August Duesenberg

August Samuel Duesenberg, called Augie, was a German-born American engine and automobile builder, born in 1879 in the Lippe region of Germany and raised in Iowa after his family emigrated in 1885. With his older brother Fred he built bicycles and motorcycles and then engines and cars, and the brothers shared patents filed in 1913 for a four-cylinder engine and the Duesenberg Straight 8, an eight-cylinder engine with a single overhead camshaft. They founded the Duesenberg Motor Company in 1913 and, with other investors, the Duesenberg Automobiles and Motor Company in 1920. Augie served as plant manager and then ran the separate Duesenberg Brothers racing business, whose cars set a speed record at Daytona Beach in 1920, won the 1921 French Grand Prix and took several Indianapolis 500 victories in the 1920s. He was not involved in the luxury passenger cars built after E. L. Cord acquired the company in 1926. In 1935 a Duesenberg-based car he helped build set 24-hour and one-hour records on the Bonneville Salt Flats. He died near Indianapolis in 1955 and was later inducted into several halls of fame.