Jalopnik
During my searches of Alameda streets for vintage iron, I've found a fair number of 50s cars but nothing much older than that. Until now, that is.
You can still use a 50-year-old car as a daily driver, but it's probably not a great idea with a 70-year-old machine (even if the machine packs a 346-cube flathead V8, as this one does).
This Cad was parked in front of the house where the '57 Pontiac Star Chief lives; I'm guessing that it normally lives in the garage and was parked on the street for some special occasion.
Now that's a car clock! It's a little strange to see a big luxury sedan with a floor-shift manual transmission (it's hard to make out the shifter in this photo); maybe cars really were better in the 30s!
Gotta hand it to the old Caddies- that's an impressive front end. You could get your '37 Cadillac with V8, V12, or V16 power, so this one's more toward the inexpensive side of the Cadillac spectrum. Still, '37 was a grim Depression year and not many had the scratch to pay for any Cadillac.
The Cadillac logo used to be far cooler, prior to the rococo version of the 50s and the Caddy-that-zigs recent incarnation. More ducks!
This is a very straight, clean car, but clearly not an obsessive show queen. It's got a pretty respectable collection of minor dings and nicks, plus there's the matter of the missing hubcap. I tell you what, if I owned this thing it would get driven regularly, by gum!
Too bad Prohibition ended a few years before this car was built, because that trunk would have been ideal for hauling cases of Canadian whiskey across the border.
1937 CADILLAC 8-Cylinder [100megsforfree.com]
Related:
Long Forgotten Nazi Hotness: 1937 Adler Trumpf [internal]
Comments
classy.
and they went on to make the cimarron!
You still could carry Canadian whiskey across the border if you desired. I'm just sayin'...
bah, it needs a rumble seat.
Beautiful!
I think I could drive that Caddy
I would SO put on a fedora and drive that car around.
I would also talk like this if I drove it (in a quick-spoken 1940s gangster voice):
"Ehhhh, it's a Cadillac, see, and you're gonna hafta promise you won't squeal on me if I give you a ride, see, or my Tommygun might have somethin to say about it, my boy."
Even has the nice firm running board for extra gunners.
Ooh, a Caddy that zigs!
Not complete without a Tommy Gun.
V16 Option? Ohh yeah
Theres something about that 30s style that just looks sweet. Maybe its all the gangster movies getting to me...
Oh yeah and back then just about every car luxury or not had a derivative of a manual transmission. My grandma can drive stick cause shes from that era!
fantastic.
glad to see Jalop starting to dig deep.
Pre 40's vehicles fascinate me as the technologies they used were often bizzare by current standards.
Leather components to suspensions and sleeve valve engines are my favorite.
@angrypirate06: Not a tommy gun; those .45 slugs won't penetrate engine blocks! Discerning '37 Cadillac drivers bought the BAR, which was available to the general public at fine sporting-goods stores throughout the 30s. Put on your best Edward G. Robinson sneer and you'd be ready to roll.
Actually, I think this was a favored car of gangsters. It was fast (for the day), tough, big and classy enough to show off. Without doing research, I believe an early 30s Cadillac V8 was armor-plated for use by none other than Al Capone.
I could have the wrong marque, though. It could been a Packard or a Pierce Arrow.
Why not V12s and V16s for gangsters? Too flashy. Plus, the heavy coachwork and long wheelbases don't translate well to tight street chases.
Sorry, this does nothing for me. Looks OK from the front, but is very ugly from the side.
@TPSreports: I'm guessing you're not an american.
Amazing car. Just, wow, that's sharp.
This Caddy appeared at the time that the big-luxo-car brands either brought something mass-produceable & more affordable to market than their top-line, custom-bodied cars, or else they disappeared. This was the time of the Lincoln-Zephyr, the "junior" Packards (the 110 & 120), the LaSalle, and mass-produced Cadillacs like this one.
While the V12s & V16s were flashier--and more than a few of those survived over the years--it was these smaller V8 Cadillacs that kept the brand making money for The General. This one's a very good looking (though from a distance) survivor that's aged fairly well.
A great find, indeed.
@TPSreports: The side profile is gorgeous. You're insane!
lovin' it
That's a honkin' azz Caddy! Talk about classique.
@MurileeMartin: You can still get nice, big (ok, not so big) luxury sedans with a stick shift. It just so happens that they're all made in Germany...
Beautiful car, keep em comin'!
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