Saturday, November 10, 2007 – From 1948

You could look it up – a 1948 Cadillac Club Coupe, or Model 6207, sometimes also referred to as a Sedanet, parked on a side street in Beverly Hills –

The 1948 Cadillac is considered by many people to be the pinnacle of Cadillac styling, and is a "Certified Milestone Car." … It was the first all-new design for the marque since the wartime years, and incorporated "rudder-type" tailfins for the first time, in what was to become a hallmark feature of Cadillac's for the next twelve years, reaching its zenith with the 1959 models and then disappearing entirely in two years. General Motors design chief Harley Earl gets a lot of credit, but the design was really Franklin Q. Hershey's baby, designed on Hershey's farm during a labor dispute. Both Harley Earl and Franklin Q. Hershey had seen the revolutionary P-38 Lightning which legendary Lockheed engineer Kelly Johnson and Hall Hibbard had designed just before the war, and which inspired so many design features in the Cadillac - not least of which was the "drum-type" housing of the instrument panel, which looked a lot like the display on a fighter; it was a bit expensive to produce, and thus appeared only on the 1948 models. The principal stylistic innovation was the single flowing visual line from front to back - also inspired by the P-38. It also had those boob-like bumper protrusions which came to be known as "Dagmars," named after an early television celebrity.

There's much more here.

If you wish to use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me. And should you choose to download any of these images and use them invoking the "fair use" provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976, please provide credit, and, on the web, a link back this site.

Technical Note:

Most of these photographs were shot with a Nikon D70 - using lens (1) AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or (2) AF Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, or after 5 June 2006, (3) AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor, 55-200 mm f/4-5.6G ED. They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.  Earlier photography was done with a Sony Mavica digital still camera (MVC-FD-88) with built-in digital zoom.

All text and photos, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Alan M. Pavlik