Automotive History: 1949 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe de Ville – From Image Leader To Standard-Bearer For The U.S. Industry

 

After Paul posted his recent survey of the inflation-adjusted cost of a Cadillac Coupe de Ville over the years, I realized that CC had never run a history of the first CdV from 1949. Is the 1949 Cadillac Coupe de Ville the definitive Cadillac? It certainly makes a strong case. I struggle to think of another American car of the ’40s that had a greater impact — not only on Cadillac itself, but on the entire U.S. industry. In many respects, the first Coupe de Ville was the prototype for the median American car of the ’60s: OHV V-8, automatic transmission, and a pillarless hardtop coupe. Let’s give it a closer look, illustrated using a couple of lovely blue survivors.

The Serialized Cadillac

The era in which the 1949 Cadillac appeared was the heyday of serialized entertainment. Americans were accustomed to daily newspaper comics, three- or five-day-a-week radio and early TV dramas, movie chapter-plays, and new novels serialized in installments in popular magazines. You couldn’t just binge everything all at once like you can now; you had to wait for the next installment.

 

Cadillac was a bit like that in this period: There was all-new styling for 1948, but still the familiar L-head engine. The new OHV V-8 arrived for 1949, but still with a split windscreen and the same old Knee Action chassis. For 1950, there was a one-piece windshield and a new chassis with tubular shocks, but not yet power steering or power brakes (or ball joints, which didn’t arrive until 1957). You got a lot for your money each time around (a point modern attempts at serial entertainment often miss), but there was almost always something to come back for next year.

 

On that styling: As many CC readers are probably aware, the overall styling themes of the 1948–1949 Cadillac (which were conceived by Frank Hershey) were inspired by the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, which Harley Earl had arranged for a group of GM designers to view at Selfridge Field back in early 1941. Hershey’s early sketches took the aircraft theme even further, with some design sketches sporting a pseudo-propeller nose treatment not unlike the late 1950 Studebaker. This didn’t make it to production, but the P-38-inspired fins and pseudo air scoops did, paired with a scaled-down and simplified version of the eggcrate grille Cadillac had used since 1941.

 

Whether the typical Cadillac buyer of 1948–1949 would have registered or cared that the 1948 styling was “aircraft-inspired” is questionable, and even for dedicated aviation enthusiasts, the P-38 was old hat by 1948. (The last Lightnings still in U.S. military service, re-designated F-38 in mid-1948, were written off by early 1949.) No matter: Just as no one really cares if the “book” of a stage or screen musical is a little hokey as long as the songs are good, people liked the Cadillac fins enough that the dated origins of the aviation theme hardly mattered. The point was that the new “rudder-type” fenders gave Cadillac an immediately recognizable visual signature from the rear as well as the front, while also making the concealed gas cap under the left tall lamp (a feature Cadillac had adopted in 1941) a real surprise-and-delight feature.

 

But all that had been in 1948. As the Cadillac salesperson’s data book noted, the division had mostly stood pat for 1949:

Exterior changes in the 1949 models have been held principally to grille and other minor refinements. That is both natural and logical. For Cadillac, today, is easily the most distinguished motor car in the world. And there is nothing now on the horizon to seriously challenge its enviable position. Public acceptance of Cadillac is clearly beyond all precedent for a car in this price class. The sharp upturn in orders immediately following introduction of the present advanced design definitely established that fact.

 

The real news for 1949 was the new engine. Cadillac had used V-8 engine since 1915, of course, and the familiar 346 cu. in. (5,676 cc) L-head V-8 dated back to 1936. By the end of its life, it was a smooth, rugged, reliable engine, making a respectable net output of 124 hp and 259 lb-ft of torque. (Advertised power was 150 gross hp.) However, its development potential was limited by its L-head design, under-square dimensions, and three-main-bearing crankshaft.

