Having been stored for a few years this Cadillac is looking to be revived. The seller claims this Caddy can do 80 miles per an hour all day, every day, with no problems. Luxurious and solid, this Caddy would make a great vintage cruiser with its flat head V8 power. Needing minor work to be a driver yet again this Cadillac is priced at a very fair $6,500. Find it here on craigslist out of La Habra, California. Thanks to Pat L for the submission!
Power comes from a 346 cubic inch V8. The 346 and the engine bay are pretty tidy in this Caddy. The paint on the firewall is nice and the teal like color on the engine is nice as well. The only thing that looks off is the fuel pump is wrapped in some sort insulated material. The seller has mentioned that fuel pump needs to be replaced as does the water pump seal. Otherwise we suspect this Cadillac will need little to be a driver yet again. The 346 produces 150 horsepower, and is put to the ground through a 3 speed manual transmission.
Looking over the interior reveals a nice and virtually problem free interior. The steering wheel looks great looking only to have a steering wheel cover that may, or may not, hide some cracking. The gauges are crisp and clean having no signs of hazing, rust, or sun damage. The upholstery makes one think of a time warp. The seats are flaw free, and look to be very comfortable. The Headliner is nice as well sharing the same velvet like appearance. Even the carpet looks fair. From the outside this Cadillac is sharp. The paint looks good, and the chrome and body trim looks straight and clean as well. There is no real rust present on this Caddy. There is some surface rust at the top corners of the hood where the hood flew up at 80 miles per an hour as the seller explained. Surprisingly the rest of the hood is very straight and it looks like the next owner would get lucky only needing to do minor body work on those corners. We would hope the next owner would opt to fix the hood issue as that is the only thing holding this Cadillac back.
This fairly big Cadillac sedan shares a similar shape and size to a Cord 810, but at a fraction of the cost. A little work on this Cadillac would reward highly on this affordable classic. Would you pick up this affordable classy Caddy?
40s Cadillac’s are just so cool. not to wild about the interior fabric but otherwise looks pretty solid. last year for Caddies before WWII.
There were 16,511 ’42 Caddys built before production ended Feb 1942.
Is this caddy still available
Is that interior upholstery original? It looks 70’s yuck. The fuel pump appears to be wrapped in plastic wrap; not sure what the seller thinks that is going to do but perhaps it’s enough to contain the seepage. I don’t imagine a fuel pump for this can be all that dear anyhow. Cool find.
I would speculate the wrap on the fuel pump has something to do with a vapor lock problem. Young guys have never experienced a vapor lock but it is very frustrating. By insulating the fuel components from heat, it can help prevent the issue.
I would tend to agree (I’m not that old but I’ve experienced vapor lock before) but that’s pretty “clearly” plastic wrap around it. Not sure how much insulating properties cellophane has.
Definitely insulation for vapor lock. It’s shredded mineral adhered to a foil that was used under headliners later. This could be a fun driver.
Probably one of the best engines ever built by GMC, bullet proof and very torquey. Simple, easy to work on, but used lots of gas,maybe 10 mpg. best. And GEE, gas was 27.9 a gallon then. I had a 1941 Cad Fleetwood in high school, so classy I was. I was very popular! A pair of these flatheads powered every Sherman tank in WWII.
Sorry to correct you T.D., but I’m a “tanker” and the Sherman’s did NOT get power exclusively from Caddy V8s. There were several sources for engines throughout WWII. Our particular Battalion “mascot” was fitted with the radial aircraft engine variant. Fully restored and functional. Both loud and pretty slow, but it worked, including the cannon and all machine guns. The Caddy is pretty cool, but post is down, so it sold…
Thanks Rich……….I had already been corrected on these points days ago, on 11/6. Great site for getting proper information I had been wrong for a long time.
Ha Ha Dickie, Sorry pal. Sure a lot of experts on here, most true, some not. Hey Tanker Rich: Your statement indicates that Shermans were not powered exclusively by Cad flatheads. That implies that some were. Is that accurate? I’d like to know.
