Last week, in my daily rounds of looking at cars for sale on various platforms, I found this beautiful 1938 Pontiac Deluxe Six Two-Door Touring Sedan for sale on Hagerty Marketplace in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Sadly, it didn’t meet its reserve with a high bid of just $7,750, but given how few 1938 Pontiacs you’ll ever see, it’s well-deserving of its own feature.
An illustrated version of “our” 1938 Pontiac is prominently displayed in the sales catalog as “the most beautiful thing on wheels.” Sure, that’s an exaggeration, but the Six is eye-catching for a fairly workaday family car. Color choices were few in 1938, and the only green available was Glyndon Green, which would probably have been my choice if I were a man looking for a new Pontiac in 1938. Notice the stylized “6” at the bottom of the grille, the easiest way (short of looking under the hood) of determining which inline flathead powers the Pontiac you’re ogling.
I fell in “day” love (it happens a lot with cars I see and become fixated on for a day) with this 1938 Pontiac Six at the Pontiac Transportation Museum in Pontiac, Michigan. Painted Phantom Gray, it’s one of those cars you’ll never think about until you see one, which is too bad because it’s a great-looking old car. Maybe that explains my attachment to our featured green sedan.
Finding information about 1938 Pontiacs is difficult because of their age and their relative lack of popularity. Even something as mundane as production totals seems to be a matter of debate; my copy of Krause’s Standard Catalog of Pontiac 1926-1995 says that 77,713 Pontiac Sixes and 97,139 Pontiac Eights were built in 1938; however, internet sites seem to place Pontiac’s overall production as the latter number. Regardless, Pontiac was drastically outpaced by Chevrolet, which sold almost 500,000 copies of a car that was very similar but cost around $100 less. Still, and I don’t mean to rile up any Stovebolt supporters, the Pontiac’s driveline alone was probably worth the extra money. Both the six and the eight have an excellent reputation for durability, and they both had full-pressure oiling, unlike the Stovebolt Chevy. For modern mechanics, the Pontiac is probably a better buy because of its open driveline, and as the owner of a torque-tube-equipped Buick, I can tell you that I’d much rather work on the Pontiac.
Regarding the body tag of this car, the paint code of “15D” suggests that this car may have been originally painted Elkskin Brown, and if that’s true, the current color was a nice upgrade. The “Style” number of 38-2611 tells us that this is a Pontiac Deluxe Six Two-Door Touring Sedan, which carried a base price of $891.
The Touring Sedan added a trunk to the basic two-door sedan, making the extra $26 the bargain of the year, although the appendage didn’t do much for the looks.
The engine is the aforementioned flathead six, which displaced 233 cubic inches and produced 85 horsepower; for comparison, the 249-cubic-inch eight made 100 horsepower. Improvements for 1938 included an engine-compartment-mounted battery, a clutch overcenter spring, an improved water pump with ball bearings, and a transmission with upgraded synchronizers.
A $10 option was the “Safety Shift Gear Control,” a fancy way of saying “column shift.” The sales catalog said that it “gives greater ease, speed, and safety to gear shifting [and] leaves floor clear,” and while the latter might be true, anyone who’s driven a three-on-the-tree car can tell you that there’s nothing fast about shifting one. As far as I can tell, tan was the only option for interior trim in 1938, and this car appears to have been reupholstered in tough-looking modern fabric.
The Pontiac is full of little styling details you won’t find in modern cars, such as the intricate steering wheel, the stylish clock, the ornate plastic knobs, relatively thorough instrumentation, and my favorite: Chief Pontiac as a high-beam indicator.
But perhaps the best part of this 1938 Pontiac is the live history lesson you’ll get every time you drive it. Yes, it’s not the most practical choice for a high-speed world, parts are certainly tough to find, and its styling is charming rather than beautiful, but this old sedan is certainly worth more than $7,750, isn’t it?
Related Reading
CC Museum Tour: Pontiac Transportation Museum – Old School (by me)
Very attractive car, and the similarity of the Fisher body with my old ’38 Buick Special is obvious. Thanks for showing it to us, Aaron!
Consumer Research Bulletin’s Automobile Number of February 1938 made the Pontiac 6 the first choice in its price group ($864 to $967). Depreciation of the previous year’s car was 26%, below average. “This is a good car, but the usual equipment will add about $50 to the cost price. [Presumably a reference to things like bumpers and a spare tire, which weren’t included in advertised f.o.b. prices.] Tires not overloaded.The remote control of the transmission, which is only $10 as compared to $30 and up for others, is believed to be worthwhile. Considered a relatively good buy. First choice.” The other cars in the group, in order of ratings, were Dodge, DeSoto, Hudson Terraplane, and Oldsmobile 6.
The excellent Beverly Rae Kimes article on flathead Pontiacs in Automobile Quarterly, Third Quarter 1978, says that in England, The Autocar took a 1938 Pontiac to Brooklands “and recorded an 85.71 mph top speed and zero to 60 in 19.3 seconds, adding that the acceleration figures ‘cannot testify to the lack of effort that goes with it.'” She didn’t specify if they tested a 6 or an 8; I suspect it was a 6 as the 8 would have been quite expensive to keep on the road in Britain.