 

Cadillac’s 1949 engine, designed by Ed Cole and Harry Barr, was entirely new except for its 90-degree V-8 layout, with overhead valves, “slipper” pistons, a bigger bore and shorter stroke, a stiffer five-main-bearing crankshaft, and wedge combustion chambers. It had one-third less rotational inertia and 20 percent lower mean piston speeds than the L-head, with greater volumetric and thermal efficiency. With a displacement of 331 cu. in. (5,245 cc), the OHV gave away 15 cubic inches to its predecessor and actually had smaller valves, but was more powerful — 133 net hp and 268 lb-ft (advertised as 160 gross hp) — and returned about 2 mpg more than the L-head engine at all steady road speeds. The new engine was also 4.1 inches shorter and 3.7 inches lower than the L-head V-8, and reduced complete powertrain weight (including radiator) by 220 lb. It was the model for all the OHV Detroit V-8s that followed; within a decade, almost every U.S. make would offer a V-8 engine like this.

 

A lighter and more powerful engine in a mostly unchanged body made for a much faster Cadillac. GM Proving Grounds tests of 1948 and 1949 Cadillac Series 61 sedans, both with Hydra-Matic and both carrying the weight of four occupants, found the 1949 almost 3 seconds quicker to 60 mph, with a top speed of 99.6 mph. With a lighter load, a 1949 Cadillac was capable of 0 to 60 mph in 13 seconds or less, and was an honest 100 mph car. In the February 1949 Mechanix Illustrated, Tom McCahill claimed his 1949 Cadillac had gone from 0 to 60 mph in 12.1 seconds, and while he didn’t measure actual top speed, he felt the Cadillac would “definitely do better than 105 mph” — formidable performance in 1949. A Cadillac with the new engine could also return 16 to 17 mpg in gentler highway driving, on 88 RON gasoline.

 

These figures were with Hydra-Matic Drive, the revolutionary GM four-speed automatic transmission, which was first offered as a Cadillac option back in 1941. It still wasn’t standard in 1949, although 98 percent of Cadillac buyers ordered it, at an extra cost of $200. The late ’40s Hydra-Matic wasn’t as versatile as the later Dual-Range units (introduced in 1952), and compared to the mechanically smoother Turbo Hydra-Matic, its operation was a series of surges and thumps. However, it was fully automatic, and provided far better performance than the smoother but much slushier Buick Dynaflow or new Packard Ultramatic. Since Hydra-Matic had a partial mechanical lockup in third and fourth gears and came with a 3.36 axle rather than the 3.77 supplied with manual shift, it gave away relatively little in fuel efficiency compared to the increasingly rare three-speed Synchro-Mesh gearbox.

 

What about handling? Few American cars of this era handled especially well in any modern sense, and even Tom McCahill hadn’t yet thought of setting up skidpad or slalom tests, although he did say that the 1949 Cadillac “drives and handles with effortless ease.” Curious British road testers also found it effortless, but they were more dismayed than comforted by the softness of the suspension and the vagueness of the recirculating ball steering; Laurence Pomeroy of The Motor compared the Cadillac to the Queen Mary. Still, the steering was not yet agonizingly slow (a ratio of 21.3:1, a bit under four turns lock to lock), and the car was well-balanced despite its softness. Both The Autocar and The Motor conceded that once you got your head around the size and the remoteness of the steering, the Cadillac could cover ground very rapidly, even on European roads, and always in great comfort.

Coupe de Ville

You could still order a fastback club coupe in the Series 61 and Series 62 lines in 1949, but since the fastback dated back to 1941, it was no longer the latest and greatest thing, stretched beyond its usual lifespan by the war. The new style leader was the Coupe de Ville, Cadillac’s first pillarless hardtop coupe.

 

The Coupe de Ville was first seen in prototype form at the GM Transportation Unlimited show in late January 1949. That prototype (which still exists, having been driven for a number of years by former GM president Charles E. Wilson) was on the longer Fleetwood 60 Special chassis, with many unique concept car features, including a one-piece curved windshield production cars wouldn’t get until 1950.

 

The production model, which arrived in the the summer of 1949, was part of the Series 62 line, riding a 126-inch wheelbase, with the same curved two-piece windshield as other Cadillacs. (The De Ville wouldn’t become a completely separate series until 1959.)

