Rare Cadillac Images

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The following few images are from the HUGE auto literature collection of the late Z. Taylor Vinson that has been bequeathed to the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, DE (the museum collects, preserves, and interprets the unfolding history of American enterprise). As a long-time acquaintance of Taylor's and a friend of his family, I was privileged to visit his magnificent "Autotorium" in Washington, D.C. where I had the opportunity to photograph and scan items of interest to Cadillac & LaSalle aficionados. This selection is from the 1931 portfolio published by the London GM dealership, Lendrum & Hartman, Ltd. Feast your eyes.

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Last images from this portfolio.  I'll put up more images whenever I have some spare time.

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A couple more pics before I go to bed.  The first is a color photo of a 1929 La Salle roadster that was featured in an issue of Country Life (Cadillac rarely used photos in advertising, prior to 1929).  The other is - I believe - a unique convertible Victoria by Fleetwood.  Until now, I had only ever seen B&W pics of this lovely car. Both images were found in an old issue of "Crest," Cadillac's in-house magazine of the 20s and 30s.

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

G'day Yann,

Thanks for posting these lovely images.

Love the Fender treatment of the Yellow Cabriolet with no Running Boards.

Bruce.

[PHIL WHYTE CLC 14192]

Not of any importance really, but Lendrum and Hartman were still in business in the 1980's and I used to go there occasionally for parts for my 58 SDV. I didn't always get lucky, but before they shut down they sold a goldmine of NOS stuff to a dealer over here. There was a lot of 50's stuff including body panels and I believe there was also earlier stuff .
Phil

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Hi Bruce, that car had retractable "step plates" in lieu of regular runningboards.  BTW, it too has survived and was last seen in Pakistan ... in bad need of some TLC.

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I guess it would be more constructive to post other, similar images in the "Photo Gallery."  I shall mark these "ZTV-Coll." (auto literature collection of the late Z. Taylor Vinson).  Should an "album" be created just for this series of images, or should I just load them in the appropriate "model year"?   

[Otto Skorzeny]

The blue and white saloon looks very Rolls Royce-like. I notice it's body is not metal but Weymann fabric which is a vinyl of sorts.

[Steve Passmore]

Not of any importance really, but Lendrum and Hartman were still in business in the 1980's and I used to go there occasionally for parts for my 58 SDV. I didn't always get lucky, but before they shut down they sold a goldmine of NOS stuff to a dealer over here. There was a lot of 50's stuff including body panels and I believe there was also earlier stuff .
Phil

That "dealer" Phill is a good friend of mine and he used to bring piles of this stuff to our "nationals" years ago and sell it to club members, last year I sold off a stack of his stuff on ebay for him. I have to tell you there was very little caddy parts in there, 99.9% of it was Buick. The only Cadillac part I found when going through his hoard was a 1937 70 series axle shaft.

[Steve Passmore]

A lot of these cars shown from the English brochures were never actually produced, coach builders just gave a showing of what they could achieve should anyone have enough money, and very very few people here would have had it.

The blue and white saloon looks very Rolls Royce-like. I notice it's body is not metal but Weymann fabric which is a vinyl of sorts.

The fabric was what we used to call "Rexine" Forrest, a type of oil based plastic on canvas. Weyman is just the name of the company that specialised in this wood with fabric design I doubt one like this was ever produced, it certainly doesn't exist here now.

[Otto Skorzeny]

There is a 1929 Stutz here locally that belongs to an heir of Robert Woodruff of Coca cola fame. It's in a sorry state and will cost close to $200,000 to restore. It has the Weyman fabric body. Quite interesting actually.

[Steve Passmore]

We  have a 29 Stutz here in the UK also with a fabric body, personally I think these bodies were rubbish, as soon as the fabric started to deteriorate, and it did very quickly, the wood was the next to go. lots of cars were built with fabric here and very few survive, just not durable enough to be out in all weathers.

[Otto Skorzeny]

Yes, you're right. Obviously for people who had personal servants to maintain their cars daily.

Being canvas/plastic, they have a pebbly surface so they were never "shiny" like metal cars. They were supposed to be oiled or waxed or something all the time to keep them weather-tight.

[Steve Passmore]

Ive seen many of these back in the 60s when the Rexine started to crack get painted in household paint just to keep them on the road, Pebbly surface wouldn't come into it Forrest, more like mountainous. Trouble was, when you saw the deterioration in the cloth the wood was already past it, and back then they certainly were not worth repairing. Scrap yard owners hated them, after they "fired them" (throw in diesel oil and a flame to remove all combustible material) they had hardly any weight left. We used to see several of these smoke plumes every day in the city from different wreaking yards,  no worries about pollution then eh?