Last Saturday, our Indiana Region of the CLC sponsored the 29th Buick/Olds/Pontiac/Cadillac & LaSalle Club meet at Highland Park in Kokomo, IN. It was a beautiful day and we had over 50 cars show up. One of these was a Special Order 1941 63 sedan owned by Donn Wray of Carmel, IN. This was the second time Donn has shown the car at this show. I think it was two years ago that he first showed up (at least with this car.)
At first glance, the colors are "bright" enough that your initial impression is "Earl Schibe." But, Donn has had the belt molding off and was able to tell that the colors were original, although slightly faded under the molding. Unfortunately, no one has been able to delve into existing (we hope) records of at least the "names" of the colors like Ron Van Gelderen and Matt Larson did in the LaSalle book for 1939 and 1940 LaSalle SO painted cars.
Donn has paperwork including the build sheet and original bill of sale from Capitol Cadillac. One thing that has him puzzled is a notation by the original owner on a worksheet that Capitol could have a black car for her on a certain date some days hence. Evidently, her circumstances were such that she took a car from stock instead of waiting for a black one.
WHICH beggars the question...Why was a SO car in stock? It could be that the original purchaser decided after seeing the car that he/she would take a more somber color. Given that they were choosing from relatively small paint chips that is probably what happened. (Oh, to see one of those original SO color swatch books.)
Even though my I phone was weighing down my breast pocket, I forgot to get a picture of the car. Perhaps Donn will see this and present some photos of his beautiful car. I contacted the person selling the cream/gold 1941 60S currently on eBay mentioning that I would love to be able to purchase the car. I am almost sure that he said that the car has been in his family since new and the colors were SO. It is possible, as there was a 1940 LaSalle in the same colors that I have a picture of.
It would be nice to see more of these SO cars. They even had a SO black, like they do today.
Barry,
So.. what is the SO?
Bob
Special order color. A "bright" two-tone blue, way brighter than Crystal Blue/Oceano Blue. As I inferred, your first impression is that the car was re-painted in a more "modern" color. The present owner found the paint was original when he removed the belt molding.