1920 ReVere-Duesenberg Four Passenger with a unique engine featured on Jay Leno’s Garage

Jay Leno is a huge fan of Duesenbergs. This car may appear like still yet another addition to the sequence of Duesenbergs showcased on “Jay Leno’s Garage” in excess of the a long time, but that is not fairly the circumstance.

This 1920 ReVere-Duesenberg Four Passenger is a item of the very long-defunct ReVere manufacturer. But it has an motor made by brothers Fred and August Duesenberg ahead of launching their eponymous automobile corporation, which sold its to start with auto in 1921.

Badged as a Rochester Duesenberg, the 5.5-liter inline-4 experienced an uncommon “strolling beam” style that Leno describes as “a low-cost alternate to dual overhead cams.” In its place of moving the cams up in the engine to right actuate the overhead valves, the Duesenberg brothers built rods to hook up the cams and valves. Their back again-and-forth movement gave the walking beam engine its name.

1920 ReVere-Duesenberg Four Passenger on Jay Leno’s Garage

That wasn’t the only abnormal characteristic of this engine. It was forged in a person piece with no heads, so the valves adhere out of the sides of the block. This removed head gaskets—and consequently a probable position of failure—but also made accessing the engine’s internals trickier than a typical motor design and style.

The engine proved trustworthy in racing, and due to the fact the Duesenberg brothers were not building their individual cars but, they applied that on-track effectiveness to current market the motor to other automakers. ReVere was a person of the providers that came calling. Fairly than style and design its individual autos from the ground up, ReVere assembled them from factors sourced from exterior suppliers—a frequent practice in the 1910s and early 1920s auto marketplace.

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When the head of ReVere appeared to have set up the organization as a inventory fraud, it did make a number of examples of a remarkably excellent vehicle. The Duesenberg motor is a “torque monster” that built the ReVere fairly fast for its time, according to Leno, and the car’s aluminum doors and an an aluminum radiator shell have been reasonably novel characteristics. It however had to make due with only rear-wheel brakes, on the other hand.

Leno estimates that only 4 or five ReVere cars are still left these days out of about 200 designed, making afterwards cars from the Duesenberg brand name seem frequent by comparison. People automobiles showcased a more subtle twin-cam straight-8 engine, and are nonetheless regarded by authorities as some of the biggest American automobiles ever manufactured. And the ReVere-Duesenberg was their prequel.