30 Aug 2015

Duesenberg Coupe Simone: The Car Which May or May Not Have Ever Actually Been Built

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What actually exists are 1:24 models of the car made by the Franklin Mint, by one account, from drawings found in a barn on the remote Central Pennsylvania estate of Guy de LaRouche.

The legend says that the Duesenberg Coupe Simone was created by the coachbuilding firm Emmet-Armand on the Duesenberg Type J frame in response to a special order from French cosmetics magnate Guy (or Gui) de LaRouche (or LaRoche). The coupe took three years to build and was finished after the bankruptcy of Cord and the end of Duesenberg production. The Coupe Simone was named for LaRouche’s lover and was intended to be a gift to her. It was sent to France for LaRouche’s approval, before it was to be exhibited at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, but disappeared as the result of a love triangle and the outbreak of the Second World War. The Coupe Simone was either destroyed during the war, or remains forgotten today, rusting away, in a barn somewhere in rural France.

An alternative story contends that plans for the car were drawn up in the 1930s, but the car was never built, and only the Franklin Mint models made from drawing re-discovered decades later were ever actually built.

Another version contends that neither car nor drawings nor French cosmetics king ever actually existed, and the model car was invented in the late 1990s by a couple of Franklin Mint designers, who made up a romantic story to explain the Art Deco automobile they had imagined.

Diesel Punks: The Strange Case of the Midnight Ghost.

Opposite Lock: The Duesenberg Coupe Simone: A One-Off that Never Was.

Wikicars: Duesenberg Coupe Simone

Before Its News: A Duesenberg That Didn’t Get Past the Drawing and Planning Stages of a Coachbuilder.

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2 Feedbacks on "Duesenberg Coupe Simone: The Car Which May or May Not Have Ever Actually Been Built"

Dominique

Then it’s not too late to build it.



Surellin

Laroche was real – his fashion (and perfume) company still exists. But he was born in 1921 and is not known to have been in the US until the mid 50s. Doesn’t quite hold up.



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