is exactly, it just looks right. And I know for a fact that the movie posters are from different years, too. But if you're not fussy about years and only give points for decades, then I'll get away with it. The model car is a 1:43 production by IXO, who have a lovely series of cars from this era in their range.
This is the 1930s version of a car which looked like it was going fast, when standing still. When underway, it lived up to its looks and went fast. It had a hell of an engine for its time. It was a twin cam 6.9 litre straight eight, with four valves per cylinder, and a supercharger bolted on as well. It made 400hp at 5000rpm and was reputedly good for 135-140mph, a brave adventure on the skinny cross-ply tyres of the era. As this SSJ is also the 'short wheelbase' version of an even larger car, you'd wonder about its stability at peak speeds. I suspect our very valuable movie-star owners never bothered to find out. It was a supercar of its time, for sure, and like the supercars of today it was horribly expensive and only owned by squillionaires and movie stars. I love the way it looks and have models of several ridiculously expensive cars from this era, purely because I love the way they look. So, to finish off this little celebration of what fun it is to be a movie star, here's a little video from You Tube about Duesenbergs.
