1939 LaSalle?

Jim Staruk

Super Site Supporter
Super Site Supporter
This is my friend's father's car. I'm guessing a 1939 LaSalle combination? No other photos are available. Can anyone confirm? Thanks

Jim
 

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Wow! You don't see these often. That appears to be a 1939 Superior-Buick Crownhill funeral coach. These Superior-Buicks were available in a complete assortment of body styles and service configurations on either the Buick Series 60 (Century) or 40 (Special) chassis and ranged in price from $2,245 to $2,970. In this era, Superior offered Buick professional cars in 1938 and 1939 along with those based on Cadillac, LaSalle and Pontiac. I would say that this is a very rare survivor.
 
Just to be clear, the Superior Crownhill was based on the Buick Series 60 chassis. This car could be a Crownhill but, is most likely a Fairhaven which was the name of the funeral car based on the Buick Series 40 chassis. The Superior-Buicks on the Series 40 platform included: Fairhaven funeral coach, Eastlawn carved funeral car, Beaumont ambulance and the Lakeview service car. Those on the Buick Series 60 chassis included: Crownhill funeral coach, Sommerville carved funeral car, Raleigh ambulance and the Glendale service car. As pointed out earlier, these Buick-based Superiors were only offered in 1938 and 1939. While these offerings were more costly than the Superior-Pontiac models, they were considerably less expensive that the Superior-Cadillacs. However, the pricing of these Buick-based models was quite close to those offered by the company on the LaSalle chassis - some might say they were actually competing against one another. Superior-Buicks were, considerably less costly than competitive Flxible-Buicks.
 
Doing a little research on line it appears to be a Century. This by the long hood,the front door is thick behind the window opening and there is no window surround molding as the Roadmaster has. A plus as the Century has the big 320 cubic inch engine as opposed to the Special 248 cubic inch. Also if memory serves me has the bigger Roadmaster brakes.
 
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