Most of my recollections are from the 50’s and 60’s and to my BF friends: I’ll NEVER lie to you. I may tell you things that turn out not to true, however. There is a difference. Thanks for your comment Dickie. It was fun to think about going to High School in a ’41 Fleetwood. My main HS car was a ’54 Ford.
It is my recollection that it was a different tracked vehicle that ran the Cad V8, to many people, every armored track vehicle in the WW2 era was a “Sherman” but there were many other tracked and armored vehicles. If I was Howard…….I would Google it to see whitch one it was that used these engines…….but prefer personal experiance.
80 miles per AN hour?
Top speed was 100 MPH.
The engine was built like a tank. Actually it was built FOR a tank, the WW2 M5 Stuart light tank (not the Sherman) used a pair of the series 62 engines running through 2 hydramatic transmissions. The set up was also used in a tracked amphibious landing craft. Obviously TOUGH drivetrains and a truly beautiful car. :-) Terry J
Terry, thanks for the tank correction. I didn’t know that. Been in error for too long!
Hey Terry…….Oh Yeah, having a 1941 Cad Fleetwood in high school was a huge reach for me, culturally that is. All the guys had lots ’41 Chevy club coupes, deuce coupes, Harley’s or something else that demanded a greasy duck tail hair do. But I had always loved that car’s design, and that wonderful flathead. Due to good connections the price was low. Sure did make me even more popular…..everyone wanted to ride in it. Go pick up five friends, charge them 50 cents each, put it in the tank at 27.9 a gal and off to the main we were. Great memories! TD
Man that interior is ’70s lowrider tacky. Too bad……gotta go. I’ve often seem pre war Caddies in colors other than black…..kinda strange if you grew up with Caddies being black. I wonder if this is the original color. Fun project for someone with deep pockets.
12 out of 19 photos are blurry, and none have the whole vehicle in the frame. Looks promising for the price… but one would have to look very closely to see what they’re really buying.
Nice looking car but that nasty Velour interior would have to go. It reminds me of the kind of ghastly sofa that you see abandoned behind a good will.
There is a good chance the orignal interior was a wool mohair type material commonly used on many cars. I have never been a fan of it either…..but this one is bad too.
A way into the hobby for small bucks – dual master cylinder, electric fuel pump, safe tires, new hoses and belts, and DRIVE it. They will do 80 all day but old tires won’t, but buy new “bias look” radials and DRIVE it. Not a museum piece, and could have been the least expensive model that year. Friend drove a tank during Vietnam War, had two Buick engines and two Hyramatics, only car he had ever driven was a Corvair. “not quite the same” he said.
Gone.
I wonder what possessed whomever to paint this white? Not an original color, I think.
There were white ones, not that this one was or this is the correct shade.
A different version of the Sherman had 5 Plymouth engines in a radial setup. Look it up , a true work of art.
That engine was used due to a shortage of the proper engine and sent to non US allied forces. There was also a diesel used by another Allied force.
Most were fitted with radial aircraft type engines…………The Detroit Diesel version would have been the best. My old buddy, Jerry Turner (turners auto wrecking near Fresno) has a radial version that he has used as a doorstop for a decade that I know of. At least diesel fuel is not explosive……..(Jerry is also a great source for classic car parts)
Lots of GIs would’da preferred a diesel version I think. The Brits named it “The Ronson, Lights first time,every time”. Probably an unfair comment on the high octane fuel it used. :-) Terry J
My first car was 48′ 62-Series convertible, maroon on maroon leather, and the last year for the Flathead V8.
My next Cadillac was 54′ Coupe de Ville, dark green roof and light green body with cream and dark green leather upholstery. I immediately found some 57′ Cadillac hubcaps and put those on, later I installed some Eldorado wire wheels.
