LaSalle 1933 to 1934 Redesign

The focus of this post is the redesigned 1934 LaSalle (Wikipedia entry for the brand is here).  But instead of dealing with its design features, I try to put it in the context of 1933-34 carryover details for it and its parent brand Cadillac.  In addition, the 1934 LaSalle is compared to two other General Motors makes, Oldsmobile and Buick for reasons made evident below.

GM Art & Colour boss Harley Earl oversaw the new LaSalle design, but the stylist mostly responsible for its looks was Jules Agramonte.

Now some further background on LaSalle's 1934 redesign from an article by stylist/historian Jeff Godshall in the May/June 1971 issue of Special-Interest Autos (page 43):

By 1933, "La Salle had failed to get established despite its early success.  What looked right in 1927 turned out to be very wrong by 1933, so that year GM brass handed down the decision to discontinue the La Salle....

"Hearing this, Harley Earl went before the management committee and told them that he still had something  to show them.  While his exact words are not recorded, Earl said that as long as they had killed the La Salle, perhaps they would like to see what they had thrown away.  He then led them to the Art and Colour Section viewing room and pulled the drapes, and there stood the stunning new La Salle design for 1934 -- the slim-nosed, radically different (for the time) body that was to give La Salle a new 7-year lease on life.  Warren Fitzgerald of GM Styling asserts, 'It can honestly be said that Harley Earl saved the La Salle with his dramatic new design.'

"The Series 350 ushered in both a new car and a new direction for La Salle.  Management decided that La Salle had gotten too close to Cadillac in size and price.  Remedy: put La Salle into a different [that is, mid-price] market entirely."

Out went its V-8 motor, replaced by a Straight 8 from Oldsmobile.  In came other changes to achieve the the new market niche.  The Wikipedia entry linked above mentions that "Beginning with the 1934 model year, a significant portion of the LaSalle was more closely related to the Oldsmobile, than to Senior Cadillacs."

Comparing 1934 price ranges, the LaSalle, now with a 119-in (3,023 mm) wheelbase sold for $1,595-$1,695.  The Oldsmobile series with the same wheelbase had a $895-$995 price range, and Buicks with that wheelbase were priced $1,110-$1,230.  However, the price range for the entire Buick line was $795-$2,175.  The lowest-price Cadillac line that year with 8-cylinder motors and 128-inch (3,251 mm) wheelbases were set at $2,545-$2,695.  LaSalle was GM's most expensive car for its wheelbase, but one could buy a 128-in wheelbase Buick for about the same price, $1,465-$1,675.  So LaSalle was in a tricky marketing situation armed mostly by its new styling.

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1933 Cadillac V-12 4-door sedan, Hyman Ltd. photo.

1934 Cadillac Coupe, Hyman Ltd. photo.  Although the body was new, Earl saw to it that the 1933 grille theme was carried over to the 1934 models.

1933 LaSalle Convertible Coupe, Auctions America photo.  LaSalle's grille theme is close to that of Cadillac.

1934 LaSalle sedan for sale.  The Cadillac-related grille theme -- fine vertical background bars, a stronger central vertical bar and five stronger horizontal bars -- remains.  But the drastic narrowing of the hood and grille opening largely obscures this continuity.  Note the shared front fender design: lesser GM brands got more traditional fenders for 1934.

1934 Oldsmobile 2-door, RM Sotheby's photo.  Although LaSalle got an Oldsmobile motor and some other engineering details, the brands were stylistically distinct.

1934 Buick Series 60 3-Window Coupe, Mecum photo.  This is the same body type as shown below for the 1934 LaSalle, though on a Series 60 128-inch wheelbase.  This car sold for about the same price as that LaSalle, but even though it was longer, its styling was less advanced and far less exciting.

1934 LaSalle coupe, photo source unknown.  Both the LaSalle and Buick coupes have the same basic body as the '34 Cadillac shown earlier.

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General Motors' C Body Cars for 1940

General Motors is usually considered the American styling leader through the 1930s and for many years beyond (due in part to its market dominance).  But that doesn't mean that GM designs were attractive.  My view is that most American car designs for closed cars from around 1934 to about 1940 were awkward.  That was because of the shift from boxy-yet-functional pre-1934 styling to streamlining-cum-component-integrating designs during that period.  This change required changes in body engineering and production technology that took time to be mastered.  Hence, awkwardness.

But GM's new C body introduced for the 1940 model year shed most of the kind of awkwardness just mentioned, though it wasn't until 1941 everything fell into place.  That is, the basic body design was attractive, but brand-identification details carried over from previous years along with passé headlight assembly forms held back the styling promise of the new body until those elements were better integrated.

Below are examples of 1940 C body cars from Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, LaSalle and Cadillac (no Chevrolets got the new C bodies that year).

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Here is a 1940 Pontiac Torpedo Coupe (Pontiac marketers labeled C body Pontiacs "Torpedo").  Ignore everything from the front axle line forward and you'll see the attractive, not-awkward styling.  The only archaic detail in this zone is the exposed running board that got covered in 1941.  The partly integrated head lights and Buick-like grille detract from the overall appearance.

