Need for speed: Historic car meets secure future at Revs Institute in Naples

A dusk-blue 1929 Du Pont Speedster with eye-stopping crimson wire wheels and red leather upholstery rolled into the Revs Institute this week, and everyone around it fell in love.

The Vitesse Gallery of the Institute in Naples will be its home after its recent donation, the sixth historically significant car to come to Revs that way. After unveiling the Speedster for auto enthusiasts and media Wednesday, founder Miles Collier admitted his delight at being offered the car in an appropriate vintage expression: “Knowing where it was coming from, the thought was 'Hot dog!'” he said.

"They're great and interesting cars. It fits right in here, in the Vitesse Gallery. It's about motoring sport and sporting motoring. And this one is about as 'sporting motoring' as it gets," he said. 

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He called the car "a perfect fit for the Institute’s mission to both capture the historical car world’s imagination, to capture research and media that make the case that the automobile is one of the important technological artifacts of our time.”

A rare auto designed for “country club sportsmen” but with the ability to race at Le Mans, the Du Pont Speedster is more than gleam and photo op. The 1929 Speedster had 140 horsepower, more than three times the amount of a family sedan in those years, and could wind out at 100 mph.

When the 14 Model G speedsters, of which this is one, were built, they were selling at around today’s equivalent of $86,000. Among the owners of Model G Du Pont Speedsters were Douglas Fairbanks Jr., whose wife, fellow film star Mary Pickford, had presented him with it. Other Model G owners: humorist Will Rogers and world heavyweight champion boxer Jack Dempsey. Among American-manufactured autos, it was in a class with the hotter-than-thou Duesenberg.

Unfortunately, it disappeared just as quickly as the Doozy during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Thomas L. duPont, the owner who offered the Speedster to Revs, calls his love affair with the car a family legacy. The Du Pont auto company was run by a cousin, E. Paul duPont, and Thomas duPont has owned a number of its models.

And Thomas duPont's fascination with cars goes beyond his own. For some 30 years he published a marketplace magazine for historic, rare and exotic cars. He has sold the magazine and is retiring, which meant space for his own collection would soon be limited.

Dupont wanted to donate the vehicle to an organization that would appreciate it.

"Of course I'll miss it," he said. "But it's going to outlive me. So it's got to be someplace where somebody will take care of it."

"It was very easy to choose the Revs and Miles Collier's automotive museum," duPont said after the car was unveiled. "He does the right job in researching its archeological history, (and there's) the combination of a little bit of a racing background, as well as what Miles is known for here. All you have to do is look around and see this collection, and you know this car belongs right here."

"It’s extraordinarily well designed,” duPont told the crowd at the reception, pointing to several unique features: It had a four-speed transmission, relatively rare in the United States at the time. It also had a wicked little lever on the floor beside the driver.

“The car runs so smoothly and quietly you could almost sneak up on a Tesla,” he joked. “But pull that lever back and it has a muffler cut-out, so you could rumble down the street like you're driving a hot rod.”

The Du Pont motor company was not one to start from ground up, when it could install tested components such as a Continental motor and Warner gear box. Its finish, however, was pure Du Pont. The company had made a name for its hard, chip-resistant auto paint, Duco, which was becoming the standard in the 1920s. Buyers could choose from a veritable crayon box of colors.

"In the late 1920s — the Roaring Twenties, when everybody had a lot of money — there were some amazing confections that were produced," Collier said. 

No one has skimped on sweetness in the Du Pont Roadster, either. Its lipstick red leather seats are in mint condition. The Lalique crystal mascot, an eagle head, gazes sternly from the hood.

Its metal dashboard, as Revs Institute guide Lodge McKee explained, was given its jeweled look with hand-tooling. Every "facet" was done individually with a dowel-tipped drill and jeweler's polish.

Those who know that may gasp at a look under the hood; the entire wall has been given the same painstaking treatment. 

Visitors couldn't resist snapping photos of themselves with it. Deborah Gobiel, a critical care nurse at NCH, had prevailed upon a friend to bring her to the reception, and she had a selfie snapped in front of the Speedster's long, lean hood, too.

But she had come for the history. Gobiel was questioning the docents about details down to the small crest on the passenger side door.

"I want to know every facet of it," she declared. "It's just absolutely beautiful."

Harriet Howard Heithaus covers arts and entertainment for the Naples Daily News/naplesnews.com. Reach her at 239-213-6091.

Revs Institute

Where: 2500 Horseshoe Drive S., Naples

When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays only. All visitors must reserve tickets online for specific dates and times in advance. Admission begins each half hour.

Admission: $20. $15 military, educators and children ages 8-17 

To reserve:revsinstitute.org or 239-687-7387

Something else: "Jewels of the Road," a unique exhibit of glass, Lucite and other rare car mascots (hood ornaments) is at the Revs Institute through May 31