Alfred Sloan's companion marque to Cadillac, styled by Harley Earl and folded back into its parent in 1941.
LaSalle was a companion marque that General Motors sold through Cadillac dealers from 1927 to 1940. Harley Earl styled it, the 1934 Series 50 cut its price, and sales peaked at 22,691 in 1929 before the brand was folded into Cadillac.
LaSalle was a luxury car brand that General Motors sold through its Cadillac division from 1927 until 1940. It was designed as a companion to Cadillac, priced below it and built shorter, and Harley Earl's styling set it apart from the rest of the GM range before the marque was folded back into Cadillac in 1941.
Why did General Motors create LaSalle?
Alfred P. Sloan, GM's chairman, saw gaps in the price ladder where the company had no product. He created a set of companion marques that could be sold through existing dealers, and LaSalle was assigned to fill the space between Buick and Cadillac.
The ladder was built on price. Chevrolet sat at the bottom, followed by Pontiac, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Viking, Marquette and Buick, with LaSalle just below Cadillac at the top. By the 1920s some products had moved out of the plan as their engines improved, but the principle of one marque per price band stayed in place.
The name came from the French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, just as Cadillac took its name from Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac. LaSalle was positioned as the second most prestigious marque in the GM portfolio, and its cars were sold under the LaSalle name rather than as Cadillacs.
A companion marque built to fill a price gap, styled by Harley Earl and folded back into Cadillac in 1941.
Who designed the LaSalle and what did it look like?
Harley Earl designed the 1927 LaSalle. Cadillac's general manager, Lawrence P. Fisher, hired him, and Earl shaped the car to be shorter and more rakish than the Cadillac, with a look influenced by Hispano-Suiza roadsters. Earl later spent decades running design across General Motors.
Earl's design included a nod to the Hispano-Suiza H6, with a circled LaS trademark cast into the tie bar between the front lights. The car used the GM C platform and carried Cadillac's Ninety Degree V-8, which gave it strong performance for its size.
Before LaSalle, car design changed mainly for engineering reasons. GM introduced yearly appearance and model-name changes across its brands from 1908, while the Ford Model T barely changed over its long life. Earl's work on LaSalle brought styling to the centre of the sales argument.
How fast was the LaSalle in its early years?
A LaSalle driven by Willard Rader, with Gus Bell, covered 952 miles (1,532 km) at the Milford Proving Grounds on 20 June 1927, averaging 95.2 mph (153.2 km/h). The Indianapolis 500 that year averaged 97.5 mph (156.9 km/h), and the test ended early after an oil system problem.
Early LaSalles came in many coachwork choices. Fisher offered eight body choices on the shorter 128 in (3,251 mm) wheelbase, while Fleetwood offered four. The most exclusive body was the Transformable Town Cabriolet at US$4,700 in 1927, and it rose to US$4,900 for 1928.
Engineering kept moving. Shock absorbers came from Lovejoy hydraulic units, and the clutch became twin-disc for 1928. The 1930 Series 340 added a radio option for US$175, and every LaSalle was prewired with an antenna built into the roof.
Fleetwood convertibles carried names such as Fleetcliffe, Fleetlands, Fleetway and Fleetwind in 1930. The names did not continue into 1931, when the coachwork lineup was changed again based on popularity.
How did the engines and wheelbases change through the 1930s?
The engine was upgraded in 1929 with the Series 328, and again for 1930 with the Series 340, which had essentially the same displacement as the 1928 and 1929 Cadillac Series 341. The 1930 LaSalle used only one wheelbase, 134 in (3,404 mm), and a radio became available as an option.
The 1931 Series 345-A kept the same appearance and engineering, while coachwork choices and options were adjusted. A Cadillac Heron or Goddess hood ornament could be added for US$20, and a radiator rock screen was sold as a fashion accessory for US$33.
In 1932 the Ford V8, with 221 cu in (3.6 L), made the V8 a mainstream expectation. LaSalle answered with the Series 345-B and the 1933 Series 345-C, which followed the same pattern of appearance changes and an ever-growing options list.
How did LaSalle sales develop?
LaSalle sales peaked at 22,691 models in 1929 and then fell to a low of 3,290 in 1932 as the Depression took hold. Sales were 7,195 in 1934 after the Series 50 reset, rising to 13,004 in 1936, but the brand never regained its early position.
