Cars from the 1930’s are becoming a bit like a foreign language to many of us here. I am now north of sixty years on this orb and these were long gone from the roads by the time of even my earliest memories. I learned about and got fascinated with cars of this era from old movies and family photos, but certainly not from any personal contact. So a little contact with this one was a real treat – a story I will come back to.
In the list of cars that people get sentimental over, LaSalle is fairly far down the list. Except for Edith and Archie Bunker who sang about one in the lyrics in the song that opened the 1970s sitcom All in the Family (“Gee our old LaSalle ran great . . . “), these were are not well remembered. They were, however, a part of the General Motors that worked mightily to make it through the Great Depression.
The LaSalle – though not perhaps this model – is best known for a couple of things . The 1927 LaSalle kicked General Motors’ “companion car” program upstairs after the Oakland Division’s successful introduction of Pontiac in 1926. Alfred Sloan had noticed a wide gap between Buick and Cadillac and sought to fill it. The LaSalle was the result – an entry-level Cadillac in all but name. The original LaSalle is also the car that turned a young freelancer named Harley Earl into the titan of automotive styling at GM (and everywhere else, for that matter). That initial LaSalle is said to have been the first “styled car” – and it kicked off a trend in which the entire industry began to pay attention to the way cars looked.
The LaSalle was a relative success and within the next two years both Oldsmobile and Buick Divisions would get a companion – Buick begat the Marquette, and Oldsmobile birthed the Viking. But by 1932 Cadillac was the only dual-brand Division left, and even it’s entry line was not doing all that well. From 22,691 LaSalles built in 1929, production had dropped to 3,290 cars by 1932.
The rear-wheel-drive Cadillac Broughams of the 1980’s are sometimes derided as “Oldsmollacs” because of their use of the Oldsmobile V8 for their motive source. The 1975 Seville could also be given that nickname for the same reason. The Seville was not the original Oldsmollac, however, because the 1934 LaSalle earned that description first. That car was demoted to the B body (used by the mid-price Divisions) on a 120 inch wheelbase and was also demoted by the use of Oldsmobile’s flathead inline 8 as the price of remaining in production at all.
The LaSalle got a couple of improvements, however, when the Olds 8 was nudged upward in displacement from Oldsmobile’s 240 cid (3.9L) to 248 cid (or 4.1L) and also got bodies that were built by Fleetwood instead of by Fisher.
The other thing LaSalle got was a beautiful and advanced new styling theme from Earl, which made the car one of the most modern and attractive in the industry for 1934.
The LaSalle even got the honor and publicity of serving as pace car for the Indianapolis 500 that year. But even with all of the style and publicity the Cadillac Division could muster, sales were only marginally improved at 7,195 cars.
LaSalle would be brought back into the Cadillac family in 1937 when it was allowed to jettison the Olds power and use the new 322 cid (5.3L) Cadillac monoblock V8. Sales jumped to a record of over 32,000 units, but LaSalle still badly lagged the competition. In comparison, the popular Packard One Twenty generated 50,100 copies – a figure that did not include another 65,400 examples of the new six cylinder Packard One Ten.
The LaSalle was even threatened by the upstart Lincoln Zephyr, with 29,997 examples to its credit. Of course, the words “Packard” and “Lincoln” were on the cars in competitors’ showrooms while the name “Cadillac” was was nowhere to be found on its companion brand beyond some small print at the bottom of the advertising. LaSalle would struggle on for a few years longer before being replaced by the entry level Cadillac Series 61 in 1941.
That last bit is interesting to me. The received wisdom is that the Cadillac Series 61 was far more popular than the LaSalle had been. This is actually not true at all – the Series 61’s two best years (1941 and 1950) never managed to best LaSalle’s 1937 record and spent several years unable to hit five figure production numbers before the line expired with fewer than 5,000 built in 1951. Somehow, value-oriented Cadillacs never found much of a market no matter what name they carried.
