The Brakes That Got America Moving

The Big Three automakers—General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler—dominated the U.S. car industry for so long that it’s difficult to believe that consumers who wanted to “buy American” once had many more options. And some of those were not even based in Detroit, a city that became synonymous with automobiles. Nash was based in Kenosha, Wis., while Studebaker had headquarters in South Bend, Ind. and Pierce-Arrows were built in Buffalo. 
 
While the Big Three opened up car ownership to the masses, these non-Detroit companies were competing for a slice of the high-end market and had to make their mark through luxury, craftsmanship, or high technology. One company that was renowned for both its luxury and technology was Duesenberg.
 
“They didn’t consider Detroit to be competitors,” said Sam Grate, curator at the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Automobile Museum in Auburn, Ind. “You had additional luxury. You had advanced engineering. Duesenberg was pretty much in its own stratosphere.” 
 
Founded by brothers Frederick and August Duesenberg, the company began as a manufacturer of champion race cars. When it decided to start producing automobiles for the consumer market, it brought over first time many of the innovations that had been piloted in racing. 
 
Among those innovations was four-wheel hydraulic brakes, which were included as a standard in its Model A, known originally as the Duesenberg Straight Eight. That braking system has been recognized by ASME as an Engineering Landmark. A plaque commemorating the landmark is to be presented at a ceremony at the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum on March 27, 2025. 
 
The 1910s was the time when automobiles evolved from an expensive curiosity to a national phenomenon. According to Statista, the number of cars on American roads shot up from less than half a million in 1910 to more than 8 million by 1920. (It would take less than five years to add another 8 million cars.) That era coincided with a growing interest in motorsports, with the first running of the Indianapolis 500 in 1911 joining various Grand Prix races conducted throughout Europe.
 
The Duesenberg brothers were part of that scene, building cars to race at Indianapolis and elsewhere. During the First World War, they switched to building airplane engines for the American and British military at a factory in Elizabeth, N.J. After the war, they decided to return to automobile manufacturing, incorporating some of the innovations from the aviation sector (including those of Ettore Bugatti) to their concept for a high-end, luxury car. They moved their company to Indianapolis to take advantage of the city’s growing reputation as an auto racing capital.
 
Their Model A was intended to be one of the most advanced cars on the road, something akin to the hypercars manufactured in small numbers at very high price points today.
 
“It was like your personal sports car,” Grate said. “Race cars were their own thing, only operated by race car drivers for use on the track, and passenger cars for everyday use. And the Duesenbergs come along and they're using the same in-line overhead cam engine that they're using successfully in race cars, but you could buy one and drive it on the public streets. Essentially, you have your own personal sports car.”
 
While the Model A was intended to begin sales in 1919, Fred Duesenberg, the company’s chief engineer, kept fiddling with the design. For instance, the engine—which was a large, eight-cylinder, 4.3-liter cast-iron block—had featured horizontal overhead valves, but this was changed to an overhead camshaft, creating a delay. 
 
Another change came about because of a racing victory: A Duesenberg car won the 1921 French Grand Prix at Le Mans.   
Hydraulic brakes had been a marginal part of the racing scene since Malcolm Lockheed invented the technology in the mid-1910s. Fred Duesenberg filed patents for his own hydraulic braking innovations shortly after.

Hydraulic brakes provided a great advantage over purely mechanical brakes, as the hydraulic system could better multiply the force applied from the brake pedal to brake shoes at the wheels. While some racing car manufacturers (and race drivers) still preferred manual brakes, Duesenberg installed hydraulic brakes that acted on all four wheels in its Grand Prix entries. 
 
“The Duesenbergs were always looking to get an edge,” Grate said. “They would do anything they could to go faster, win more races, achieve higher speeds. So, they weren’t opposed to trying new things and experimenting. That was basically their entire lives at this point.”
 
The superior handling of this feature enabled the company to claim three of the top six places at the Grand Prix. (The same car and driver would go on to win the 1922 Indianapolis 500.)
 
“It made national news, international news, and not only just in the racing circuits,” Grate said. “And obviously the brakes were mentioned heavily. They knew they had to capitalize on it.”
 
The Duesenbergs quickly revamped the design of the Model A to include hydraulic brakes on all four wheels as a standard feature. Instead of the special hydraulic fluid, however, the system used a mixture of water and glycerine to convey the force. 
 
For all its advanced technology and racing pedigree, the Model A was never a major seller. Grate said each chassis was hand-made to order, and the bodies were constructed to the specification of the customer; sometimes, the finished chassis would be shipped without a body to be completed elsewhere. During the production run of the Model A from 1921 to 1926, only about 650 were built.
 
Price was definitely a factor. Duesenberg offered the car for $6,500, which is more than $115,000 in today’s dollars or five year’s salary for an average worker at the time. 
 
The Duesenbergs ran into financial problems and the company was sold out of receivership to E.L. Cord in 1926, with Duesenberg becoming a division of the Auburn Automobile Co., another manufacturer of top-end cars. The Great Depression made it difficult for luxury car companies, such as Studebaker, which sold the unfortunately named Dictator. 
 
“You didn't want to go past a bread line being driven by a chauffeur in your expensive Duesenberg,” Grate said. “It was a bad look.”
 
While hydraulic brakes took some time to catch on, by the 1940s even the mass-manufactured cars of the Big Three featured them. These brakes, together with power steering, made it easier for motorists of all shapes and sizes to keep cars under control and spurred the automobility revolution in post-World War II America.
 
“As with a lot of inventions, it started as a trickle and then gained momentum,” Grate said. “Your Buicks, Chevrolets, and Fords—those companies were producing hundreds of thousands of specific cars, all built a specific way, they were hesitant to incorporate new technology as drastic as four-wheel hydraulic brakes. But once the companies started seeing the advantages, mechanical brakes became a rarity, and hydraulic brakes became the norm.”
 
Grate concluded, “Even today, we’re still using hydraulic brakes. They’ve obviously been changed and refined, but the basic principles are still the same.”

Jeffrey Winters is the editor in chief of Mechanical Engineering magazine. The ASME Central Indiana Section will host a ceremony commemorating the Duesenberg Hydraulic Brakes on March 27, 2025.