In 66′ I bought a very low mileage 41′ 62-Series 4-dr, like the one featured here. It was black with a light tan Mohair interior. The interior was in perfect condition, since the seats had been covered since new in those clear & colored embossed vinyl/plastic seat covers that were popular in the day.
The 41′ had and interesting history as a wealthy Tacoma area man had bought it for his place in Hawaii. It was on a ship in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked the island. The ship and the Cadillac were unharmed, but when the smoke cleared and they started to unload the Cadillac, the military wanted to draft the Caddy into military service, but the owner said no and the military, with new found powers, wouldn’t let the car land so back to Tacoma it went to spend the rest of its days.
I acquired the car from its second owner, the grounds keeper for the original owner’s large estate on Browns Point across the bay from Tacoma. He had inherited it from him and had it for years, but almost never drove it, just kept it garaged and clean and polished. When he died the grounds keeper’s family sold it to me, it had 27,000 miles on it and the original spare tire was still in the trunk.
I brought my first child and his mother home from the hospital in that 41′ Cadillac as it had a great heater which heated up nearly instantly. The Cadillac’s of that era had a thermostat that controlled shutter vanes that allowed more or less air through the radiator rather then a thermostat controlled coolant valve. Some cars have recently brought back that feature.
I put a lot of miles on the car which was very reliable, I only had to replace the tires and the rear constant velocity joint. I wouldn’t have hesitated to drive that car across the country and back.
The Flathead engine was famously very smooth, you could put a glass of water on the air cleaner when it was running and the the water was dead still. The crankshaft and flywheel weighed over 150 pds. I used to store Cad/Lasalle crankshafts upright, attached to the flywheel as you should never store a crankshaft in a horizontal position. In that combination, it was very hard to pick up and move so I would tip the crank and roll the combo on the flywheel.
Many don’t know that the Cadillac flathead engine was used during WW11 in pairs with and automatic transmission in tanks and other military vehicles. For years after the war(into the late 60’s), you could buy those brand new engines with the auto trans attached. My first ‘crate’ engine was one of those war surplus engines.
Many memories… Thanks for posting the car, Brian.
PS! My next Cadillac was a 57′ Convertible.
In good condition these are very nice cars, I had one 60 years ago. Four years ago I looked at this one and it appears nothing has changed. The same photos and much of the same text are used and the awful fuzzy upholstery is unchanged. It didn’t run then for the same stated reasons. In November of 2012 the asking price was $7500. In 1941 the cheap Cadillac was Series 61, this series 62 is a step up and recognized as a classic by http://www.classiccarclub.org/grand_classics/approved_classics_2016.html
I love descriptions where something will go 80 mph all day long for days on end. Boy that must have been one way to test this car. (“Honey.. I’ll be back in 4 days. I’m going out to test drive the Cadillac I bought”)
Nice driver Would love to have it. One thing I’ve never understood is why Cadillac called the model 62 series, anyone know & care to enlighten me? Seems an odd number-500 or 100 I can understand, but 62 ? LD71 😄
Looks like it has been sold as the listing is no longer available.
I would have bought that one, love old caddies…
Thanks guys for the replies. I’ll admit I got “lazy” and relied on my memory rather than grabbing one of my reference books. There are more versions of the M4, commonly known as the “Sherman” or “General Sherman” than one can shake a stick at. It constantly evolved, before, during and after WWII. I actually looked it up on tank-encyclopedia.com. More than 11 manufacturers and some with different engines. The Continental radial was the one “we” had at my Battalion as a mascot & very common. Ford V8s, single or double were also used. The odd five Chrysler Corp. “radial” of V8s used, but more rare. No “Caddies” that I found. A very small % of the overall build were diesel of one or two engines, but the Brits got almost ALL of them, then the Marines for the Pacific. Glad my “monsters” during the 60s were diesel. Smelly, but sure safer than gasoline ! Happy Veteran’s Day to any of you out there that served as I did !
these car are in Spain now.