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’49 Cadillac Built To Run La Carrera Panamericana—the Mexican Road Race

Hayden Groendyke can identify the exact instant he hatched the wonder featured here. He and co-driver Charles Samples were flying back from the ’09 edition of La Carrera Panamericana, known to us gringos as the Mexican Road Race. They’d just run the grueling, seven-day, 1,800-mile event—one of the great automotive adventures—in a mildly modded Hudson Hornet, and after a slew of mechanical problems, they were licking their wounds. Bag this, Hayden decided right then and there on the plane. “We’re doing this next year at the front of the bus,” he informed his co-piloto.

Dusting off a restored ’49 Cadillac Sedanet parked in the garage, Hayden delivered the road hog to Jim and Jason Smith of the Hot Rod Shop in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. The Smiths began the makeover by jacking up the enormous fastback body shell and sliding in a brand-new Art Morrison chassis, one specifically engineered for the heavy-duty road pounding Hayden was planning. Coilovers are used all around, with unequal-length wishbones in the front and Morrison’s three-link setup in the rear. Brakes are Wilwood with six-pot calipers and 14-inch rotors, while the Oz Superleggera wheels (19×10 front and 19×12 rear) carry Kumho 285/35 and 345/30 rubber, respectively.

The engine is an ’09 Corvette LS9 fresh from the crate, with some tweaks on the blower and intake by Lingenfelter and a calibration by Ed Wright. The conservative combo is good for an easy 600 hp and 580 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels. The gearbox is a trick and sturdy Jerico five-speed road racing piece, while Strange supplied the 9-inch Ford rear axle and Eaton Truetrac helical differential. With a direct top gear and 3.25:1 final drive ratio, top speed is estimated at, oh, lots faster than any ’49 Cadillac ought to be going. Our advice should you see the monster coming is to get of the way.

See all photos.

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The Tale of Two Fins

GM designers were serious in their pursuit of provocative styling to woo war-weary customers. To diminish the visual bulk of Cadillac’s pre-war designs, Earl insisted that both the front and rear fenders be separated from the main body to mimic the muscularity of a crouching animal. (Earl, a talker and hand waver, never placed pen to paper.) To finish the 1948 Cadillac’s long flowing side sweeps, Hershey topped rear fenders with fillips containing taillamps. Inevitably, they were nicknamed tailfins.

Earl later told a newspaper reporter, “When I saw the P-38 rudders sticking up, it gave me an idea for use after the war. But when we introduced fins, we almost started a war within the corporation.”

In fact, Earl, along with other GM heads, had mixed emotions about the fins and he instructed Hershey to pare them off the clay models. But when GM president Charles Wilson, Cadillac chief engineer Ed Cole, general manager John Gordon, and design chief Bill Mitchell all voiced support, Earl reluctantly joined the yea team. When they finally reached the street, fins were deemed a stroke of genius and accessory shops all over the country invented ways to add Cadillac’s tail blips to Chevies and Oldsmobiles.

In 1955, with the jet age soaring, Cadillac seized the moment with new razor-edged rear stabilizers for the Eldorado Special Convertible. By 1957, the lean fin motif had spread from Cadillac’s base models up to its hand-crafted Eldorado Brougham.

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The Cadillac-Engineered Hydra-Matic Drive

The Hydra-Matic was introduced in 1940 and was the first brand of mass-produced automatic transmission. Hydra-Matic transmissions drew on a rich tradition of engineering and manufacturing excellence. The first Hydra-Matic automatic transmission, which debuted on the 1940-model Oldsmobile, had four-speeds. This product provided a decided advantage over the competition, as General Motors entered the post WWII years as the only domestic auto manufacturer offering a fully automatic transmission.

Motor Trend's Very First "Car of the Year": 1949 Cadillac

So wrote John Bond in the November 1949 issue of a new automotive magazine named Motor Trend. Launched two months prior by Hot Rod publisher Robert E. Petersen, "The Magazine for a Motoring World" declared the 1949 Cadillac its first Car of the Year. It was an inspired choice at the time and remains so 61 years later. A dozen American presidents, several wars, and the eight-track tape player have come and gone since then. But Motor Trend's Car of the Year award was the industry's original, and is still an elemental part everything we do.

General Motors had the first all-new postwar Cadillac's chassis and body design ready a year ahead of a new powertrain. The 1946-47 Caddys were quickly updated versions of pre-WWII models. The 1948's styling was as fresh as fresh could be, with substance and mass befitting a premium luxury marque, yet elegant proportions and tastefully restrained use of trim. The hints-of-fins-to-come that first appeared in 1941 were more pronounced, yet massive chrome bumpers and pool table-size trunklids were still a few years off. The only problem lay beneath the hood: The '48's ancient L-head V-8 was a carryover thing of the past. That would change for 1949, in as big a way as possible.

Work on a from-scratch overhead-valve V-8, led by then-Cadillac chief engineer Ernest Seaholm, began prior to Pearl Harbor, but the engine's development was halted for obvious reasons. The job recommenced after the war, now under the stewardship of Harry Barr, John Gordon, and Edward Cole (who also fathered the Small Block Chevy V-8 that came along in 1955, and later became GM president). The new Caddy V-8 was finished in time for the '49 models. Only modest changes were required to the rest of the package, as it was new the year before.

