For long I had only seen one or two photos of this wonderful Coachcraft 1941 Cadillac Convertible with padded top. The first photo I had seen appears to be an early version with an older Cadillac - looks to be 1941 grille and bumpers, and with fender skirts (which I like very much on the car) The next photo of the car I found was taken in front of the Coachcraft shop... with a new 1946-47 Cadillac grille, and same year bumpers added. Then I found a few small photos on one of the great old photo threads on here... but today I found the whole series on the Life photo site.... This is such a great car, and makes me wonder if it is still around today... and even more for who it was built, and what's the story behind it... I dont know nothing about this car... Anybody else knows something about this car? The body appears to be sectioned with a new custom built roaster type V-windshield and a wonderfully shaped padded top. Strangely enough the series don's show the rear of the car...
Wow, that is truly a beautiful car, don't know anything about it, but will post it here if I find anything on it!
Thanks Rik- Pretty darn sweet. I guess Coachcraft did that beautiful top? nice paint in pale tone- wonder what the colour was on this car? Now, if we just get to that door hinge & rear wheelarch top.. p.s; Nice model..
Hey Rik, Coachcraft is still in business, today. It's my understanding they no longer do coachbuilding, but restoration work. The business is being run by the founders son in Santa Paula California, I beleave. Perhaps they have some info on file about the Caddie? I wish I had more info on the Caddie for ya. " The icecream truck in his neighborhood plays Helter-Skelter "
That is sweet. It shows that you can customize a car and make a lot of changes but it still retains all of it's heritage and identity.
Coachcraft is truly an icon in the automotive industry. Much of what is factory on american cars today was inovated by the craftsmen at Coachcraft back in the day. The founder of Coachcraft's son (Bill) is putting together a 4 part book set on the history of the shop along with a possible DVD. He has been working on it for a while now. It will be packed with incredible photo's and definetly be worth reading. The shops doors are alway's open for people to stop by, take a look at their latest project and listen to one of Bill's stories on old Hollywood and the history of the shop. Everytime I am there Bill has a new story to tell. I thought that after being a close family friend for over 20 years I heard them all. Apparently not. Bill always has a new one up his sleeve worth listening too. Fillmore CA could not be a better home for Coachcraft these day's. Santa Paula CA had Von Dutch and the next town over has Coachcraft. Oh what history Highway 126 has to offer. Not only is the Stoessel family pioneer's in the automotive industry, they are truly great people and it's an honor to call them my friends! Coachcraft's phone number is (805) 524-7744.
Although they are too old now. I am still interested with its fender flares skirts. I wonder where if its fender skirts are still existed. I am interested to buy them. Its awesome!
Hello Rikster I think we have talked before on another car ..Here is the info on this Custom Cady ,That my Grandfather and the rest of the guys at Coachcraft built.. The car was built for Jimmy Goode and then sold to Emanuel Feldstein,The car was used in the movie with Wiiliam Holden called TheGolden Boy ..The cars was last seen in New York about 30 years ago ..Yes it would be really cool if this car was still around ..Well that is about all the info we have on the car ..Please sent me the site that you found the life mag. articles and photo..All we have is the two top photos of the car ..In the one photo of the car the Man Driving the car was one of the Coachcraft partners .His Name was Burt Chalmers ..Thank you for the post it helps keep the history of the Company alive .. Thanks Anthony at Coachcraft...
They accomplished that rare quality of proportioning it such a manner that it seems to be much smaller and sportier than the stock cad.
Thanks for the update Anthony. But are you sure about the movie being the Golden Boy? According to IMDB the golden boy movie was released in 1939: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031377/
Hello Anthony, Thank you for the additional information on the car. I do not have a Life magazine article with this car. I was able to find the photos on the Google Life magazine image search LINK You can download the images from there. Or take them from my site. Thank you for adding the two photos of the car in the early version. I assume that this was how it looked when the car was owned by Jimmy Goode. And was later modified with 1947 Cadillac components for Emanuel Feldstein. The two additional photos were placed on another thread.. so here they are to get them all together... Photos from the Coachcraft archives.
I really like the first version a lot. I think it looks way better with the smaller egg crate grille. Rik I think there was an article on this car in special intrest autos years ago. Im not 100% sure but for soem reason I remember reading about this car in there.
Hello Jarzen! it might be in that article they did on the shop back in 04 or 05 .It was 26 pages long ..The editor said it was the longest article they ever did .To much info for one mag ..But special interest is a great mag to read ,they have some pretty neat articles ,but I haven't seen it in a while is it still out there ? Thanks Anthony
Rikster: 'where' = someplace, every place, anywhere, everywhere ... 'were' = be , past tense. Before anyone jumps on my case for correcting Rikster, just know that he and I have an ongoing thing about English...and yes, I'm well aware he's not in the US... Rikster, we'll keep having this lesson until you get it correct...!!! R-
been too long since this one had a run. This car heavily influenced my ongoing 39 Cad project. Lots of clean inspiration here.
ibought a pile of parts & pieces of keenan wynn's 1935 indy street roadster that were left when the car was restored back to the 1935 henry ford indy car. restored car isin speedy bills musieum now. the original body was altered quite a bit to make it streetable, we couldn't find who did the alterations, thought it was kurtis craft. then one nite we were at barns and knobles reading car mags. and my friend said ''hey your car is in the mag'' i have a couple other cars that have been in mags. so i went over to see, it was a story on coachcraft witha pix of rudy stossell and kennan wynn wheeling a new nose for the car[in the movie THE OTHER LOVE the car was crashed into a tree and the nose smashed] i found coachcrafts number and called bill stossell and he said to stop by that he had other pix of the car. i live in florida, so i had to wate till we went to la rdst. show to go by. bill is a super guy and loves to talk about coachcraft,i got about 6 pix of the car in the shop. he remembered keenan burning rubber in front of their shop. it is still a mistery of who did the body work, keenan changed a few things over the time he had the car, don't know if i will ever get to the car but research has been fun and amazing.
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