This particular LaSalle is a 1936 Series 36-50, the final year of the “Oldsmollac” LaSalle. At $1,225 for the four door sedan, it cost almost double a comparable Oldsmobile and also cost its owner nearly 1/3 the price of an average new home in 1936. It was also the least popular offering of lower priced cars by traditional luxury brands, with only 13,004 produced, and compared with 14,994 Lincoln Zephys (in that model’s debut year) and 55,042 Packard One-Twenties.
But I knew nothing about any of that when I first saw this car, which was in August of 2017 at a small show near my neighborhood. I was struck by the beautiful styling – and the beautiful condition – of this car, which served up a style not often seen at small car shows. I took several photos and chatted for a few minutes with the elderly owner who sat contentedly in his lawn chair.
Imagine my surprise a few years later when I got a call from a woman who needed to deal with the estate of her late uncle. “He had an old car” she said – not an uncommon thing to come up in conversation. “It was a LaSalle. He sure loved driving it around to shows.”
I have often joked that I will surely forget your name and may even forget your face, but I will never, ever forget your car. And her words “LaSalle” and “car shows” made me ask “The LaSalle – I don’t suppose it was green?”
Yes indeed – the car I had admired so much on that day (which resulted in more photos than I took of anything else at that show) had, sadly, outlived one more owner.
The experience has been bittersweet for me. I got to see the car recently, parked indoors and out of the elements – but in a garage with more dampness issues than would have been optimal. Sadly, time and the owner’s final illness took its toll and the car sat somewhat forlornly with a flat tire and a dead battery, as well as a vague understanding that it had not been running properly before the owner became incapacitated.
How do you sell a car like this? It is easy if you want to take it home, clean it up, fix a couple of things and then hit the local show circuit. It is not so easy when the family is out of state and neither the estate’s attorney nor anyone else has the time to donate to getting the old girl back in shape. And when it has to be moved because the house has been sold, the pressure to sell gets really strong. The answer is that you turn it over to a general auction company (after unsuccessfully reaching out to some local Cadillac aficionados) and watch it sell for far too little money.
We all know that nice prewar cars are for sale everywhere with few takers. And this poor LaSalle was not really in much of a niche. Fans of prewar Cadillacs like their Cadillacs with a Cadillac V8. Prewar Oldsmobile fans – wait, are there any of those? And if there were, they would want their Oldsmobiles to be Oldsmobiles on the outside as well as on the inside. And all of them want something that runs and drives as good as it looks. But some unknown person got ahold of a really nice car from the peak of Harley Earl’s styling influence and from the days when Body by Fisher (or Body by Fleetwood) got you a really nicely done car.
When new, this LaSalle had the odds stacked against it as a not-quite Cadillac. And 85 years later it was still fighting long odds in finding a new home that will give it the respect it deserves. Let’s hope it makes this latest transition successfully.
Gee, our old LaSalle ran great. Those were the days.
This 1939 LaSalle/Meteor Combination Car was built by Meteor Motor Car Company of Piqua, Ohio on a LaSalle Model 39-50 Commercial Chassis. With 35k miles, it still runs like a champ! LaSalles are great vehicles!
Which reminds me Mr. Fluss; in James Bond’s “Dr. No” of 1962, 3 shady characters pretending to be blind tried to run Bond off a mountain road in a `39 LaSalle hearse!! What actually went over the cliff and exploded was a mocked up replica, but someone even then had the good sense to not destroy such a beautiful car!
Good article, great detail pics. LaSalle was never a ‘necessary’ brand. Buick was also poaching on its territory, and Buick was GM’s favorite son.
It’s interesting that the ’36 ad treats Fleetwood as a semi-separate brand.
You made me curious, and I did a little research – a 1936 Buick Century sedan was $1000 and a Roadmaster sedan was $1255, so this car was priced right between those two. A entry-level Buick Special sedan could be had for $885.
One thing that surprised me about this car was the very plain steering wheel – no horn ring, no banjo spokes or anything like that.
The Depression changed everything. In the mid twenties, the price gaps/differentiation between GM’s makes was much greater, and Sloan saw an opportunity to slide in companion makes in these gaps, with essentially no overlap.
