On July 2, 1932, while returning to Indianapolis from New York, Fred was driving a Duesenberg passenger car with a prototype, high-powered engine and lost control of it on a wet Lincoln Highway on Ligonier Mountain, about two miles west of Jennerstown, Pennsylvania. Duesenberg's automobile overturned, throwing him from the car. He was expected to fully recover from his injuries (a spinal injury and dislocation of the shoulder). While his wife and son traveled to Pennsylvania to be with him, Duesenberg developed pleural pneumonia. Duesenberg improved after oxygen was administered; however, he suffered a relapse and died on July 26, 1932, at the age of fifty-five. Duesenberg is buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana.