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Cadillac Army Staff Cars

Started by george huse, March 26, 2009, 12:44:48 PM

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george huse

Does anyone know wheather or not the army had Cadillac staff cars during and after WWII?  If so where would be a good place to start to find information about these cars?
Thanks for any help. George

Walter Youshock

General Patton reportedly died as a result of his 1939 series 75 Staff Car getting into an accident in Germany:

http://www.car-accidents.com/general-patton-car-accident.html
CLC #11959 (Life)
1957 Coupe deVille
1991 Brougham

Otto Skorzeny

#2
Yes, the army did use Cadillacs for high ranking officers. To find out about them, I'd start with some of the clubs and organizations devoted to military vehicles.

A regular poster on this site has a '42 Cadillac that was used in Europe during the war. She might offer you some insight if she sees this thread.

restoration help
http://armycarsusa.com/index.html

Google listing of various military vehicle clubs
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=military+vehicle+club

Military Vehicle Preservation Association
http://www.mvpa.org/

General McArthur's Cadillac
https://www.ltmhosting.com/mvpastore/store.php?crn=219&rn=616&action=show_detail
fward

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for YOURSELF

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Walter Youshock

And let's not forget all the Cadillac tanks!

Cadillac's contributions to the War effort were vast, as were all the auto companies.  We couldn't have done it without them!
CLC #11959 (Life)
1957 Coupe deVille
1991 Brougham

Jeff Hansen

Cadillac provided Generals MacArthur and Eisenhower (sp?) with 1942 series 75 staff cars.  This is documented in Roy Schneider's book Cadillacs of the Forties

Jeff
Jeff Hansen
1941 6019S Sixty Special
1942 7533 Imperial Sedan

Charles D. Barnette

In fact Eisenhower's 1942 Cadillac Army staff car is on display at The Eisenhower Presidential Museum and Library in Abilene, Kansas. It rests in the Military Gallery section of the museum. You might contact this facility to learn more about this particular Army staff car. Charles D. Barnette-their web cite has a picture of the car on display.

Doug Houston

I need to set an issue straight here. I did some research into the Patton car a few years ago. I had seen it in the Patton nmuseum at Ft. Knox. The car there is a '39-75. I didn't have the presence of mind at the time (1961) to note the interior, which isn't important, anyway. In one window of the car is a picture of 23 year old PFC Horace Woodring, standing alongside the wrecked car. Something looked wrong about the car.

Firstly, the 39-75 on display has hand-made sub-grilles on the front end; not of any real consequence, either. Supposedly, it is the car that Patton was fatally injured in. He died about a week after the crash. The display claims that the car was repaired in Europe before coming back to CONUS.

His driver, Horace ("Woody") Woodring, was from Kentucky, and in the days I was in basic training in that area, he had a Dodge-Plymouth dealership in Morganfield, Kentucky. My car had been in his place for service at one time, but I never knew who he was.

Fast forward to mid eighties.  Woody was living in Union Lake, Mich., not far from where I live now. He was in the car business all of his life, so he knew cars very well. I called him and asked him if the car he was driving for Patton was a '38 or a '39. He answered that it was a '38. He went on to say that the car on display is not the car he was driving. He also said that the museum knows it, but still shows the car as the Patton car. If you look at the picture (I have it), there are a few things about the wrecked front end that show it as a '38, and not a '39. That was what had always bothered me.   

I wrote an article in the Michigan CCCA TORQUE magazine back in nthe 80's about it. Woody was still living  Woody died a few years ago. The museum has now changed the story of the car, to hopefully substantiate the false identity of it. Woody is gone; who's to contradict any story?

Firstly, the car was Patton's personal car. many of the high level generals did use their personal cars, chauffeureed by GI drivers. Without going into an extensive discourse, which this already is, remember that the fatal accident occurred after the war was over, and posts and sations were being shut down and cleaned up. I beieve that the wrecked 38-75 was towed to a station nearby, for temporary storage. That post was being shut down, and the car was baled up. Shortly after, an order came down from stateside to send the car back for repair and museum display. A frantic search throughout Europe for an identical, or similar car in ANY condition turned up this '39-75 sedan. It would be an easy matter to "have the car repaired", and send it back to the states. Who'd know the difference?

One of us would.
38-6019S
38-9039
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Otto Skorzeny

That's quite interesting. I hate seeing things incorrectly represented.

A collection of Andrew Wyeth paintings was on display at the High Museum in Atlanta a couple years back. In one painting a hunter clearly carrying a double barrelled shotgun was depicted hunting ducks. The description on the audio tour described the "lone figure with a rifle".

Another described a vulture as a hawk - two completely different birds which, in a Wyeth painting represent two completely different themes.

It drives me nuts to this day.
fward

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for YOURSELF

HUGE VENDOR LIST CLICK HERE

Walter Youshock

The link to the website I copied said there may have been more than ONE accident and that Patton died from injuries sustained from the SECOND accident in the Jeep.

It has long been rumored that Patton was "sacrificed" for the War Effort...
CLC #11959 (Life)
1957 Coupe deVille
1991 Brougham

Otto Skorzeny

I've researched the Patton story thoroughly myself and have never heard about a second accident.

I've never read anything that would lead me to seriously believe it was a hit job or anything else. There are certainly many other ways Patton could have been murdered that would have been more efficient and less open to question.