 

Contrary to legend, the pillarless hardtop was not suggested by Buick assistant chief engineer Ed Ragsdale in 1947 as a car for his wife, although Sarah Ragsdale did drive convertibles without ever putting the top down, and Ragsdale did remark that the hardtop design would be perfect for her. Stylists Ned Nickles and Jules Andrade had done concept renderings of hardtop designs in 1944–1945, and the idea wasn’t exactly new even then. It nonetheless proved very popular, for obvious reasons: It offered convertible glamour in a package suitable for year-round use.

 

To emphasize this relationship, Cadillac trimmed and equipped the original Coupe de Ville just like the Series 62 convertible, including the same cloth-and-leather upholstery. You had only two color choices, blue and gray or brown and tan, but both made the interior look like a fancy frosted cake. Also standard on both Coupe de Ville and convertible were power windows and power seats. These were hydraulically operated, with solenoid switches controlling a line pressure of about 250 psi, generated by an under-hood “Hydro-Lectric” pump. On convertibles, this also raised or lowered the top, and on Series 75 Imperial limousines raised or lowered the divider.

 

As on all Cadillacs of this time, you got full instrumentation, a resettable trip odometer, an electric clock, map lights, and a cigarette lighter, although the standard equipment list had a few odd omissions, like an inside rear view mirror. I assume most Coupe de Ville and convertible ’49s were ordered with one of the accessory groups, which included the rear-view mirror, backup lights, a windshield washer, wheel covers, and license plate frames, for a single price of $62.80. Even 20 years later, Cadillac still charged buyers a premium for whitewall tires or radios, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that buyers paid extra for these things in 1949: $25.25 and $99.10 respectively, the latter including a vacuum-operated aerial.

 

All 1949 Cadillacs had a revised “All-Weather Ventilation” system. As in 1948, it drew ventilation air through inlet passages from ducts on either side of the grille. This had defroster ducts for the windshield and front door glass, but a heater was, curiously, not yet standard. There were two heater options: The pricier automatic heating system had an in-dash fresh air heater-defroster, as in 1948 (albeit on the left side rather than the right), plus two recirculating hot water heaters under the front seat, all thermostatically controlled. Cheapskates could get the standard heater, which had a recirculating defroster and one under-seat heater, which had to be manually disabled in warm weather with a shut-off valve under the hood.

 

These systems all shared a potentially lethal shortcoming: Because the air inlets were low in the nose, on either side of the grille, they could draw in exhaust from other cars when idling or in dense traffic, potentially filling the cabin with carbon monoxide. This was a serious enough problem that Cadillac included a warning about it in the owner’s manual, advising that the inlets be shut in such conditions. The owner’s manual offered no advice for coping with this problem in the winter. With the automatic heating system, it would seem that the most dangerous situation would be driving in slow traffic on a cold day with the heater on and the windows up, with the heater intake slowly filling the high-pressure cabin air with CO.

 

The cords on the front seat backs are leather-covered robe cords, which could hold blankets or lap robes for the benefit of rear seat passengers (who might otherwise have had to be extracted with ice tongs after a long drive on a frosty winter night with no heater). Cadillac dealers would cheerfully sell you lap robes, although anyone expecting this to be cheaper than buying the automatic heating system was in for a rude surprise: Official Cadillac lap ropes ran from $65 to $100 each, with an extra $6.50 charge if you wanted them monogrammed.

 

The Coupe de Ville listed for the same price as the Series 62 convertible: $3,497 FOB Detroit. Adding the accessory group, Hydra-Matic, radio, automatic heating system, and whitewalls brought the bill to $3,991.15, not including lap robes. This was $689.50 more than a similarly equipped Series 61 club coupe, the cheapest 1949 Cadillac model. The Coupe de Ville wasn’t the most expensive 1949 Cadillac by any means — the 60 Special, probably the most senior model the typical owner-driver would actually buy, was $331 more, while the Series 75 cars could top $5,600 — but this was still a formidable pile of money. For comparison, a 1949 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe sport coupe started at $1,508, although Chevrolet buyers couldn’t (yet) get a V-8 engine, automatic transmission, or a pillarless hardtop body at any price.

