National Geographic: Treasures from the Past Page #2

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In the 1920s,

their engineering genius brought

the checkered flat tree times.

In 1928, at their Indianapolis plant,

they created the ultimate

passenger car.

The owner of a super-charged Model J

could cruise in luxury

at 115 miles an hour.

In Hollywood, the Duesenberg became

the mark of a star.

Clark Gable owned two.

Gary Cooper's was goldenrod yellow

with pale green fenders.

James Cagney smiled behind the wheel.

But the Depression finally caught up

with the Duesenberg.

Less than 500 had been built when the

assembly line shut down for good.

Duesenberg owners form

an exclusive club.

In Auburn, Indiana,

they gather every Labor Day weekend

to parade their restored Model Js

before an admiring crowd

of automotive enthusiasts.

Owners love their Duesenbergs

were further than enthusiasm.

Many obsessed to perfections.

Others simply enjoyed

the status to come with ownership.

And pride, the showing off their

treasures to the thousands who come to look.

Some restored their Duesenbergs

not to drive them, but to compete.

Auburn native Phil Allison judges

a restoration.

Growing up around classic cars,

he restores them today

for wealthy collectors.

One of the best descriptive terms

I've ever heard,

and it's not mine

I get it from Gordon Buehrig's book.

And the title of his book is

Rolling Sculptures.

Morning, Ron. Have they brought the

Murphy convertible in yet?

Yes.

And I think that it so neatly defines

the work on these cars,

whether it be the Duesenberg

or the Cord.

They were such unique cars,

and they are truly works of art.

I know for years I was always hoping

for the opportunity to

get to do a Duesenberg.

Now we have three in our shop.

And so...

Now we have arrived.

Today, let's get started on

dismantling this car.

Once owned by movie actor

Tyrone Power, Model J Number 391

has just been purchased for $610,000.

Spruced up for the cheap coat of paint

by its most recent owner

No.391 will now be restored to

original condition of the grown up.

We will probably spend around

two years on the car.

Maybe not quite that long,

but it will be close.

And there is a lot of things

uh... restoration.

but unsuggested can be hurried

duro on that car

Several missing parts

and it don't go in logo-parts orderly.

go to find them and there be several

lighten on the difficulty come up with.

and we can find them have to be fabricative.

and it all take times.

To do a total restoration,

we're talking about

dismantling the car completely.

Then the rear end,

or differential-rear-axle assembly,

will be totally gone through.

The engine and transmission will

be totally rebuilt.

The exhaust manifolds will

be reporcelained.

The Duesenberg engine has an

excessive amount of aluminum on it,

which has to be highly polished.

There's a lot of hours of just

polishing and cleaning.

The chroming itself is a

major process.

It's a triple plating.

You first cover it with copper and

then it's buffed,

then it's nickled, then it's buffed,

Then it's chromed,

and then it's chrome-buffed.

A lot of times

we like to have a car sit

for four to six weeks just in primer.

Then it's blocked.

Then we put on maybe four to five

coast of lacquer

and let it set for another

four to six weeks.

Once it's totally cured,

then we'll sand off maybe

three of four of those coats of paint

and blocking it out.

And then we'll put on another

four to five coats,

let it set for another

four to six weeks,

and we'll probably end up sanding

off two or three of those coats.

And that's how we get the

high luster-high depth finish.

It takes obviously a fair amount of

money to fund a project like this,

and a lot of people are not in a

financial position to do this

until they're on in years.

And some customers express concern

that they're not going to live long

enough to see the finished product.

I think in most cases they are being

a little facetious,

but I can appreciate that when you

look at a long-term project

in your later years,

it could be a concern.

Restored for the pleasure of those

very few who can afford it,

the Duesenberg lives on

in Auburn, Indiana.

But in a city for away,

heroic endeavors are recovering

the treasures of a nation

for all the world to see.

Through the heart of Leningrad

flows the Neva River.

Along these banks nearly

three centuries ago,

one man created a great city

St. Petersburg

which became the capital of imperial Russia.

Today, Peter the Great still

looks out over his city.

With watchful eye he gazes

on wondrous visions...

...grand and exuberant visions

of a tsar

who like his country, was strong and proud

...fairy-tale places sprung up

as if by magic...

...country playgrounds for the

imperial court of Peter

and his successors...

...designed by the great

architects of Europe,

created from exquisite materials

by a multitude of craftsmen

summoned from afar.

On long winter nights,

these rooms were made brilliant

by candlelight reflected a

thousand fold in crystal mirrors.

Light danced on paintings overhead

and set the walls ablaze with color.

Light burned in gilded faces,

as costumed nobility

danced into the night.

They waltzed on parquet floors of

wood from the forests

of Europe and Asia, designed

in astonishing patterns.

Surrounded by their treasures,

the stars and their court waltzed

on into the 20th century.

The dance ended with the

Russian Revolution in 1917,

but the palaces lived on as museums.

Then distant rumblings in Europe

suddenly exploded on their doorstep.

In 1941 Nazi forces

surrounded Leningrad.

Hitler planned to level the city,

but the Soviet Army would not yield.

During the siege, the Nazis occupied

four palaces on the city outskirts.

After 900 days they withdrew,

burning the palaces as they left.

When the fires died,

a nation's treasures lay in ruin.

At the Catherine Palace,

chimneys protruded from a roofless skeleton.

Statues-victims of bombshells

and gunfire.

Stillness filled the Great Hall.

Parquet floors lay charred

under a blanket of winter snow.

A soldier in the Soviet Army,

Alexander Kedrinsky

remembers the siege.

After the Nazi retreat,

he entered the Catherine Palace.

On this spot in the Great Hall,

he looked up through broken rafters

at the winter sky.

Inside the palace, the interiors

that were not burned were looted.

Pictures had been viciously

slashed out of their frames;

only the outer edges remained.

Doors were broken away.

Paintings were on the floor, cut to pieces.

That's one thing.

The other thing is that there were

land mines hidden everywhere,

and the palace itself

was set to blow up.

Beneath it was a series of

one-ton bombs wired together

to go up in a single blast.

It's a miracle that the first

soldiers to enter the palace gates

after the German retreat

discovered this system and disarmed it.

The park around the palace

was dug up everywhere

with trenches and gun emplacements.

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