But the Depression compressed the gaps, as the higher end cars had to become drastically cheaper. This caused the gaps to disappear, and overlap became a real problem. By the time this LaSalle was built, it was essentially irrelevant, as had the other companion brands (Oakland was ditched in favor of its cheaper Pontiac companion).
Sloan’s ladder once had room for more rungs; no more. And of course this process happened again after the war, as the brands expanded up and down, overlapping each other like made. The Sloan ladder was essentially irrelevant after 1955 or so, but the brands were maintained because of inertia, which was powerful enough to make them profitable. That of course changed finally again when GM kept losing market share in the 80s.
An excellent point-
Another quick check, but from 1928, all sedans:
Top Buick – $1995
LaSalle – $2350
Bottom Cadillac – $4195
Part of that drop from 1928-1936 would be monetary deflation of around 20% that accompanied the depression, but much of it was severe price-cutting to sell cars in a terrible economy.
An orphan brand powered by an orphan engine built in a time that is rapidly becoming an orphan of sorts. Let’s hope this LaSalle has met a reasonable fate with its new owner.
The LaSalle brand, like the other GM companion brands, has always fascinated me. While having them may have made sense at the time, from this vantage point having that many seems a bit mystifying. However, those brands are all long gone (even Pontiac, the most successful companion brand), so perhaps that explains it all.
I seem to remember you having mentioned this car at one point; it’s good to have seen it here and learned a bit more of its story.
A poignant tale, JPC, very well-told. From his slant and bones in that chair in 2017, I’m going to guess the old fellow who owned it was about 10 years old when this was new in ’36. I’m glad you talked.
They really are now like a foreign language, these old machines. I feel caught somewhere between their time and this, when I have begun to have trouble identifying the cars of now. Through a slow-mounting slide in interest, I am beginning to lose the current language. It feels odd, as a car guy.
As the world moves closer to 100 years since the time of these lovely cars, I suspect their desirability will continue to fade along with those whose lives were once touched by them.
Even this La Salle – fancy, a Caddy powered by Olds, you HAVE educated me! – which was always very pretty for that super-slim grille, that will become a large ornament. I do hope some young Don Quioxte tilts for it.
I sigh for the likely loss, but it really is the way of history. We think we know things but it turns out we don’t. We think our permanence will be that in the future too, but it never is. I don’t believe in the Greek idea of descent from the golden times (one that is at the heart of the Bible narrative too, when you think of the Garden of Eden there at the beginning). I believe we are always rising, even as we do our best not to. There is so much proof in science of this.
It does not mean for a moment that we cannot indulge in nostalgia. It’s the heart of CC, after all, and probably a deep-rooted, death-staving need in all humans.
Really enjoyed this piece, Counsellor C.
Thank you for it.
I’m one of the few who actually does get a bit sentimental over LaSalle — just because it was my grandparents’ first car.
Theirs (if I remember the stories correctly) was a 1937, or ’38, and was dark blue. But my grandparents weren’t wealthy folks or Cadillac wannabes – instead they bought it well used in about 1950. A 13-year old LaSalle certainly wasn’t a status symbol, but the cars were regarded as being durable, which was what mattered.
My grandfather drove it for a few years before it broke down in some sort of catastrophic manner. Shortly afterwards he sold it to a junkyard for $25. My dad (about 12 years old at the time) was frustrated that his father did that. Evidently, late 1930s LaSalles had excellent transmissions that were sought after by hot-rodders in the 1950s… my father said it could easily have sold the car to a hot rod shop for much more than $25 They’d have used the transmission and scrapped the rest of the car.
I sure hope this car finds the home it deserves.
And regarding your comment that:
…I’m very much the same way. I’m completely terrible at recognizing faces — quite literally, people all look the same to me. But I can recognize someone’s car from two blocks away.
“…instead they bought it well used in about 1950. A 13-year old LaSalle certainly wasn’t a status symbol, but the cars were regarded as being durable, which was what mattered.”
