Among the most famous body styles produced for the Model J Duesenberg was the elegant convertible sedan by the Walter M. Murphy Company of Pasadena, California. Murphy was a great promoter of this design, variations of which were used on most all the great chassis of the Classic Era, perhaps because it was so well-suited to the sunny Golden State lifestyle. It was a beautifully proportioned work, with simple, classic lines, including the coachbuilder’s signature narrow Clear-Vision windshield frame. Duesenberg’s customers were very fond of the style, ordering some 45 examples before Murphy’s operations were shuttered in 1932.
Duesenberg Model J number 2225 was one of those outfitted by Murphy as the convertible sedan, and has a rich history entwined with Southern California and its colorful citizenry. Its earliest known owner was Roland Rich Woolley, a Los Angeles attorney known for his starry roster of clients and expertise in resolving their very high-profile marital squabbles. Most famously, he had represented Lita Grey when she was awarded what was, at the time, the largest divorce settlement in American history from film legend Charlie Chaplin. It is unknown which of Woolley’s not-inconsiderable legal fees funded the acquisition of the Duesenberg!
The car was eventually returned to the Los Angeles factory branch and, after some mechanical and cosmetic freshening in their hands, was sold in September 1935 to Harriet Moffat of Upland, who drove it across the country to her son’s graduation from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. They were accompanied back home to California by young Moffat’s college roommate, Jim Hoe—Hoe’s first experience with a Duesenberg, the marque in which he would become a renowned technical expert and restorer during the 1940s and 1950s.
Hollister Noble, a novelist and screenwriter, next acquired the Model J from Mrs. Moffat in 1940, and would own it for 10 years. It then passed to John Sheppard of Carpinteria, California, who exchanged its original engine, number J-204, with J-355 from chassis number 2374, and then to Ben Lowe of San Bernardino, who would keep the car for over a decade.
In 1962 the Duesenberg was sold to Pete Warvel of Gillett, Wisconsin, one of the period’s most avid collectors and enthusiasts of Model Js, who displayed it at that year’s CCCA Midwest Grand Classic at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (Warvel’s Duesenberg collection was funded, in classic Model J fashion, by a source of wealth both unlikely and obvious: He manufactured the curved wooden tops of the school desks ubiquitous in mid-century American classrooms.) Warvel kept the car for four years, after which it passed to Richard Lutey in 1966, then to the partnership of Ray Wernsman and Bob Adams in 1970. Ed Ivener of Kankakee, Illinois, bought the Model J in 1972 and displayed it in ACD Club and CCCA events for the next several years, before it was purchased by Roy Axford, in whose hands it first appeared at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 1980.
J-355 / 2225 was acquired in the mid-1980s by the Imperial Palace of Las Vegas, at the time building what remains the largest collection of original Model J Duesenbergs ever assembled, eventually numbering 50 cars. The convertible sedan was featured in their famous Duesenberg Room until the late 1990s, then became part of Evert Louwman’s renowned Louwman Collection in the Netherlands, displayed alongside many of the finest coachbuilt classics in Europe.
In 2012, the Duesenberg was purchased by the late John Shibles of Sea Girt, New Jersey, an enthusiast well-remembered and loved in the collecting community for his generous, buoyant personality and colorful charm, as well as the quality and presentation of his automobiles. Every car in the Shibles “Back Door Garage” was given a fond nickname, usually referencing a past owner or, in the case of “Murph,” its coachwork.
In Mr. Shibles’ ownership the car underwent a two-year restoration in the hands of Steve Babinsky’s Automotive Restorations in Lebanon, New Jersey, which has produced several award-winning Duesenbergs over the last four decades. Finished in deep, rich Knot Green, and retaining the side exhaust added in its prior restoration, “Murph” debuted in 2014, winning First in Class at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Soon thereafter, it went on to achieve the Fred and August Duesenberg Award for Best Duesenberg at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Club National Reunion, itself a momentous and significant honor. At the same event, it was inspected by the ACD Club and received its Category 1 Certification, paperwork for which is included in the file. At the 2015 Classic Car Club of America Annual Meeting, it achieved its Senior First Prize with that organization as well. It was, simply, one of the cars to beat, wherever it went—and it was seldom beaten.
Mr. Shibles prized “Murph” was one of the centerpieces of his collection, but was nonetheless persuaded to sell it to the current owner, himself an avid Duesenberg connoisseur, in the spring of 2022. Since preserved in the owner’s collection, it was shown at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2023, achieving Third in Class in the highly competitive Duesenberg class. Today it continues to present superbly, with the quality of its finishes and Mr. Babinsky’s workmanship still present throughout, and it is still well worthy of continuing its concours career with a new owner.
Undoubtedly this is one of the finest restored examples of the Murphy convertible sedan, among the best-known, most iconic, and popular body styles on the revered Duesenberg Model J. It is a car worthy of its superb heritage.
