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Chet Forrest and Bob Wright wrote the song “It’s a Blue World” in 1939, for the Columbia musical Music in My Heart, and its first commercial release was by Glenn Miller in early 1940, about a year before this lovely blue 1941 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special would have originally been sold. Even so, I always associate the song with the Frank Sinatra version, recorded two decades later. Like this Cadillac, it marked a transitional point between distinctly different eras.
Frank Sinatra recorded “It’s a Blue World” on September 12, 1961, and it was released in early 1962 on his album Point of No Return. It was his last LP under his contract with Capitol Records, which had seen him rise from burned-out has-been to one of the world’s biggest recording stars. Point of No Return was also a reunion between Sinatra and arranger Axel Stordahl, who had arranged many of Sinatra’s early solo hits of 1940s (although some of the album tracks, including “Blue World,” were actually arranged by Heinie Beau); it would be the last time they worked together before Stordahl’s death in 1963. The album’s title was apt: Although Sinatra had made some of the best records of his career at Capitol, he wanted more than the label was prepared to give him, and so he’d founded his own label, Reprise Records. By the time the songs for Point of No Return were recorded, he had already released several albums on Reprise, and was champing at the bit to wrap up his Capital obligations and move on. His subsequent Reprise era would give him greater control and more money, but despite some unquestionable artistic highlights, it would eventually see him straining to remain relevant in the face of changing popular tastes.
Cadillac was at a similar crossroads in 1941. The division had recovered splendidly from its Depression-era slump of a few years earlier and weathered a late-thirties recession. Now, it had finally cast off the last of its slow-selling V-16 cars and its former “companion make,” LaSalle, which both expired after 1940. With Cadillac’s V-8 now making an impressive 150 gross horsepower (110 net hp), the V-16 had seemed extraneous, and division management had realized they stood to make more money with a “entry-level” car badged as a Cadillac rather than a LaSalle. Priced a full $400 below the cheapest 1940 Cadillac, the new 1941 Series 61 risked cheapening the brand, but it also promised much greater volume and greater commercial success.
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In January 1941, Cadillac would also introduce a new optional feature that no other luxury car in the world could yet match: the four-speed, fully automatic Hydra-Matic transmission, which had been introduced a year earlier by Oldsmobile. Take-up was low at first (only about 30 percent in 1941), but within a decade, few Cadillacs would still be sold with the once-pioneering Synchro-Mesh manual transmission.
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Styling was changing, too. In profile, the 1941 Sixty Special was still clearly a lineal descendant of Bill Mitchell’s epochal 1938 design, which introduced its notchback profile, “rolled” beltline, and delicate bright window reveals (filched without apology from the 1934–1936 Panhard et Levassor “Panoramique”). However, those features were now overshadowed by the massive new grille, inspired by Art Deco buildings along Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, and the exaggerated bullet fenders, which now extended back into the front doors on some models (including the Sixty Special).
1938 Cadillac Sixty Special / Classic.com
1936 Panhard et Levassor X73 Panoramique / via Rétro Passion Automobiles
The other big Cadillac news for 1941 was the fastback “Aerodynamic Series,” which would become increasingly prominent through the 1940s, although for now, it was only available in the cheaper series.
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This blue Sixty Special it isn’t a fastback (nor does it have Hydra-Matic), but you can still clearly see the new idiom beginning to take shape. Stylistic continuity was a Cadillac watchword throughout the division’s heyday, but the basic design of the Sixty Series was obviously a product of the 1930s, and no longer as groundbreaking or striking as it had been three years earlier. Within not too many years — after the war that almost everyone now knew America would soon enter — what the salesman’s guide called its “dignified streamlined appearance” would look start to look very dated indeed.
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No matter: As the era in which it was built fades from living memory, the 1941 Sixty Special no longer needs to worry about looking dated. As with Sinatra, it has transcended its awkward transitional phases and various contradictions to attain a kind of immortality. To see it now, especially in such beautifully maintained and polished condition, is to step momentarily out of the normal flow of time: Suddenly, it’s 1941, and if you turned the car’s radio on, you wouldn’t be too surprised to hear a live broadcast by Glenn Miller (who died in 1944).
At age 83 — Hyperpack took these shots in June 2024, so we can be reasonably confident that it’s probably still on the road — this blue Sixty Special is now a year older than Sinatra was at the time of his death in 1998, and it has almost certainly outlived everyone who originally designed, assembled, or sold it. If it’s not quite as striking or historically noteworthy as some of the Cadillacs that came before or after it, it still makes you want to tip your hat.
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Cadillac can be thankful they didn’t introduce radical new styling at this point – they would have had little time to establish it before production was halted for WW2, and postwar the design would no longer be fresh. That was one of the many things that hurt Packard who had brought out the ultramodern Clipper in mid-1941, and didn’t get around to a full postwar redesign until 1951 after the 1941 bodies had been amortized. The prewar Cadillacs, both the classic notchbacks and fastbacks, were elegant and modern enough to look good in the first few years of postwar production.
I somehow was unaware of that late Sinatra/Stordahl album, which I will have to check out. “It’s a Blue World” (for some reason not listed on the album cover, although it is indeed on it) for me will always be a Four Freshman song though. One of the “collegiate folk” groups popular in the 1950s, I finally decided to check them out after hearing Brian Wilson cite them as a major influence a few dozen times. Listening to this 1951 recording now, it’s easy to hear how these intricate harmonies left such an indelible influence on the Beach Boys, who basically took Four Freshman harmonies, Chuck Berry guitar riffs, and Dick Dale attitude and mixed these wildly disparate artists and genres into something new and their very own.
There are many versions of “It’s a Blue World” — a few years after the Four Freshmen version, it was the title track of a Mel Tormé LP, and a few years after that, Beverly Kenney did a fine version on her LP Born to Be Blue. However, I heard the Sinatra version first, and was aware of the behind-the-scenes saga, which is quite interesting. Stordahl had done an enormous amount to make Sinatra a solo star in the ’40s, but they parted ways after Sinatra went to Capital, a combination of Sinatra wanting a new sound (which he found with Nelson Riddle) and his resentment at Stordahl going to work with Eddie Fisher, which Sinatra saw as disloyal and never forgave. Their reunion was not sentimental at all, with Sinatra reportedly ignoring Stordahl (whom he presumably knew was very sick) and taking a brusque, let’s-get-this-over-with attitude toward the sessions.
My favorite Sinatra song ( I Did It My Way) is emblematic of Cadillacs Sixty Special, doing things their own way. Regrets? They a few! In fact MANY bad decisions, especially in the 80s. But through it all the Sixty Special was always SPECIAL. For me, the 58 Sixty Special was the epitome of OTT excessively chromed upscale Luxury vehicles. I don’t recall the last year of the Sixty Special, but the Fleetwood Brougham deElegance ( I had an 89 ) carried on the top of the line with the exception of Series 75 Limos. Even MY 89 wasn’t considered a Fleetwood, the Fleetwood name having given to 🤮 downsized FWD vehicles. ANOTHER Cadillac mistake. From the Standard of the WORLD to today’s CADILLACKING SUVS. Oh how the mighty have fallen!