It wasn’t cheap—it was sold under the Cadillac division.
It was an economy version for people who could not afford the Caddy yet................
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaSalle_(automobile)
Basically a slightly cheaper Cadillac with less chrome.
GM had a plan to get a car for every stage of a person’s life and career, starting with a Chevrolet as a young man and as you got older you could afford a better auto so then Pontiac, Olds, Buick, LaSalle then Cadillac. It worked fairly well, until the foreign car makers got into the US market. Now, there is just Chevy, Buick and Cadillac..............
“It wasn’t cheap—it was sold under the Cadillac division.”
************
Correct
Yes, the LaSalle was in a way an entry level Cadillac. When GM brought out the Cadillac Seville in 1975, they seriously considered naming it the LaSalle, but decided against it because the original was a poor seller, due to the Depression.
My mother’s father owned a LaSalle Touring Car and in the photos and 16mm movies, it was magnificent. He had the car shipped to Europe on the same ocean liner that carried my mother, two siblings, father and governess. The car carried them around Depression-era Europe for 6 months without so much as a hiccup.
LaSalle’s were among the royalty of American-made automobiles in the 1930’2.
And yes, it was subsumed by GM and the marque lost forever.
“It wasn’t cheap—it was sold under the Cadillac division.”
That’s what I thought. I think that’s the badge that my dad’s grandfather owned. My dad learned to drive it at age 12 and served as his grandfather’s driver.
The era before driver’s licenses. If you could reach the pedals and see over the dash you were good to go. My father was always a very careful driver, finally surrendering his license at age 92.