A genuinely one-of-one 1935 Duesenberg Model JN Convertible Coupe — the one Clark Gable commissioned and then obsessively reworked to his own taste — is heading to RM Sotheby’s Monterey sale this August with an eye-watering estimate of $5.75 million to $8 million.
It’ll cross the block at the auction house’s Northern California event, running August 13-15 during Monterey Car Week. This is widely considered one of the most important celebrity-owned American cars on the planet, and it’s easy to see why: rare coachwork, real Hollywood history and nearly a century of paper trail backing it up.
Gable bought the car at the peak of his fame, snagging one of just four Rollston-bodied convertible coupes in the rarefied JN series. But a stock Duesenberg apparently wasn’t enough for the man, so he shipped it off to Pasadena coachbuilder Bohman & Schwartz, where designer W. Everett Miller went to town on it alongside Gable himself.
A lot of the changes came straight from Gable’s own head, and the records of them still live with the car today. We’re talking a more sharply raked windshield, a chopped roofline, a body-colored radiator shell, rear fender skirts, dual rear-mounted spares and custom wheel covers. The result stood out even in a sea of already-exclusive Duesenbergs — which is saying something.
Naturally, the car became part of Gable’s whole image. It showed up in promo shots and even got screen time in the 1938 flick Merrily We Live. It also got tangled up in his personal life, specifically his relationship with actress Carole Lombard.
After Lombard died in a 1942 plane crash, Gable reportedly let the car go. From there it bounced around the country for decades, landing with collectors in New Mexico, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, New York and Florida.
In 1973 it ended up with Florida collector Charles Johnson, who had it restored and later parked it at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum. A string of careful owners kept it going before it joined the Blackhawk Museum collection.
Since 2005 it’s lived with Sam and Emily Mann, who handed it over to the specialists at Stone Barn in New Jersey for a full restoration that brought it back to exactly how it looked under Gable’s ownership.
And the concours world ate it up. The Duesenberg took the Gwen Graham Trophy for Most Elegant Convertible at the 2007 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, then doubled down with Best of Show wins at both Amelia Island and Meadowbrook in 2008.
Here’s a great detail: the car’s original crankshaft, long presumed lost to history, has turned up and goes with the sale. Per the auction listing, the car now has every one of its original numbered components accounted for.
Between the rarity, the movie-star ownership, the history and the trophy cabinet, this custom Duesenberg is shaping up to be one of the headliners of Monterey Car Week and one of the most-watched lots of the entire year.
Image Darin Schnabel, courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
