William Crutchfield’s artworks often exaggerate the features of a particular machine in a playful or absurd way. Duesenberg, Model J, 1931, though, is a seemingly straightforward rendering of a luxury automobile. The pen and ink wash used to depict this classic vehicle remains true to the subject’s shape and form while offering glimpses of detail in the tread of the tires and the hood ornament. The directness of Crutchfield’s representation leads to the question: Why, when so many of his artworks rely on satire, does this one image seem so conventional? The inherent extravagance of this American vehicle—introduced in 1928, a year before the stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression—may be the clue. The mere fact that it was still being produced and sold in the United States in 1931 is shocking amid such great disparity of wealth. Crutchfield allows the ostentatious existence of the Duesenberg to signal its own contradiction.