For Sale: 1938 LaSalle Automobile in Staunton, Illinois

Available now is this rare 1938 Lasalle (Cadillac) dressed in a muted blue paint and sporting rear suicide doors along with the optional and rare dual side mounted spare tires and sits properly on white wall tires. Along with the optional spares, this Lasalle features the single spotlight option on the driver's side. The interior is in very good condition and finished in all grays. This Lasalle is powered by the 322ci Flathead V8 engine mated to a 3-speed manual gear box. For a car nearly 100 years old, the paint and body are in very good condition and the car runs and drives well. Lasalle's are rare cars, and this is a great opportunity to add one to your collection without breaking the bank. The LaSalle had its beginnings when General Motors' CEO Alfred P. Sloan noticed that his carefully crafted market segmentation program was beginning to develop price gaps in which General Motors had no products to sell. In an era when automotive brands were somewhat restricted to building a specific car per model year, Sloan surmised that the best way to bridge the gaps was to develop companion marques that could be sold through the current sales network. As originally developed by Sloan, General Motors' market-segmentation strategy placed each of the company's individual automobile marques into specific price ranges, called the General Motors companion make program. The Chevrolet was designated as the entry-level product. Next, (in ascending order), came the Pontiac, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Viking, Marquette, Buick, LaSalle, and Cadillac. By the 1920s, certain General Motors products began to shift out of the plan as the products improved and engine advances were made. Under the companion marque strategy, the gap between the Chevrolet and the Oakland would be filled by a new marque named Pontiac, a quality six-cylinder car designed to sell for the price of a four-cylinder. The wide gap between Oldsmobile and Buick would be filled by two companion marques: Oldsmobile was assigned the up-market V8 engine Viking and Buick was assigned the more compact six-cylinder Marquette. Cadillac, which had seen its base prices soar in the heady 1920s, was assigned the LaSalle as a companion marque to fill the gap that existed between it and Buick. Beginning with the 1934 model year, a significant portion of the LaSalle, now called the Series 50 Model 350, was more closely related to the Oldsmobile L-Series, Buick Series 40 and Buick Series 50 while sharing an appearance with the senior Cadillac Series 355s. This was marked by a shift to the Oldsmobile- and Buick-based B platform. Again, Earl's work with the LaSalle resulted in a graceful vehicle, led by an elegantly thin grille that now concealed the previously exposed radiator, which was shared with Cadillac and Pontiac for that year. Earl's other contribution was the modern, airplane-styled, semi-shielded portholes along the side of the hood. All bodies were now made by Fleetwood.[1] 1933 was the first year all GM vehicles were installed with optional vent windows which were initially called No Draft Individually Controlled Ventilation later renamed Ventiplanes which the patent application was filed on Nov. 28, 1932. It was assigned to the Ternstedt Manufacturing Company, a GM subsidiary that manufactured components for Fisher Body and they were introduced on the Series 50 in 1934. The Series 50 was also no longer available with a V8, which was a distinction shared with all Cadillacs, and now only available with an Oldsmobile sourced flathead inline-eight, while Buick continued to offer the more technologically advanced overhead valve straight-eight engine exclusive to Buick. The LaSalle was the first Cadillac to use hydraulic brakes sources from Bendix and various components were sourced from within different GM Divisions in order to cut production costs. The Oldsmobile engine was not assembled by Oldsmobile then supplied to the LaSalle factory, instead the parts were sent to the LaS