Curbside Classic: 1950 Cadillac Series 61 Coupe – The Ultimate Curbside Classic

By
– Posted on February 14, 2021

CC 47 032 1200

(first posted at CC on 5/9/2011)

The Cadillac CTS-V is the fastest production sedan in the land, thanks to an engine transplant from the Corvette ZR-1. But what about a genuine all-Caddy production racer? Something you could take to Le Mans and challenge Europe’s finest exotics, or just down to the local drag strip and blow away every production car in its day. You’d have to turn the clock back sixty-plus years, when Cadillac’s new V8 was the hottest engine in the land. But if you were serious about racing with it, like Briggs Cunningham did at Le Mans in 1950, or the original owner of this car, you’d have to make sure you request it built as this one, with the very rare manual transmission. That, combined with the fact that this car lives outside (and has the patina to prove it); has a rare factory tri-power induction system, and gets driven regularly makes this hot rod Caddy the ultimate Curbside Classic.

CC 47 068 1200

Cadillac’s superb OHV V8 arrived in 1949, and became the standard for the whole industry. Pretty much every US pushrod V8 engine thereafter owes it a tip of the hat. Until 1951 when the Chrysler Hemi and Lincoln’s new V8 appeared, the Caddy was the only game in the luxury car field; it was the Duesenberg of its time.

CC 47 040 1200

Ever since the late forties, GM’s excellent Hydra-Matic was installed in the overwhelming majority of Cadillacs. The proto-autobox was just the ticket for tooling smoothly down the boulevard, just not for racing. But if you really wanted one, Cadillac would install a three-on-the-tree stick shift. Less than 2% did so in 1950, most of them being ambulance and other commercial-chassis buyers. But there were a few racers too.

CC 47 066 1200

If you fell in the latter category, you’d make sure it was all wrapped up in the Series 61 Coupe, because it had a shorter 122 inch wheelbase and weighed a mere 3,829 pounds. That made it the lightest Cadillac built until the ill-fated Cimarron, and some four hundred pounds lighter than a new CTS-V. Looks can be deceiving.

When the legendary American sportsman Briggs Cunningham received an invitation to race at Le Mans in 1950—that’s how you got in back then—it didn’t take him long to see that the recipe described above was the ticket. So Cunningham ordered two coupes with the three-speed, and commissioned aeronautical engineer Howard Weinman to build a special aerodynamic, lightweight alloy body for one of them. The result was brutally effective but none too handsome. The French dubbed it “Le Monstre”, for reasons readily seen:

Cunningham entered the stock coupe, too, as a backup, but drove Le Monstre himself. It sported no fewer than five carbs, but the engine internals were bone-stock, as was required back then. A spin on the second lap ended up in a sand bank, and it took twenty minutes to free the beast, but the big coupe roared steadily around the track, topping 120 on the straights, without any major incidents and went on to take the number ten spot at the finish. Not bad for a bone-stock yank tank mixing it up with specially-prepared sport-racing Ferraris, Jaguars and the like.

CC 47 037 1200

I knew of Cunningham’s Cadillac exploits, and saw the coupe and Le Monstre at his museum thirty years ago. So when I ran across this very similar Caddy hunkered down in front of a house in the Whiteaker district, my jaw dropped and I almost wet myself. When its owner, Mike, came out and showed me the unusual three-speed, and then raised the hood, I knew I was in the presence of a living time capsule; an early-fifties vintage hot-rod Cadillac.

CC 47 054 1200

Mike has been very attached to this car since he stumbled across it in 1972. He was looking for a replacement for his beloved 1949 Caddy fastback coupe, a classic totaled by a drunk late one night. But that one didn’t have the stick shift, or the hopped-up engine under the hood. Mike knew he had found a keeper.

CC 47 057 1200

That rare factory triple-carb setup is courtesy of a 1959 Eldorado-only option. The 365-cubic-inch engine is from a ’56, which was already pumping 305 horses from the factory. Vintage speed parts and a Chet Herbert roller cam keeps this Caddy bellowing way beyond the usual valve-float-induced red line. This particular block is a replacement for the one that blew up at 92 mph while still in second gear on the Woodburn drag strip some years back. I believe him: Mike took me for a ride, and he didn’t exactly hold back.

CC 47 063 1200

As we blew by the right-lane traffic on the freeway, the Caddy was still in second gear. This is one long-legged beast; just the ticket for Le Mans. The crescendo from the engine and the two shorty pipes exiting just behind the front door ripped the early evening summer calm to shreds. As we hit the ninety degree bend just across the river, the lowered coupe took a set not unlike Cunningham’s № 3 coupe in the picture. Since there wasn’t a seat belt in sight, my elbow clamped down hard on the open window sill. The faux-ivory tipped shift lever eventually found its way home to third, but a little knot of traffic finally put a stop to Mike’s Mulsanne Straight reenactment.

CC 47 076 1200

A few more short, noisy blasts through downtown on the way back to his house reinforced the mixed metaphors this prophet of Detroit V8 muscle cars-to-come projects so eloquently, and probably violated the assumptions (and sensibilities) of the sidewalk patrons in front of the Steelhead Brewery enjoying the summer sunset. But there is something about this hot-rod Caddy. Even the most hard-core bicyclists or Prius drivers—the male ones, anyway—can’t quite resist its charms.

CC 47 049 1200

I’ve found and shot thousands of Curbside Classics sitting on the streets of Eugene so far, but this is the star to date. It embodies the CC ethos perfectly: it’s parked out front and is a real driver; a genuine living time capsule, not a glossy reproduction kept safely in the garage. It proudly wears the scars and patina of life lived fully, and is literally dripping with well-earned character. As Mike summed it up succinctly: “If I restored my friends, I wouldn’t want to hang out with them anymore.”

CC 47 046 1200

Mike is building a new motor for the Caddy, around a 390 cubic inch block. It will still have the three-deuce carb setup from the 365 engine shown here, so it probably won’t look any different, but it will be a fair bit stronger. I’ll have to catch up with him (and a ride) when it’s done and installed.

CC 47 025 1200

2019 Postscript: the last time I saw Mike’s Caddy a few years back, it was still sitting outside in the driveway of his house. The signs of age (patina) had advanced quite noticeably. Mike had health issues. I haven’t been back to see if it’s still there. Maybe I will one of these days…