This adds context to the line from All in the Family, as well. Assuming the Bunkers are about the same age as their actors (b. 1923-4) they certainly weren’t in the market for a new luxury car as teenagers but more likely are fondly reminiscing about a cheap old beater that proved better than expected.
Did the old guy say anything about the history of the car? From the placard in the lower right corner of the pic, it says, “In the memory of…” so I wonder if he’d had it for a long time and was, indeed, one of those ‘part of the family’ cars and his heirs just didn’t have the sentimental attachment that he had to it (at least not enough to devote the time and energy to keep it in any kind of operational shape). Definitely seems like the LaSalle that Archie and Edith sang about and hope it found a good home.
The owner was a retired mechanic who had done some local racing. His wife of many years was the one who was behind his getting the car, which he bought at Hershey a few years before that. It was presented as a car with 15 or 20k actual miles at that time, and it sure looked legit to me.
His wife had passed on before I first met him, and he had a little tribute photo of her on the placard he kept for display. He remarked how they had enjoyed going to shows together in the LaSalle, and it was evident that while he still enjoyed that activity, he missed having her there with him.
California’s Rubicon Trail, which has given its name to an off-road package for the Jeep Wrangler, has a section known as “Cadillac Hill”, named after the remains of an old car off the trail (and no longer visible) dating back to when the trail was more navigable by passenger cars (and cars were tougher). In fact, the car is an early LaSalle. I found the attached photo online though I can’t vouch for it. But it does look like a LaSalle.
For anyone younger than 40, the only cars of any direct sentimental value are very difficult if nigh impossible to keep running past a certain age because of aging electronics, made worse in California and similar locales by emissions regulations, which have been shown to be a boon to the planet but make (in California, at least) survival of most post 1975 cars past 30 years of life rare indeed (Toyota pickups and Volvo 240’s seemingly excepted).
What that means is, if gasoline-powered classics are going to survive at all for the next 20 years or so (by no means assured), they will be owned by folks with little direct experience with such, but instead find the car interesting. I think that will mean a mild resurgence of 1930’s cars, especially as 3d printing and the like make reproduction of various trim parts possible, and noting these cars are mechanically very simple.
Alternatively, if the only way forward for classic car ownership is via electrification, these cars also may survive as the simple chassis and neat lines make it a good target for an “electro-mod”.
survival of most post 1975 cars past 30 years of life rare indeed (Toyota pickups and Volvo 240’s seemingly excepted).
I think “most” cars over 30 years are inevitably not going to survive, and “most” cars over 30 years have never survived. As to whether the post-30 year survival rate is shrinking or growing, my guess is that it’s grown. Over 30 year old cars were very rare when I was young; they were only those that folks were already collecting or being kept in a garage or barn. But 30+ year old cars being driven on the streets was a real rarity.
I still see lots of 30+ year old cars on the streets or at the curb, including when I go to California. I see gobs of them there. CC is all about documenting them, precisely because there are so many on the West Coast due to the favorable climate.
It seems to me you’re being overly pessimistic. And I don’t see much likelihood of younger folks becoming more attracted to these really old cars; a very few, yes, but not a widespread interest.
Cars of the 80s are very hot now, as collectibles, and there seem to be enough around. And inevitably attention will move to cars of the 90s. Folks are always interested in reliving their youth.
The LaSalle, at least this ‘36 version, looks directly aimed at the low-end Packard. The dashboard and interior, the overall proportions and look, and those rounded window frames with fat pillars, which appear as exaggerated versions of a signature Packard styling trait of the mid-thirties.
Perhaps LaSalle’s greatest claim to long-term fame was the transmissions out of the ‘37s through the end in 1940. Hot rodders loved them because they were the right combination of strength and durability, yet not too heavy and large. No other transmission of the era filled the bill.
That’s an interesting tidbit about the LaSalle transmission being a preferred hotrod item. I wonder how many builders who want a period-correct, old-school hotrod go to the trouble of locating and using a LaSalle tranny.
