W
e didn’t waste any
time. We were three
issues old, but we were
already naming our first
Car of the Year and estab-
lishing an award that would
change the industry. As would
often be the case into the
mid-1960s, the award was given
not to a specific model but to
an entire brand lineup, in this
case Cadillac Division.
Whether it was founder and
publisher Robert E. Petersen,
co-publisher Robert R. Lindsay,
founding editor Walter A.
Woron, or someone else on
staff who first proposed a Car
of the Year award is lost to
history. The task of selecting
a winner and defending it to
our readers was delegated to
future Road & Track owner and
publisher John R. Bond, who
at the time was a contributor
to the other magazine as well
as a design engineer for Frank
Kurtis, whose Kurtis Sport Car
was featured on the cover of our
first issue.
Being an engineer, Bond
focused his selection almost
entirely on mechanics, and he
got straight to the point.
Ford had been struggling to
shift back toward civilian auto-
motive production following
World War II, and although its
new models employed signifi-
cant mechanical updates that
helped save the company from
bankruptcy, those changes
didn’t rise to Bond’s level of
expected engineering improve-
ments, instead relying on
prewar ideas.
The Cadillac lineup, by
contrast, introduced a new V-8
that Bond felt truly moved the
industry forward. He extolled
the virtues of the new overhead
valve engine while excori-
ating other manufacturers for
sticking with a flathead design,
complete with charts and
technical drawings. To Bond’s
eye, the gains in fuel efficiency,
weight savings, power output,
and durability in Cadillac’s
new 331-cubic-inch (5.4-liter)
pushrod V-8 far outweighedanything Ford or Oldsmobile
had done. Weighing nearly
200 pounds less and making
10 more hp than the flathead
it replaced, it was the most
powerful engine on the market,
with 160 hp (sans accessories,
which brought it down to 133 hp
“as installed”).
Today we consider advance-
ment in design a key part of Car
of the Year, but Bond went the
opposite way, praising Cadillac
for not making any major styling
changes for 1949. Tailfins and
front fenders flush with the
body had been introduced in
1948, a major update, but only
experts can spot the visual
differences between a ’48 and
a ’49. Bond, apparently sick of
GM design boss Harley Earl’s
predilection for face-lifting
a car every year, was thrilled
the ’49 Cadillac was otherwise
nearly identical to the ’48.
Curiously, Bond never
remarked on the smoothness
or quietness of the engine,
which is impressive even today.
Every time we touched this ’49
Series 62 Sedanette, owned
by Randall Wixen, we stopped
and strained our ears to check
whether it was already running
then made sure it was in neutral
before starting it. (The four-
speed Hydra-Matic automatic
didn’t have a parking gear butFinalist: 1940s
1949 Cadillac
Series 62 Sedanette
rather engaged a parking pawl
in reverse with the engine off.)
The driving experience can only
be described as stately, the
engine quietly humming along,
making just enough power to
move the car at a relaxed pace.
Some automatics today don’t
shift as smoothly, and the unas-
sisted brakes inspire refreshing
confidence compared with
early power brakes, which
operated like light switches.
The steering is slow by any
standard, needing 90 degrees
of rotation to begin a turn and
another 90 to complete it.
With the Cadillac easily
retaining its crown as the
self-proclaimed “Standard
of the World” and ushering in
a new era of more powerful
overhead valve engines, it’s
no wonder Bond picked it.
Ford’s car may have saved the
company, but it didn’t change
the automotive world the way
Cadillac did. SE34 MOTORTREND.COM SEPTEMBER 2019
70TH ANNIVERSARY I UCOTY