Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Since I watch old movies on TCM, I get to be reminded of these fine cars of the late 1930's. BUICKS!

Here are some picks from screen captures for the following site:

http://www.imcdb.org/

1937 Buick Roadmaster in 1941 movie, "Footsteps in the Dark."


1937 Buick Limited in Bogart movie, "High Sierra."


1937 Buick convertible in "Nancy Drew, Reporter."


1939 Buick Limited in "Dick Tracey Meets Gruesome."


1939 Buick in "The Falcon's Brother."


1939 Buick in Bogart movie, "High Sierra."


I'm not sure what this scan is credited to, but it shows a 1939 Buick Roadmaster convertible sedan.


This last pic is a General Motors picture of the 1939 Buick Roadmaster.



The senior series Buicks of this time were built using the Cadillac body, whereas the junior series (like the Special), used the Chevrolet body. When you bought a big Buick, you got two spare tires, one in each front fender side mount. The junior series had an in-line eight cylinder engine of 245 cubic inches displacement, and the senior series had a straight eight of 320 cubic inches. In-line engines of eight cylinders seem very dated now, but this design makes for a very smooth engine with lots of torque. The in-line design takes up a lot of longitudinal space in the car design, and that explains some of the front end styling of these cars.

Those are cool cars! Some similar vintage cars I remember seeing in Viet Nam were the old fat fender Peugots. Neat old cars if beat all TO heck... like the older cars in Cuba. SW

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Slava Ukraini!!

....what are the Camo'd "clown cars" in the middle...????

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....Naj puška govori!....
.............deplorable typical "bitter clinger"....

Here are my guesses. The little sedan in the right center of the photo looks like an Italian Fiat. The little convertible to its left I can't see enough of for sure; some kind of typical German civilian make of the time. It looks like it has rear-opening passenger doors, so that rules out BMW, Mercedes and some others.

While the German armed forces had a vehicle standardization program, they never had enough. Consequently, they used everything they could get their hands on, including vehicles requisitioned from German civilians in very large numbers (something over 75% of civilian vehicles were pressed into military service). They also used captured vehicles and many built in the occupied countries. Remember the scads of vehicles you have seen in pictures on the beach in Dunkirk, left behind by the British? Many of these were re-used by the Germans. Many were sabotaged, but the Organization Todt set up shops to recondition damaged cars.

So, you are a German citizen who was properous enough to own your own car in 1939. An official of the German Army comes to your door, tells you that your car is being requisitioned for the duration of the war for military use and you give him the key. In turn, he gives you a piece of paper which entitles you to re-claim the car after the war. How many such car owners do you figure got theirs back?? If the car didn't get blown to pieces on the Russian front, or shot up on some road in France, or have the engine burned out through over-use, and managed to stay in one piece until 1945, the Americans or Russians got it.

im fond of the duesenberg myself when it comes to these big road cars