FWIW, I did a little searching and found someone who was looking for an adapter for a SBC bellhousing to a LaSalle transmission. The post was from sometime ago and I have no idea if he was successful finding one.
What a lovely style .
I hope it goes / went to a good home .
-Nate
I’ve met cars and their owners like this, and it’s always a bittersweet scenario. You’ve certainly done this one justice.
Although its surprisingly difficult to find a reference online, I believe the 1934 LaSalle was the first GM car to have hydraulic brakes, along with the related Oldsmobile. Fans of the model year, who waged an unsuccessful attempt to have it accepted as a full Classic by the CCCA, noted that in addition to a Fleetwood body rather than a plebian Fisher body, it was assembled in the Cadillac plant and was given Lynite aluminum pistons; Olds retained cast-iron pistons, apparently. 1935 and later LaSalles, like the pictured car, had Fisher bodies.
Given the low, low production of the very expensive and labor-intensive senior Cadillacs, the LaSalle performed a useful purpose in keeping part of the Cadillac workforce busy in the depths of the Depression, even if it didn’t set the sales charts on fire. As has often been noted, GM came close to giving the entire Cadillac division the ax in the early Thirties. Without LaSalle, Cadillac’s great postwar successes might never have been possible.
You mentioned the role of LaSalle in helping get the Cadillac Division through the Depression. I read recently, in a book about GM, that there was another factor: Black people buying Cadillacs. According to what I read, the dealers were not happy selling to affluent Blacks, so the buyers had to find whites to actually do the deals. GM brass decided to market more directly to Blacks. This apparently was one of the ways the division made it though the ‘Thirties.
I read that Cadillac was the first luxury make that would sell directly to black customers. It didn’t specify how they got dealers to do so, or if it was nation-wide.
I read somewhere once how Nat King Cole was ‘allowed’ to buy his first Cadillac in the 40s, and the press apparently ate it up!
Years ago I read a cringe-inducing letter that was sent to Cadillac dealers regarding how to sell Cadillacs to Black customers; I can’t find it now. It never used the term “black” (or “Negro” or any common term of its day, just implied it with various stereotypes)
Lincoln’s and Packard’s decision to put their names on their new lower-priced cars likely helped sales compared to the not-a-Cadillac LaSalle, but came back to bite them after the war when there was a seller’s market that makes the current one pale by comparison. Cadillac was unambiguously a luxury car at a luxury price unlike the other two, and that helped make it the segment leader (by far) for three decades hence.
> the Olds 8 was nudged upward in displacement from Oldsmobile’s 240 cid (3.9L) to 248 cid (or 4.1L)
Doesn’t look right – I don’t have a conversion chart in front of me, but .2L seems more than 8 cu.in.
“2L seems more than 8 cu.in.”
I thought so too, but rounding does a lot of work here. More precise numbers are:
240 cid = 3.9328
248 cid = 4.0639
I rounded to the nearest .1 on both numbers.
Pure ’30s eye candy, coupled with a (rather sad) owner’s story – CC gold! It’s especially great that this LaSalle is a standard six-light sedan – I bet there aren’t too many of those left.
The first post I wrote for this site, which was about a 1949 Talbot-Lago, had a similar history: its elderly owner had died recently, and it was in a sort of gray area, still under his name but advertised to be sold off. The huge difference is that 4.5 litre Talbot-Lago coupés are worth a lot of money, so the car was always going to find a new home.
But in Europe like in the US, “non-sexy” prewar classics, like underpowered factory-bodied LWB 4-cyl. saloons, are now rarer than sporty roadsters or specials on the same chassis. Cars like this LaSalle were the majority, but they have become the least common of their breed.
The green advertisement car doesn’t have the ’34’s fragile biplane bumpers, so it’s likely a ’35.
My Cadillac history book by Maurice Hendry said the ’36 had GM’s roundest windows ever (up to 1972). I’ve nearly worn that book out in nearly 50 years, and now I can’t find it. I suspect the late 30s LaSalle and Cadillac had the same transmission, which was also used in the more powerful V-16.