GM marketers made heavy use of retouch artists in part because newsprint reproduction quality was comparatively poor in those days.  This worked-over photo shows the aft end of a 4-door C body Pontiac.

Side view of a 1940 Oldsmobile 90 sedan via Barrett-Jackson.  Styling is basically rounded, but not nearly as heavy-looking as before.  This is due to the thinner top and well-integrated trunk.  Front fenders are more blended into the rest of the body than on the other brands with C bodies.

And here is a side view of the Buick Roadmaster.  Note the longer trunk.

Buick Super, the next level down from the Roadmaster also got C bodies.  Note how the windshield divider line carries into a slight crease on the roof panel.  Again, the front end styling strikes me as being slightly at odds with the rest of the car.  Grille orientation is neither horizontal nor vertical, and the headlights are not quite integrated or separate.  Call all this "hesitant" or "ambiguous" or to put it most kindly, "transitional."

I find the LaSalle in this "for sale" photo the most attractive 1940 C body car even though it shares the same headlight problem as the others.

Side view of a 1940 Cadillac 62 Coupe from RM Sotheby's.  Cadillac's headlight housings remained discrete entities perched on the catwalk between the front fenders and the hood/grille assembly.  This was drastically improved the next year.

Barrett-Jackson photo showing rear 3/4 of a 62 four-door sedan.  The rear elements are nicely composed, whereas the front fenders are of the more squared-off "suitcase" variety.  The separate headlight assembly can be glimpsed here.

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General Motors' Companion Cars (4): Cadillac and LaSalle

This is the fourth in a series of posts dealing with General Motors' companion brands launched during the late 1920s.  The first post can be found here, the second here and the third here.

As I've been stating, a major factor in the rise of General Motors during the 1920s was Alfred P. Sloan's establishment of a price-prestige hierarchy for GM's various brands.  Over the 50 years from 1941 to 1991, when the Saturn brand appeared, the hierarchy, from low to high, was Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac.  But during the late 1920s so-called "companion" brands were introduced to fill what seemed to be price gaps in GM's line.  In 1930 the hierarchy was approximately (there was price overlapping in a number of cases): Chevrolet, Pontiac, Marquette, Oldsmobile, Oakland, Viking, Buick, LaSalle, and Cadillac.

Cadillac's companion brand was LaSalle, introduced for the 1927 model year.  Next to Pontiac, a companion brand that usurped its host brand (Oakland), LaSalle was the most successful companion, lasting through the 1940 model year (though it came close to being ditched in 1934).

LaSalle was highly significant in terms of styling history because it was Harley Earl's first production design for General Motors, a sales success that led to him being appointed head of styling and creating the first American automobile company styling department.

Other comparisons in this series tend to focus on 1929 and 1930, the model years when GM's companion project was at its height.  For that reason, LaSalles and Cadillacs are compared using 1929 examples and differences in styling are noted.

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Here are coupes, the Cadillac above, the LaSalle below.  Aside from their grilles (discussed below), differences are few.  The Cadillac has a beltline moulding and panels on the frame sheathing above the running boards, whereas the LaSalle lacks these decorations.  Tail light placement differs.

The Cadillac Sport Phaeton in the RM Sotheby's photo (upper) and the LaSalle All-Weather Phaeton in the (lower) Hyman image feature painted grille bars, something not shared by all other '29 Cadillacs and LaSalles.  I paired them to make comparison more valid.  Phaetons were more of a custom or semi-custom proposition than the case of the coupes in the first images, so let's focus on the front ends.  And what I notice is that the cars are essentially identical aside from badges and mascots.

It wasn't until 1934 that Cadillac and LaSalle brand cues diverged significantly, along with mechanical details such as LaSalle's shift from V-8 to straight-eight motors.  Shown here are 1940 models, the Cadillac above (RM Sotheby's photo), the LaSalle below (for sale photo).  Even though they share GM "C" bodies, the cars have clearly separate brands identification features.

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1941: Harley Earl's Very Good Year

I am not alone when I claim that the 1941 model year was the best for General Motors' styling chief Harley Earl, though I think 1949 comes close.  Several designs were outstanding and the others were very good -- all this in the context of their times.

The 1930s were a time when designs evolved from largely angular bodies and assemblages of many discrete parts (fenders, headlights, running boards, spare tires, etc.) to smoothed styles where most of the formerly discrete parts were largely blended into aerodynamically-influenced ("streamlined") compositions.  Between those points, a good many awkward designs were marketed by GM and the rest of the industry.  For General Motors, 1941 models were safely beyond that, as stylists and body engineers were now comfortable with with the new concepts.

GM had three basic bodies for 1941, but they were fairly similar.  Most attention was paid to using ornamentation as brand identification.  Each brand had its own theme (with one exception), and those themes were distinctive.  The exception was entry-level Chevrolet, which was given a grille similar to that of the upper-middle brand Buick.

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Buick Sedanette - Hyman Auctions photo

Cadillac - for sale photo
My favorite year for Cadillac, and a design that established brand identification indicators for decades to come.