And presumably The Autocar’s tester was equipped with floor shift since it might not have been worthwhile to tool up for the relatively low volume right hand drive export cars.
Especially since going in they weren’t yet sure it would catch on, it’s only with hindsight we know it became the standard for a full generation before falling into obscurity.
My dad’s ’37 Oldsmobile (he drove it before my time in ’59-’61) had column shift in RHD Australia.
Boy , thats a RARE ONE !! I have probably only seen about two in my lifetime. Being an original vehicle, that alone , makes it more rare. I’m surprised somebody hasn’t snapped it up by now! A great find ! Happy Motoring.
Hagerty notes it was sold for $12,840 soon after…
This is a beautiful car. AARON65 gives interesting details of what Pontiac offered in 1938. I would agree that GM’s three on the tree were not the best shifters. My experiences with a ’46 and ’53 Ford manual showed me that these could be shifted quickly and easily and I always wondered why GM’s offerings couldn’t do the same.
The column shifter on my 1971 Chevy pickup was balky, no matter how much I fussed with it. GM apparently never improved it.
I’m a fan of GM’s styling in this era and the Pontiac is as good or better than any of the others. A very attractive car.
What a beauty .
Make mine a coupe .
-Nate
Pontiac high-beam indicator was used all the way through 1970, long after that logo disappeared from the rest of the car or in Pontiac advertising.
I am one of a dwindling number of fans of original-style cars of this era. Sadly, the only way I could ever justify buying one would be a low bid like that $7500 or so, because I would expect an even harder time selling it in a few years.
These are definitely prettier than the contemporary Dodges.
The exterior is very attractive but I am less enthused about the ‘Tobacco-stain Brown’ interior view.
While at an auction years ago, I had an older gent explain to me what classic cars sell. The cars that sell were those of our formative years. For my generation, that is 1960s and 1970s stuff. The target market for prewar cars is largely pushing up daisies.
The featured car here is simply gorgeous. The extra $100 for the Pontiac is definitely worth it, even if it is just for the full pressure lubrication.
Pontiac is My favorite division of GM and this beautiful Green Pontiac is classy! Pontiac, originally a Canadian brand always seemed to struggle getting buyers. I think they were a great value, better styling than entry level Chevrolet and added an element of sportiness! I like that Sweep Speedometer and the wood tone dashboard ! At $ 7.500 it’s a bargain!!
What a beautiful car.
GM used to be amazing. All those divisions, sharing bodies but able to disguise them so well. None of that image-crafting or brand manangement psychobabble, just real, actual quality. differences you could see and feel, Diffferences that made $100 extra for a Pontiac over a Chevy feel like a steal.
What I don’t get is this “Body by Fisher” hoo-ha.
Wasn’t Fisher a wholly-owned subsidiary of General Motors for most of its existence? It’s just the factory body! It’d be like Ford saying “Body by Ford”, or Plymouth “Body by Chrysler”. Yet they trumpeted the Fisher name for years and years like it was something special. I guess somebody thought it might sell them more cars to be able to say “Body by Fisher” – but it does seem rather disingenuous. It’s not like there was another choice (except for the odd Fleetwood Cadillac).
One day when I’m really bored I’ll look into just what ‘Fisher’ actually did during all those GM years!
Fisher was a separate and apparently powerful division of GM, just like Chevrolet, and owned its own metal-bashing plants which shipped semi-completed bodies to the divisions for final assembly. It also had a substantial advertising budget which it deployed to great effect in full color magazine ads that ran from the Thirties through the Sixties. The impression was created in the public mind that Fisher bodies were something extraordinary, whether true or not. Ford fought back weakly by trumpeting their Lifeguard Body, the distinction of which was always rather vague. But it was neat to step into a GM car and see the Fisher crest emblazoned on the door sill. Made you feel like you had something special, like in the coach built days.
Thanks for that, rollfast. Kind of makes a bit more sense now. They weren’t just a name on a company register somewhere (as I’d thought) but were effectively the name for GM’s body-stamping division. Did the divisions stamp their own distinctive sheetmetal to mate up to the Fisher bits, or did Fisher handle that too?
I was wondering if that was a then-contemporary color, and there it is on the brochure. What a nice car. Sadly, not really a useable thing any more, unless one lives somewhere a bit rural. Too slow and under-braked for today’s distracted urban world, and there’s not the parts (or money) to bung in hidden front discs and such in order to make so.
“Day love”. How terribly true, for anyone seriously afflicted by the disease of car. (And, like a drunk’s remorse, one finds evidence of that brief flowering a week later, and thinks “and what in the hell was so interesting about one of THOSE?”)
As a person who lives ‘somewhere a bit rural’, I’d jump at the chance to own something like that. If I could still drive, that is. And unfortunately my town is getting less rural every year. They’re even talking about putting in traffic lights at one intersection – what next! 🙂
Very similar to a car my grandparents had before I was born and that I’ve heard many stories about. Theirs was a cream-colored 6, but I’m not sure if it was plain 2-door sedan or the touring 2-door sedan. Grandpa bought it used in 1939 or 40 and traded in his 1928 Oldsmobile for it. They drove it all through the Depression finally trading it for a new 1950 Ford Deluxe 2-door sedan.