 

Paul previously estimated the inflation-adjusted cost of the 1949 Coupe de Ville at $45,970, which I presume is based on the list price without options. On a strict Consumer Price Index inflation adjustment basis, the $3,991 price of a loaded 1949 Coupe de Ville would be the equivalent of $52,794 in 2024 dollars. However, MeasuringWorth (which offers a variety of calculators of this kind) suggests that its adjusted value relative to the goods and services a typical household of the time would actually buy is closer to $86,807 in 2024 dollars.

We can also weigh the price of a new 1949 Coupe de Ville in terms of average wages. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average weekly gross earnings of a worker in “transportation equipment” manufacturing in 1949 were $65.10. At that rate, the price of a loaded Coupe de Ville represented more than 61 weeks’ gross salary; a well-equipped $1,800 Chevrolet amounted to only about 28 weeks’ wages. (Obviously, no one could or would spend their entire pre-tax gross salary on a new car, but this provides some sense of comparative affordability.)

 

In any event, the 1949 Coupe de Ville was not a big seller, accounting for just 2,150 units, but that had less to do with its price than with its late introduction. Sales doubled for 1950, doubled again for 1951, and reached a ’50s peak of 33,360 units in 1955. In the ’60s and ’70s, the Coupe de Ville went from strength to strength, selling more than 60,000 units a year by the end of the ’60s and well over 100,000 a year through the ’70s.

 

Why? Believe it or not, the bigger, heavier, costlier Coupe de Ville had gradually become more affordable for American consumers. This is counterintuitive because a 1969 Coupe de Ville was nearly 10 inches longer and 800 lb heavier than its 1949 ancestor (although their stylistic kinship remained evident), and the base price was now $5,720.90. Automatic transmission, a heater, and windshield washers were now standard, but leather no longer was, listing for an extra $137.90. (Whitewalls were again extra, at $56.85, while the cheapest AM radio was $162.) A 1969 Coupe de Ville equipped about like the loaded blue 1949 examples pictured above would list for $6,078, which is about $52,293 in 2024 dollars.

On an inflation-adjusted basis, that was actually a bit cheaper than the 1949 car, and that’s not even taking into account the 1969 car’s standard power steering, power brakes, and front discs, which weren’t available at all in 1949. In the intervening 20 years, BLS data shows that the average weekly wage of a transportation equipment manufacturing worker (not adjusted for inflation) had increased from $65.10 to $155.72, so that new Coupe de Ville now represented only about 39 weeks’ wages rather than the 61 weeks it had two decades earlier. The MeasuringWorth calculator suggests the adjusted “relative value” of the 1969 CdV in 2024 dollars as $58,082, down more than 30 percent from 1949.

 

More significantly, if someone couldn’t stretch that far, they now had plenty of alternatives. In 1949, the selection of pillarless hardtops was limited, and only the Cadillac and the Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Holiday Coupe offered both a V-8 and automatic transmission. By the 1969 model year, 88.9 percent of all new U.S. cars had V-8 engines; 90.3 percent had automatic transmission; and a whopping 44.6 percent were two-door hardtops.

The attractive blue body color of the 1949 Coupe de Ville survivors seen here (these are two different cars, albeit equipped alike) was officially known as “Triumph Blue,” which seems a singularly appropriate name. Not only had the Coupe de Ville itself triumphed, the CdV format had conquered — if not the world, then certain Detroit.

Related Reading

Automotive History: General Motors’ 1950 Body Interchange Program (by VinceC)
The Inflation Adjusted Prices Of New Cadillac Coupe DeVilles (1949-1993) And In Price Per Pound – The True Cost Of A Cadillac Over The Decades (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1955 Cadillac Coupe DeVille – You’re The DeVille In Disguise, Oh Yes You Are (by Aaron65)
Dealer Classic: 1958 Cadillac Coupe DeVille – Forget the CTS, I’ll take the DeVille – A History of the 1957-58 Cadillacs (by VinceC)
Curbside Classic: 1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille – False Prophet Of A New Era (by Paul N)
Vintage Review: 1969 Cadillac Coupe DeVille – Golden Goose (by GN)