Chevrolet Special DeLuxe Club Coupe - RM Sotheby's photo

Oldsmobile 98 Club Coupe - Auctions America Photo

Pontiac - for sale photo
I am partial to '41 Pontiacs because my father owned one (a model not nearly as sleek as the one pictured here).

Here is the 1941 LaSalle that never entered production. The image is part of page 46 from Automobile Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 1, 2001.  This would have made for a very fine production design.  Sadly, a Cadillac model was substituted.  (LaSalle was a "companion car" to Cadillac -- companion brands being a late 1920s GM experiment.)

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How "Pregnant" was the 1929 Buick?

Once Harley Earl had been hired as General Motors' styling director, an early major project was to produce a design for the forthcoming 1929 Buick's new body.  When the cars reached dealers for the first time, there was a strong negative reaction to a slight bulge along the belt line, below the side windows.  That was because other brands featured body sides whose belt lines initiated curves that slightly tucked inwards as they fell away downwards.

Larry Edsall in Automotive News goes into more detail here.  According to most stories, including Edsall's, Earl reacted by claiming that body engineers altered his staff's design.  He used this (along with his friendship with Alfred P. Sloan) to gain final sign-off on future designs from his Art & Colour section.

I am a bit skeptical.  So far as I know, there is no visual evidence of the designs Art & Colour prepared for various Buick body types.  If this is so, then the matter cannot be resolved.  My guess is that Earl's design did have that bulge.  Checking with the styling history bible, "A Century of Automotive Style" by Michael Lamm and David Holls, I notice on page 91 that former Chrysler Corporation stylist Jeff Godshall is of the same opinion.  I base my case on the reasoning that body engineers, a conservative lot, would never think of making such a major departure from strong conventions of the time unless they were under instructions to do so.

We begin with four images of 1929 Buicks.  The notorious bulge is along the belt line.

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Now compare these Buicks to some other cars of its vintage ...

A 1929 Chevrolet.  Its body was designed around 1926-27 for the 1928 model year, so it has no real Harley Earl influence so far as I can tell.

A 1929 LaSalle.   Earl's first styling project with General Motors was the 1927 LaSalle line.  Its sides are typical of the times.

A 1928 Chrysler.  Chryslers competed with Buicks, and potential buyers of '29 Buicks would have been familiar with cars such as this.

1929 Dodge.  Its design probably pre-dates Chrysler's 1928 acquisition of Dodge.  I include this image to provide some more non-GM design context.

So yes, that Buick bulge was definitely out of the American car body design mainstream during the 1929 model year.

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Hispano-Suiza and the 1927 LaSalle

The father of automobile manufacturer styling departments is Harley Earl, whose work designing bodywork for the 1927 LaSalle (a new companion brand to General Motors' Cadillac marque) led to his appointment as GM's styling director and the establishment of its Art & Colour Section.

A well-known factor in LaSalle's design was Earl's admiration for the appearance of Hispano-Suiza automobiles.  Michael Lamm and David Holls in their classic book "A Century of Automobile Style" report the Hispano - LaSalle connection as follows (p.87):

"Earl took inspiration for his 1927 LaSalle design from his favorite European marque, the Hispano-Suiza, and he made no bones about it.  He'd admired Hissos during his several trips to the Paris Salon in the late teens and early 1920s, and he later told Barbara Holliday of the Detroit Free Press, 'The Hispano-Suiza was the apple of my eye.  All the chic people who appreciated cars drove Hispanos.  They were very light as against the heavier models American companies were making, and every line meant something.'... Earl, in fact, kept a Hispano-Suiza radiator in his office for many years after the LaSalle's success, and a number of his early 1930s cars--particularly Cadillac-- also borrowed the Hispano grille shape and ornamentation."

I suppose it has been done before, except that I cannot remember ever seeing a comparison of mid-1920s Hispano-Suiza design to that of 1927 LaSalles.  So why not do just that here.

Gallery

1923 Hispano-Suiza H6B Dual-Cowl Tourer - Bonhams photo.

1924 Hispano-Suiza H6B Coupé de Ville by Saoutchik - Bonhams photo.

Front end of the same car - RM Sotheby's photo.

1925 Hispano-Suiza H6B Transformable Cabriolet by Belvalette - Bonhams photo.

Harley Earl at the wheel with Larry Fisher and 1927 LaSalle.

Harley Earl in his personal 1928 LaSalle.

1927 LaSalle roadster - publicity photo.

Indeed, Earl copied the Hispano-Suiza grille.  Almost the same are Hispano and LaSalle radiator-grille outlines.  Ditto the width of their bright metal surrounds.  The Hispano crest had wings, so Earl's LaSalle crest also had wings.  Comparisons for the rest of the bodies is difficult because post- Great War Hispano bodies, so far as I know (and I'm not a Hispano expert) were all custom built by coachbuilding firms.  That is, aside from the grille, hood, and perhaps fenders, there was no standard Hispano-Suiza body that Earl could have used for inspiration.

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