Vehicle Description
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
