neil morse

I have B.F. Goodrich Silvertown bias-ply 6.50X16's on my '41 that were on the car when I bought it six years ago. I'm not sure how old they are, but they have performed very well in the time I've owned the car. The whitewalls are still very presentable (no brown streaks), and Goodrich was one of OEM suppliers for '41. I don't know what kind of tubes are on my car, but I've heard that truck tubes are thicker and hold up better.

A DeSoto? No, wait, he's got one of them, too! 😁

Yes, Harold Lloyd with his wife, Mildred Davis.

I saw this parked on the street near my house this morning so I thought I would post it just on the off chance that anyone would be interested. It looks to be in very nice shape, top is in good condition, interior looks like well-maintained original as far as I could tell from looking through the windows, a few parking lot dings on the exterior, but paint looks good. I have no idea, of course, what the seller is asking.

But remarkable car, that's for sure!

Thanks for this, Bloo. I'm not happy with your answer, but I certainly respect it. Lesson learned, although too late to be of much help for me now!

Speaking of SMS, I don't want to hijack Brian's thread but I wanted to briefly mention a possible problem that people should be aware of. Brian and others of you are undoubtedly experienced enough so you would see this coming, but I got completely blindsided by it and really got burned. The issue is what is considered a "yard" of fabric. When I decided to do the front seat only of my '41, I got an estimate from a shop that said that they needed 2.5 yards of fabric. I ordered 3 yards from SMS, and it took nine months for them to make it up but I was very pleased with the match. Well, last week the time finally came for my date with the upholstery shop to have the job done. I dropped off the seat cushions and the bolt of fabric only to get a phone call later in the day from the guy at the shop saying, "I can't do this job with the fabric you gave me -- there's not enough." He acknowledged that he had told me he needed 2.5 yards, and that I had given him 3 "yards." But here's the kicker -- it all depends on the width of the bolt of fabric. His estimate was based on a width of 60" (which is wide enough so one piece extends the full width of the seat). The fabric that SMS supplied had a width of only 50". He said that 60" is standard and that's what he expected to get. Being new at this, I just assumed that a "yard" of fabric was a standard measure in the industry, and neither SMS or the guy at the shop had said anything about width. So now I'm back to square one as far as getting fabric for the job. SMS has no more of the fabric that they made up for me, and the stuff they supplied is clearly not enough. And I can't even just put the cushions back in the car while I sort this out because the guy at the shop had already pulled the fabric off them before he discovered the problem. I would be very curious to hear from people about what happened here. Do I have a legitimate complaint against SMS? (I paid them about $500 for the fabric and shipping.) Should they have told me that what they were supplying was only 50" in width? Or should the guy at the shop have alerted me to this potential problem? Again I don't want to hijack Brian's thread with some kind of prolonged discussion of this, but any advice I could get on this would be most appreciated. Thanks!

Barn find fairy dust! 😄

Like the ad says, "Welcome to my nightmare!"

Haha -- I was going to make a similar comment! I grew up in Massachusetts and Athol was the butt of many jokes, as you can imagine.

Like the line in the Godfather Part III. "Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in!" 😄

Have we forgotten the title of this thread? This is the car which shall not be named!

Dual carbs were standard on every model other than the Special.

Looks like a nice car for the price. I wonder what kind of shape the seat fabric is in under those covers? These are great driving cars, very dependable, AND it's a New Yorker so you get the prestige of 8 cylinders. Also, those deep dish beauty rings are difficult to find. Many of these cars ended up with one piece '49 wheel covers which look okay but not as nice.

Sounds like Bloo found the answer. So "41-4409" is the standard Special fastback 4-door sedan (single carb), and "41-4409D" is the same car with the dual carb setup, which was optional on the Special.

I am not an expert by any means with regard to decoding data plates, but I found this earlier thread which indicates that a '41 Special Touring Sedan (like yours) was designated "41-4409" on the data plate. The initial "4" indicates a Special model, the "1" indicates a 4-door sedan, and the "4409" is a Fisher Body internal number indicating the 4-door fastback sedan. I can't find any mention of a "4409D" designation -- maybe someone else can chime in with the answer. I'm curious -- since the data plate on your car is missing, where did you find out about the possible "4409D" designation? Here's the earlier thread:

Haha -- that bumper looks as big as your Peugeot!

I actually don't think that's the case. Dan ( @drhach ) and I had a DM conversation about this topic recently, and we concluded that the "wavy" pattern is, in fact, what the "tan and gray" Bedford Cord (Code 900) looked like from the factory. We based this conclusion on two things: (1) a photo posted by @Grant Z of the original fabric on his '41 coupe, and (2) a photo that Dan had of a sample from an original '41 upholstery sample book. The samples looked identical, and in both cases had the wavy lines. However, I think it is only the "tan and gray" Bedford Cord that had this characteristic. I believe that both the "tan Bedford Cord (2-tone)" (Code 903) and the "gray Bedford Cord (2-tone)" (Code 905) had straight lines like the fabric on my seats, as shown in the photo above. Here's a further kicker. Cadillac Nut mentions that his car has the "common beige colored broadcloth," not Bedford Cord. I see in Anderson's "Restoration Facts" book that another fabric choice, called "Tan Canada Cloth," is listed as Code 902. Would this be the "beige colored broadcloth?" If someone out there has one of those upholstery sample books, it would be a huge help to us!

Click on arrow in upper right hand corner to get the post about the fabric.

I was able to get SMS to match the tan Bedford Cord in my '41. It was $149 a yard.

I love "serious inquiries only." Like, "Dude, are you serious?" 😁

I noticed a poster on the wall on the left hand side of the photo, just up the hill from the Buick, that says "Yes on 11." I did some searching online and see that California had a Proposition 11 in 1950, so this photo must have been taken in the fall of that year. That looks appropriate to the cars in the photo, as best as I can tell.

Based on the "1000" on the top of the Pine Street sign, this would be the view looking up Taylor.

Imagine driving that behemoth around San Francisco with a stick shift. Then imagine a line of cars, bumper to bumper, headed up that hill toward the stop sign. I really get a workout driving my '41 around town, and I have to confess that there are certain hills that I simply avoid. Starting and stopping in the middle of one of those blocks is not for the faint of heart, especially when there's someone behind you, hugging your rear bumper!

I don't think there's anything wrong with your brain. I feel the same way, and it's because I prefer the Chrysler to the DeSoto. This looks like a solid car at a reasonable price, but obviously you would need to give it a thorough look and, as Jake says, you would have to carefully catalog which parts are there and which are missing. I happen to be partial to Airflows, but I know they are an acquired taste. The '34s are the best and "purest" examples of the design, but the '35s are still nice despite the artificial "prow" that was tacked on to make it look a bit more conventional. However, anyone contemplating giving this car a full restoration should understand that it will be a labor of love and you will almost certainly end up way under water in terms of cost versus the value of the finished car. Back in the early 90's, I had the opportunity to buy a '34 Imperial Airflow coupe that was in very similar shape to this one. All the parts were there and intact, but it basically needed everything. The price (I think it was around the same as this one -- but of course in 1990's dollars) was reasonable but way beyond my means at the time. This was probably a fortunate thing, but I still periodically take out the snapshots I took of the car at the time and dream about "what might have been." It was the most desirable year and the most desirable model and it was complete. But I'm sure it would have made my life miserable as I would have constantly been longing to transform it in a way that I could never afford.