Fred Duesenberg

By Sigur Whitaker
Long before he gained fame as a three-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 or the Duesenberg automobile, Fred Duesenberg was already setting speed records.
 
He was born in Lippe, Germany, in 1876. After his father died, the Duesenberg family moved to a farm near Rockford, Iowa. As a child, he showed mechanical ability. At age 17, he went to work for a farm implement dealer repairing machinery and setting up windmills. When he was 20 years old, he started building bicycles and began setting records in bicycle races.
 
He and his brother, August (Augie) established the Duesenberg Motor Co. in St. Paul, Minnesota, where they began building marine engines. He was hired by Commodore James A. Pugh to design and build a powerful engine for his new hydroplane boat Disturber IV which would hopefully win the Harmsworth Trophy in England. The 12-cylinder engine was massive, weighing 2,700 pounds. It had 750 horsepower at 1500 rpm and 800 horsepower at 1600 rpm. If running at full speed, it burned 132 gallons of fuel per hour. 
 
A pair of the engines were built at the Duesenberg Motor Company factory in St. Paul. They were installed in the 40-foot Disturber IV in mid-1914. In front of an estimated crowd of 10,000, the boat was christened by the daughter of Illinois Governor Edward Dunne before being launched on the Chicago River on July 2, 1914.
 
Many believed the Disturber IV could easily defeat the English, Germans, French and Italian boats in the Harmsworth Trophy race. They estimated it would need an average speed of 57 mph. Commodore Pugh was confident that the boat could do 65 mph.
 
It underwent trials on Lake Michigan and easily achieved speeds in excess of 50 mph.   On July 12, it was shipped to New York on a special flat car where it was loaded on the S. S. Minnetonka and shipped to Coes, England, for the Harmsworth Trophy Race to be held from August 15-18.  Augie Duesenberg accompanied the hydroplane while in transit.
 
While en route to England, Archduke Franz Ferinand of Austria was assassinated and World War I broke out. The Harmsworth Trophy race was canceled. Before being shipped back to the United States, Pugh took the hydroplane out and made a measured mile at 64 mph. The next day, he took the Disturber IV out on a calm sea and estimated the hydroplane was traveling at 68 mph. Pugh hoped to get one more trial in before returning to the United States, but an officer informed him that the port had been closed. The authorities took an estimated 2000 gallons of special fuel for the engine inland for safety. The Disturber IV was shipped back to the United States. While they were in transit, Augie began thinking of ways to improve the engines. The engines were disassembled and modified at the Duesenberg factory in St. Paul.
 
Reinstalled in the Disturber IV, the boat won a special race on Lake Michigan on October 20, 1914. The Disturber IV established a world’s speed record on the first lap of the race of 56.67 mph.  With an average speed of 51.4 mph for the 29.66 mile, two-lap race, the Disturber IV beat the second-place boat by 17 minutes.
 
The next year, the Disturber IV participated in the American Speed Boat Championship on Lake Michigan. On the first day, the Disturber IV won the Wrigley Trophy with an average speed of 54.4 mph and finished the race nearly 10 minutes ahead of the second place boat, Miss Detroit. Over the three-day challenge, the Disturber IV was undefeated.
 
On September 12, 1915, the Disturber IV set a new world’s record of 61.2 mph on Lake Michigan. It was the first boat to break the mile-a-minute mark on the water. Afterwards, Pugh put the Disturber IV in storage with plans to participate in the Harmsworth Trophy when competition resumed. By the time World War I ended on November 11, 1918, technology had made the specially built engines uncompetitive.
 
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