1947 Dodge DeLuxe

I'm calling this a 1947, but pinning an exact date on it is hard. Dodge was slow in getting new models in the showroom in the immediate postwar years and the '46-'48 Dodges were only slightly cosmetically refreshed versions of the prewar D22-series Dodges, and didn't differ externally from year to year. There was really no need to, since pent-up civilian demand made it a seller's market.

The lower trim level was the DeLuxe, like this Air Cruiser Red 4-door sedan, and the higher-zoot variant was the Custom. From the outside the only easily distinguishable difference was that the Custom had chrome trim around the windows.

Under the hood was Dodge's staid 102 horsepower 230 cubic inch inline six flathead motor. Buyers could get either a 3-speed manual gearbox standard, or upgrade to a Chrysler "Fluid Drive", which inserted a viscous coupling between the standard clutch and the crank, where the flywheel would normally reside. The driver still had to use the clutch to select gears manually, but there was no need to use it when stopping and starting, which simplified urban driving. 

This one was photographed with a Nikon Coolpix S6500 in July of 2014.

1947 Studebaker Commander DeLuxe

Eventually one of everything will drive by the corner of College Avenue and 54th Street. In this case, it's a late Forties Studebaker coupe. Specifically, it's a 1947 Studebaker Commander DeLuxe 3 Passenger Coupe, what other manufacturers referred to as a "business coupe".

3 Passenger Coupes had a bench seat in the front and no back seat, just a cargo area. They were popular with traveling salesmen (hence the name), doctors, retired couples on a budget, and other folks who just didn't see much need to haul passengers. They mostly went away in the mid Fifties with the end of the era of the traveling salesman and the rise of air travel.

The 1947 Studebakers were some of the first all-new postwar car designs to hit showrooms, and their lines, largely owed to Virgil Exner, are still distinctive.

Riding on a 112 inch wheelbase, the '47 Champion 3 Passenger Coupe was relatively light by the standards of American cars, weighing in at only 2770 pounds. Power was provided by Studebaker's 170 cubic inch flathead inline six, rated at 80 SAE gross horsepower with a 1-barrel Carter carb and available 3-speed or 4-speed (with overdrive!) manual gearboxes.

This super-clean Velvet Black example is certainly noticeable when surrounded by modern traffic; I photographed it with a Nikon 1 V2 and 1 Nikkor 18.5mm f/1.8 lens. 

I'm getting increasingly fascinated by the early postwar pontoon-fender styling, before the rolling Wurlitzer chrome excesses of the Fifties and their subsequent bat-winged tail-finned successors. It wasn't until the "fuselage" styling of the late Sixties that Detroit cars would again have such clean lines.

It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that this car was probably about 39 years old when I graduated high school, and that, relatively speaking, that's how old a 1985 Plymouth Reliant would be to a member of the Class of 2024. (In an eerie parallel, Studebaker had been defunct nineteen years at the time, and Plymouth was shuttered in 2001...)