The sales table below shows the key years in the company's run, from the peak to the final model year.
| Year | Sales | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1929 | 22,691 | Peak year for the marque |
| 1932 | 3,290 | Low point during the Depression |
| 1934 | 7,195 | First year of the Series 50 Model 350 |
| 1935 | 8,651 | Series 35-50 with the Packard One-Twenty as rival |
| 1936 | 13,004 | Series 36-50 facing the Lincoln-Zephyr |
| 1938 | 15,501 | Year before the Series 39-50 redesign |
| 1939 | 23,028 | Sunshine Turret Top sunroof offered |
| 1940 | 24,133 | Second-highest level ever, final model year |
The Packard One-Twenty, introduced in 1935, outsold LaSalle by an average of 72 percent between 1935 and 1940. That gap was the core problem for a brand that had been meant to fill a space in the range.
What changed with the 1934 Series 50?
The 1934 Series 50 Model 350 moved LaSalle onto the Oldsmobile and Buick B platform and gave it an Oldsmobile-sourced flathead straight-eight. It was priced at US$1,550, and it became the first Cadillac-linked car to use Bendix hydraulic brakes.
Earl also contributed a thin grille that hid the radiator, along with semi-shielded portholes along the side of the hood. Those features were shared with other GM cars that year. Cadillac-trained teams assembled the engines at the LaSalle factory from parts sent over from Oldsmobile.
The 1934 car was not meant to fill a gap in the range. Its real aim was to keep the luxury division out of the red. It was priced US$1,000 below the cheapest Cadillac, and the sales department invited buyers to watch the cars being assembled.
Why did LaSalle become a pace car?
LaSalle cars were chosen as Indianapolis 500 pace cars twice. A 1934 Series 50 Model 350 led the field in one race, and a 1937 Series 37-50 convertible did the same job in another, giving the brand visibility at a difficult time.
The pace car roles were a small part of the story, but they showed how GM used visible events to sell its marques. Cadillac-built cars carried the LaSalle name into public view, which mattered for a brand whose cars were otherwise hard to tell apart from the parent.
Why did the Series 50 drop the V8?
From 1934 the Series 50 was no longer offered with a V8, the engine that every Cadillac kept. Instead it used an Oldsmobile-sourced flathead inline-eight, while Buick retained its own overhead-valve straight-eight, which was exclusive to Buick. The mechanical differences between the cars were therefore small.
The Series 50 also took its bodies from Fleetwood, which made every body for the model that year. The 1934 car combined a shared chassis with the bodywork and detailing that made it recognisable as a LaSalle, and that approach echoed the way GM spread parts across its divisions to keep costs down.
Could LaSalle compete with Buick and Packard?
LaSalle struggled to match the mainstream luxury cars around it. Buick already covered the role of a mainstream luxury brand, and Packard's medium-priced One-Twenty outsold LaSalle by a wide margin. The marque was squeezed from both sides, which is why its sales never recovered.
LaSalle had outsold Cadillac from 1933 for a time, a sign that buyers were trading down to save money. That trend hurt the wider brand line, because the differences between Oldsmobile, Buick, LaSalle and Cadillac came down to exterior styling, wheelbase and colours, while each still charged a premium for its name.
What happened to LaSalle from 1937 to 1941?
For 1937 Cadillac gave LaSalle its own identity again, with the Series 37-50 and the 322 cu in (5.3 L) V8 from the Series 60. Sales reached 32,000 in the model year, but the Packard One-Twenty stayed ahead, and by 1941 the marque was folded into Cadillac.
The 1939 model year brought a sunroof option called the Sunshine Turret Top and a look closer to the Cadillac Series 61. Sales climbed from 15,501 in 1938 to 23,028 in 1939. The last 1940 models arrived in October 1939, offered in a broad choice of semi-custom bodies including a convertible sedan.
The 1941 decision came after at least three mockups were built. One was based on the notchback GM C platform, another on the fastback B platform, and a third on a modified notchback. Many believe the third was the most likely LaSalle, but in 1941 Cadillac's Series 61 and 63 sold 29,258 and 5,030 cars.
What did LaSalle leave behind?
LaSalle's legacy is mostly nostalgic. Its name returned on several GM concepts, including the 1955 LaSalle II Roadster, which previewed an aluminium block, a double overhead cam and a fuel-injected V6 that never reached production.
The 1955 Motorama pair, the LaSalle II four-door hardtop and the LaSalle II Roadster, was ordered destroyed but was instead hidden in a salvage yard in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Collector Joe Bortz bought and restored the roadster in 1990, and Robert Cumberford later wrote about it in a 2013 article.
On screen the name keeps turning up. Eddie Murphy's character bails out of a 1939 coupe in Harlem Nights, and in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre a gangster buys a used LaSalle for $750 to pass as a police car. Marcus Brody drives one in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Viewers often missed the reference in All in the Family, where Archie and Edith Bunker sang about an old LaSalle in the opening theme. Later seasons re-recorded the opening with the word LaSalle more clearly enunciated. In season one of The Streets of San Francisco, a hubcap is identified as coming from a 1934 LaSalle.