Love the dramatic, Hollywood lighting on that brochure, it looks like the LaSalle just told a ghost story.
My mother was one of those collector car wives… she loved riding in parades with Dad in his ’27 Hudson brougham, and, before that, a 22 Cadillac touring car that was lent to us by a kind friend of his. She affected a Royal Wave to the hoi polloi as the car motored by them.
Speaking of royalty, the lubrication badge on that La Salle is top shelf class!’
I’m in my seventh decade, and find most cars earlier than the ’80s nearly undriveable in everyday situations. Average speeds have inched up as cars’ suspension and handling has improved, so much so that a car from the ’50s is now much less fun on a road when Ford Focuses are lined up behind it like the parade in “It’s a Mad, Mad, World.”
Cars like the LaSalle were very trucklike when compared to newer sedans. Dad’s Hudson had straight cut gears everywhere, I believe. It was fun to drive, but only if you didn’t have 8 Chevy IIs trying to pass.
I experienced this same effects with traffic when I owned a 1929 Model A in the few years either side of 1990. Mrs. JPC got to where she was reluctant to ride in the car after a couple of experiences when other drivers assumed (quite wrongly) that my car had brakes as good as theirs. I am sure it would be much worse now, when everything is so much faster. Now I even find my 4 cyl/auto Honda Fit a little slow when compared to everything that surrounds me today.
Oh, wow. Great piece on this beautiful, green LaSalle. Like you had written at the beginning, cars from this era don’t really register with me, though I do think of the generation of consumers who prized them, from the late owner of this one and perhaps my own late grandparents. It was a wonderful tribute to this car and its one-time owner, bittersweet at the end.
I remember having read that the first Riviera was in the running to become named the reborn LaSalle, and if I’m not mistaken, so was the first Seville. The idea was shot down by those who feared consumers might tie the LaSalle name with a loser image, as the original LaSalle was not successful.
In 1964, my high-school friend and I bought a ’36 LaSalle for $25 and pulled it out of a junkyard with a tractor. Engine was frozen; we would get home from school, put it in 3rd gear and rock it back and forth until the engine freed up. After he went in the armed forces, I bought his half and drove it from Philly to Boston in 1967. Sold it for $500 when I foolishly decided I would rather have a motorcycle. Now I have a 1937 Buick, actually a much better car than the LaSalle ever was.
Some good points raised about the future for classic cars. Nearby garage has specialised in Morris Minors for over 40 years but has had to give up because the last of the mechanics with the engineering pedigree to rebuild them retired. Nobody young was interested in picking up the skills. If that happens to Minors, what hope for La Salle’s, never mind Hupmobiles and the rest. Is converting them to electric the only solution?
I’m just a bit north of 40 years old, and I’m quite fond of cars of this era. And yes, I even knew that the LaSalle used a larger displacement Oldsmobile straight 8 for 1934-36, then took on the Cadillac V8 at its old displacement of 322cid, while the ’37 Cadillacs got a 346cid version, courtesy of a larger bore.
Of note: the font of the “LaSalle” script, those tail lamps, the color, and the 4 door bodystyle really speak to me. I would be proud to own and drive this car, and would even maintain it in stock condition. I only have a little wheel time in 1930’s cars, but I’m pretty okay with the way they drive, by and large… biggest hinderance is the relatively low final drive ratios that most of them used back then. I once took a look at a 1940 Studebaker President and was considering it for a (semi) daily driver. An acquaintance owned a 1937 President, which was able to cruise at 75-80mph with its Borg Warner overdrive… With a bit of common sense, it could hang in there with most modern traffic.
I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority for people in my age group, though.
Anyone know what the 3-pronged thingie on the front bumper is for? I know it isn’t original.
It seems a little crude for carrying extra passengers or luggage.
Just a guess but I think it is to help protect the delicate grille behind it. It might make pedestrians think twice about darting out in front of you for fear of impalement.