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Birth of the "Fins"

Senior designer Frank Hershey had been working on the rear fender design idea that had first come to him before the war, when Harley Earl led the field trip to Selfridge air base to see the P-38 fighter. Looking at the plane’s twin tail rudders that day, Hershey immediately thought of fins on sea creatures—slicing through the water’s surface as a shark moved in on its prey, flashing silver-blue in the sun when a sailfish rose out of the ocean in full flight, waving a languid goodbye just before a whale disappeared into the deep—heart-stopping images long embedded in his imagination. It struck him that fins were wondrous creations of nature—beautiful, sleek, and shiny, streamlined and symmetrical, the embodiment of power, speed, maneuverability, and stability, everything that a modern automobile should be. And yet no one had designed them into the body of a car, until now.

In the basement of Hershey’s farmhouse, two designers, three modelers, and a sculptor began turning Hershey’s sketches into three dimensions on a quarter-size clay model. “We would lay out ideas on the board, and Harley would come out and we’d make changes,” Hershey said. “He came out all the time.” When the GM plant employees strike ended in March 1946—with the union agreeing to an 18.5-percent pay increase—the work was transferred to the Styling studios, where Harley, Hershey, and Bill Mitchell agreed that Cadillac, the company’s traditional style leader, should get the first fins treatment.

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Inspired by the P-38 Lightning

Inspired by a sneak peek at the P-38 Lightning, Harley Earl’s stylists had drafted some of the fighter plane’s radical features into the division’s “Interceptor” concept exercises. After the end of hostilities, several Interceptor elements debuted on several of Cadillac’s 1948 models, most notably “rudder-type styling” adorning each rear fender. While the tailfin was intended to complement the graceful new look of the Cadillac, it effectively stole the show when it appeared at dealerships in March 1948.

A year later, the styling was joined by the division’s high-compression 331-cu.in. overhead-valve V-8 engine. There’s little debate that 1949 was a landmark year for Detroit, which poured sweeping mechanical and styling changes from its automotive factories by the cubic ton. History tells us, though, that Cadillac had a head start.

All of Cadillac’s best visual attributes of 1948, combined with the mechanical advancements developed for 1949, were not lost on Loren Hulber. A resident of Macungie, Pennsylvania, his long admiration of the redesigned “Standard of the World” eventually led him to the 1949 Series 62 Club Coupe gracing these pages, one of 7,515 produced during Cadillac’s record-breaking year.

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History of Cadillac V8s

Cadillac integrated block and crankcase components in a single casting in 1936. Three main bearings were still in use, and a two-barrel downdraft carburetor was added. Output climbed to 135 horsepower. Shortly after an automatic transmission became available in 1941, car production ceased and Cadillac supplied V-8 engines for the M-5 light tanks that it constructed for World War II use.

By then work had commenced on a modern overhead-valve V-8 engine to take advantage of higher-octane gasoline and rising road speeds. The new design was introduced for the 1949 model year with a 3.81-inch bore and 3.63-inch stroke yielding 331 cubic inches and 160 horsepower at 3800 rpm. Cast iron was used for the block and heads. The crankshaft was now supported by five main bearings. The new valvetrain had overhead rocker shafts and hydraulic lash adjusters. Cars equipped with Cadillac’s new V-8 finished third, tenth, and eleventh at the 1950 24 Hours of Le Mans. That year Cadillac topped 100,000 sales for the first time.

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29 Things You Didn't Know About Cadillac

1. Al Capone’s Cadillac was the first presidential bulletproof limo.

2. Capone also owned one of the Cadillacs used in The Godfather and The Untouchables.

3. After WWII, Caddy introduced the curved glass windshield to America.

4. Cadillac is named after a Frenchman.

5. Cadillac founder Henry M. Leland apprenticed under gunmaker Samuel Colt.

6. Leland souped up Oldsmobiles when he was younger.

7. Cadillac’s slogan, "The Standard of the World," was a reference to its engineering.

8. By 1910, Cadillac was the first manufacturer to mass-produce cars with enclosed cabins.

9. The enclosed cabins eventually led to the counterbalanced crankshaft to keep the cars quiet.

10. In 1912 Cadillac made people less cranky by inventing the electric starter.

11. ...And that electric starter saved lives.

12. Cadillac was the first car equipped with electric lights.

13. It made V8 engines a thing.

14. Leland and his son left Cadillac in 1917 and started the Lincoln Motor Company...and immediately bankrupted it.

15. The 1922 Type 59c could fill up its own tires.

16. In 1927, Cadillac became the first American carmaker to hire an automotive stylist.

17. It was the first to put a V16 Engine in a car.

18. The tail fin on the 1949 Coupe DeVille (above) was inspired by the P38 Lightning fighter plane.

19. ...But, um, they completely forgot to install a gas cap on it.

20. 187 Somalian leopard furs were used to upholster the 1950 Debutante.

21. Those sexually-charged front bumpers from the ‘50s were called Dagmars, after a popular actress.

22. The 1955 Cadillac La Salle II Sports Coupe was the Corvette-esque concept car they should have made.

23. The 1957 Eldorado Brougham came equipped with whiskey glasses.

24. They invented climate control.

25. Those iconic fins on the 1959 Eldorado were a result of corporate trickery.

26. It was the first automaker to roll out airbags.

27. The Allanté was so complex that Cadillac had to have an Italian airport modified.

28. The DeVille was the first publicly available car to have “night vision.”

29. It has been 3D printing prototype pieces since the 1980s.

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