December 2010

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years to about 1948 or 1949. The design and mechanics of those years to me were special to me. I chose 1949 since that was the year that the new V8 engine replaced the old flathead design. It introduced greater efficiency and horsepower while reducing the weight and size of the engine. I Googled “1949 Cadillac” and one of the available choices mentioned that it was in Scarsdale, New York, a Westchester County suburb of New York City not far from my home in Patterson, NY. When the picture opened, I saw this beautiful dark green Cadillac parked on the streets of Scarsdale. The shape, design, color of the Series 62, 4 door sedan all but swept me off my feet. Oddly enough, it had a special New York license plate that said 'HYDRMTIC'. I found that unusual. Why would anyone advertise that their car had an automatic transmission? To each his own. As days passed, I returned to that page repeatedly. I found that the car had been one of those participating in the Scarsdale Concours d'Elégance back in 2005. Well, we all have dreams and this was mine. As I got more serious about actually buying an old car, I saw an ad in Hemmings Motor News offering a 1949 Caddy in that same nearby Westchester County. Well, that was close enough to be able to check out a car before buying. Previously, I had put in a winning bid on Ebay for a 1949 Caddy in Maine. The reserve was not met and I didn't get that car, although the seller later contacted me about making a deal. As we exchanged emails, more and more faults of the car came out and I backed away from any deal. Now, looking back at that car, I was lucky not to get it. I contacted the seller of my Hemmings' Westchester County car who answered many questions and agreed to send pictures. When I opened the pictures on my computer, I saw that the car‟s license plate read, “HYDRMTIC”. Wow! I had stumbled across my dream car. Fortunately, the price was excellent and I just agreed to it. The seller was a financial advisor with an impressive large, old home. He had bought this car 10 years ago at an auction at Lyndhurst Castle in Irvington, NY conducted by Christie's Auction House. He showed me the published Christie's booklet showing all the cars entered in this auction, including this beauty. Wow, this car was being sold with other fantastic cars whose values were estimated up to $750,000 by Christie's. While this car's value was a mere fraction of the value of the others, I felt it was sitting in good company. The seller said that his interest in the car had slowly diminished and he wanted something newer. He provided great paperwork with the car, including the actual California license plate on the car when he got it, a copy of the owners' manual, shop manual, original 'build sheet', data sheet, accessories brochure, loads of General Motors paper and some spare parts for the car. Time to clear out the garage! I wound up completing the purchase and received the Christie's booklet and the actual auction paddle used by the seller ten years ago. He also supplied ten years of receipts for repairs and purchases for this car. From the information on the paperwork, it was easy to see that he had put about 2,000 miles on the car in ten years (that's an average of only 4 miles per week!). The car's finish isn't perfect and it needs some mechanical attention; however, I'm in love with Lucille and hope to show it off when gathering with my fellow members of the Cadillac-LaSalle and Lambda Car Clubs. RAY AND HIS 6269, “LUCILLE”, AT THE <strong>2010</strong> SCARSDALE NY CONCOURS D’ÉLÉGANCE
AN INTERESTING FORTY-NINE FACTORY PHOTO By Jay Friedman This factory photo, probably taken at Cadillac‟s Clark Street plant in Detroit, shows 3 workers lowering a ‟49 overhead valve engine into a car‟s chassis. After studying the picture a bit, there are several interesting factoids that can be gleaned from it. Art Gardner points out that the installation does not appear to be taking place on an assembly line; it looks more like a small side room since there are non-Cadillac cars in the background (of which the first is a Chevrolet or Pontiac station wagon while behind it appears to be a ‟46 or ‟47 Buick). Obviously, the three men are posing for the photographer. The guys doing the work seem to be the two men at the left and right, as they are wearing shop clothes and have their hands on the chain hoist and engine as they maneuver it into position. The guy in the middle must be a supervisor, as he has on a white shirt and seems to be motioning the guy on the left working the hoist to lower the engine v e r y s l o w l y and carefully so it won‟t bang into anything. The job of the guy at the right must be to push and pull on the motor to doubly make sure of just that, as well as to ensure that the downward facing motor mount bolts go straight into their holes on the frame. It's an early 1949 Cadillac engine, as there are 2 bolts at the top holding on the valve cover instead of the 4 bolts around the perimeter of the valve cover used later in the year. Also, the spark plug wires are enclosed in a flat enclosed conduit bolted to the valve cover, rather than the open metal loops used later in the year. In addition, compare the color of the paint on the letters and 3 lines at the forward end of the valve cover to the supervisor‟s shirt: it is somewhat darker. This leads me to believe the paint on the valve cover lettering is the silvery gray used on very early cars rather than the white paint used the rest of the year. Looking at the chassis, several tidbits of info emerge. The first is that there is a '48 horn ring on the steering wheel, a further indication that this is a very early '49 Cadillac. The '48 and '49 steering wheels are the same, but the '48 horn ring is a 180 degree half-circle around the lower half of the wheel like the horn ring in the photo, while the '49 horn ring is a 360 degree full circle. The next thing you‟ll notice is that under the left elbow of the man at the right is a clutch pedal. Also, you can just make out under his left hand that there are two shift levers coming out of the steering column rather than the single lever used with Hydra-matic, so this car has a manual transmission. This is noteworthy in that less than 4% of '49s were so built. Art thinks that “perhaps this was a test engine that was run on a test stand for a while and then installed in a 48 chassis for some final testing before production began for 49. For example, the exhaust manifolds look "seasoned", meaning the engine is not completely new. All this may mean that the photo was taken sometime in 1948.
Page 1: Newsletter Of The Forty-Niners Chap
Page 5 and 6: DAVID COSKY OF HADDON HEIGHTS NJ WI
Page 7: photo below at the ‟08 CLC Grand

December 2010

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