I’m a little late to this one, but nicely said, JP. It’s all certainly a little sad; I hope that the car found someone to take good care of it, as it’s certainly a nice looking car. That advertisement of the LaSalle in the snow is beautiful!
great story,was the car show in new york state? did he now the history of the car? thanks for the pictures.
I’ll show my age a bit: I can remember when cars like these were half the average Saturday antique car show (AACA rules, of course, there was no alternative) . . . . the other half of the show being Model T and A Fords.
I always found GM’s styling in the mid-30’s to be really well done, no matter what the marque. Ok, I’ll admit some prejudice, but Buick and LaSalle were the best looking, Oldsmobile and Pontiac came off the poorest, and Chevrolet did what it needed to do. Outsell Ford (except for 1936 when Ford came up with one of their best styling jobs in decades) and Plymouth.
Car shows/gatherings were awful different back then: Being the late Sixties and first half of the Seventies, obviously nothing was showing unless it was pre-WWII (ok, there was some fudge room for 46-48’s if they were still using the pre-war bodies), anything at a show was either original or restored to factory original, modifications were neither wanted nor accepted.
The picture of the owner sitting next to his car really brought back fond memories, take that picture and multiply it by 20-25, you’d have the usual show season for the Flood City Region AACA. I was a bit of an oddity in that group, being at least twenty years younger than the average member (and fifty years younger than the oldest guys), and having way more interest in cars of the Thirties than their Fifties counterparts.
It pains me to think of what’s happening to a lot of those Thirties sedans anymore. There’s not enough museum space to house them all.
Like the pic of the Official1934 Pacemaker. I just had a pacemaker implanted in my chest. That one would NEVER fit!
“An orphan brand powered by an orphan engine.”
Not so the engine, actually the virtually identical Olds straight 8 in 257 cu. in. form soldiered on on until 1948.”
“I’ve met cars and their owners like this, and it’s always a bittersweet scenario”.
“Prewar Oldsmobile fans – wait, are there any of those?”
Yes indeed to both. I just sold my late Uncle’s beautiful 1939 Olds L-39 (the big one) sedan with that aforementioned 257 Eight after nearly a year of trying. It went to an appreciative new owner who paid only $7000 for this mostly original car that had been cherished by my Uncle, a longtime member of the OCA and owner/maintainer of this car for nearly 50 years. It needed some minor attention after storage, but were I younger and had the energy and space I certainly would not have let it go away for such a pittance. Even my own sons in their 30s and 40s have/had no interest in it or my super nice ’69 Cutlass.
I fear for the fate of many wonderful cars.
That’s my ’72 Skylark in the background, taken circa 1980!
I would gush and say that particular La Salle is an art deco masterpiece, but it is a neat car. I read somewhere that these small grilled, Olds based cars were not considered Classics. I think that La Salle was a fashion car, it was all about being in style, and as we know that style is fickle and passes quickly. Cars of this vintage can only be owned as a collectible, it’s not something that can be realistically used as a daily driver. Back in the early 70’s and 80’s I daily drove ’50’s and 60’s cars. They were bought because I found them interesting and attractive, were affordable, but they were my transportation.
That green La Salle would be great to take to shows, but otherwise it should live in a secure garage to preserve it. To own a fairly expensive car that cannot be used as transportation is a big ask. That’s a big investment and it takes the right, ( usually older and affluent) enthusiast to make that commitment.
If the values fall a bit more, I might find myself in that position.
Good for you. If the values crashed, aside form being old, I’d meet no other requirements to be in “that position”. I too was thinking, who’d ever drive that green one anywhere?
During the summers of 69-72, my 37 Buick was my daily driver as I didn’t have a modern car until 73. Most of those years I lived in Erie during the school months, just coming home on holidays, but from Memorial Day thru Labor Day the old Buick got daily use (unless it was raining, it still had collectable status) for whatever errand runnings I needed to do, including dating. Loved that huge back seat.
Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray drove a “Lasalle” to the train station in “Double Indemnity” I believe.