I think the rumors are just the result of people's natural reluctance to believe that a great man like Patton could  live through 4 years of war and then die in such a mundane fashion.
fward

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for YOURSELF

HUGE VENDOR LIST CLICK HERE

Walter Youshock

Neither did I, but, when this post came about, I was on lunch at work and I grabbed the first web reference I found, so, I posted it.

It has long been rumored that Patton was "conveniently retired from his military duties" for quite some time.  Were there easier ways to do it--probably.

Where exactly IS Jimmy Hoffa REALLY buried?  We in Scranton, PA would really like to know.
CLC #11959 (Life)
1957 Coupe deVille
1991 Brougham

Doug Houston

Remember, I said that I talked to the guy who was driving the car. There had once been stories about Patton in a Jeep that was hit, but that tale was retired ages ago.  He was fatally injured only once.

Patton was riding in the rear seat, with Gen.Hobart Gay. They were going about 35 MPH, having just crossed a railroad. Woody braked suddenly to avoid hitting a deuce-and-a-half (2/1/2 ton truck) that turned left in front of them, but was unable to avoid a collision. Patton was thrown forward and hit his head on a "structural piece" in the top of the body. This was probably the divider window header, so the body was probably a 7533. Patton was the only one in the car who was injured. It appears that Patton was sitting on the edge of the seat, facing Gen. Gay, and was in an unstable position. He suffered a broken neck.

I also asked Woody if the speedometer was graduated in Miles Per Hour, and he said yes. The speedo in the display car is metric. I did note that when I saw it in 1961.

There has been a theory that Patton was killed by "plan". I have the article from back in the seventies, or whatever. I tend to discount it completely, because there would likely have been others injured or killed in the Cadillac, and Woody said that the scenario just didn't support the theory. It's hard to selectively kill one person in a car, with 4 passengers (There was another guy in  front with Woody).
38-6019S
38-9039
39-9057B
41-6227D
41-6019SF
41-6229D
41-6267D
56-6267
70-DeV Conv
41-Chev 41-1167
41 Olds 41-3929

Vince Taliano #13852

#12
Click the link below to read the Museum's take on the Patton car (pgs 11 -16).

http://www.clcpotomacregion.org/forms/CLCPR.0803Newsletter.pdf

Like Doug said, Woody is gone so who's to contradict any story?
Vince Taliano
CLC Potomac Region
www.clcpotomacregion.org (view over 3,000 pictures!)

Otto Skorzeny

After all of that the car really has no historical significance since it's either not the same vehicle and/or isn't even an accurate re-creation of the actual vehicle. It's a Frankenstein car that may or may not have been fabricated on the chassis of Patton's actual car.

It would have been more appropriate for a the museum to display the car it in it's wrecked condition and show it as the Patton death car. At least it would have been historically accurate.
fward

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for YOURSELF

HUGE VENDOR LIST CLICK HERE

veesixteen

In that excellent article, footnote 2 reads:  The presence of the flipper type turn signals is a strong hint that it was either imported for, or modified by the Germans before falling into American hands. Only German modified vehicles have these installed - apparently no other country requires this type of turn signal device.  As an expatriate Scot, I can assert confidently that these were "standard issue" on British cars of the era. I'm not sure whether cars imported to Britain were required to be thus modified.  I would suspect the affirmative.  I've seen them also on French cars of the same period.  My guess is they were commonly used in other European countries too.
____________________________________________________________________________

Quote from: Vince Taliano #13852 on March 27, 2009, 08:03:10 AM
Click the link below to read the Museum's take on the Patton car (pgs 11 -16).

http://www.clcpotomacregion.org/forms/CLCPR.0803Newsletter.pdf

Like Doug said, Woody is gone so who's to contradict any story?

Yann Saunders, CLC #12588
Compiler and former keeper of "The Cadillac Database"
aka "MrCadillac", aka "Veesixteen"

Doug Houston

The picture of the  car, with young Woody standing next to it looks as though it could have been repaired, mainly by installing a new front clip. The windshield appears to be unbroken, so it's reasonable to expect the body to have either minimal or no damage. Also, the real car was painted black, so Woody has told me. The damage appeared to be done as the truck's bumper must have hit the grille at center. The display car is painted gloss O.D..

The features in the picture that told me that the car was a '38 were: The wheel covers were '37-38 full disc size. The bumper had its end cut straight across, rather than cut on a curve, as on the '39. I have always felt that you could see the PCV rear breather tube on the air cleaner, which was on the '38 V8 cars, but not on the '39.

I haven't read the museum's story. I know it's BS, having heard it from someone else. History is so terribly easy to re-write, once the coast is clear!
38-6019S
38-9039
39-9057B
41-6227D
41-6019SF
41-6229D
41-6267D
56-6267
70-DeV Conv
41-Chev 41-1167
41 Olds 41-3929

Whit Otis, 1188

I visited the Eisenhower Museum in Abiliene, KS a couple years ago and viewed the '42 provided for Ike.  More interesting was a black and white photo of an army staff driver crouched down next to the front of a '38 V16 Limo.... big smile on his face!l

Whit Otis
Whit Otis -
1941 6219D Custom
1941 6219D
1940 7533F
1986 Mercedes Benz 560 SEL
1999 Bentley Arnage
2019 XT5
Drawing of AP Sloan Custom by Terry Wenger