FEATURE – OLDSMOBILE SEDAN DELIVERIES - JUST CARS

FEATURE – Oldsmobile sedan deliveries

Words: Mike Ryan

Photos: Courtesy of Mecum Auctions

While panel vans were a big part of Aussie automotive history and culture, the equivalent ‘sedan delivery’ in the US played a much less prominent role. In fact, the sedan delivery in the post-War era was something of an oddity in the USA and these Oldsmobile-badged versions are odder still.

Small Hauling, Small Market

In the land that reveres the pickup truck, sedan deliveries were always a niche body style. That didn’t stop all manner of US manufacturers, familiar and unknown, from producing one, though.

In the earliest days of the American automobile, the definition of a sedan delivery was blurred, but came to be better defined in the late 1920s: a passenger car-based, closed-body delivery vehicle of light to medium capacity, as opposed to a panel delivery which was usually larger and based on a truck chassis.

Exactly who built the first sedan delivery is up for debate, but some identify the 1928 Chevrolet as the trailblazer. Ford responded with an equivalent on the Model A chassis and, in the decade that followed, Plymouth offered a sedan delivery, too, along with manufacturers as diverse as Studebaker and American Bantam.

As budget-priced working vehicles, this sliver of the market remained largely the domain of Chevrolet and Ford, and that continued after World War II, when there was a slight upsurge in interest.

Pontiac joined the two-horse race for a period, and both Studebaker and American Motors had a brief fling with the body style, too, but by the end of the 1950s, it was Ford vs Chevy again. Chevrolet built their last sedan delivery in 1960, with Ford persisting until 1965. A brief revival of the sedan delivery came during the van craze of the 1970s, but these were ‘lifestyle’ vehicles, not ‘working’ vehicles.

The Oldsmobile Oddities

Oldsmobile was one of a bunch of manufacturers to have a crack at a sedan delivery in the 1930s, specifically 1934, when almost 1,400 sedan deliveries based on that year’s F-34 model were allegedly built, but if that is accurate, none have survived.

Fast forward to 1949 and the booming post-War automobile market in the US led Oldsmobile to – apparently – have a second crack at a sedan delivery.

According to a story in Old Cars (US) in 2013, Oldsmobile’s post-War success - a 66 per cent increase in sales from 1948 to 1949, the launch of the Rocket V8 engine and winning the first ever NASCAR championship - emboldened the marque to broaden its offerings with a commercial vehicle.

The Old Cars story contends that, in 1950, seven sedan deliveries were built on the Oldsmobile ‘88’ model’s chassis, not in-house at Oldsmobile, but by a Detroit-based coachbuilder. Frustratingly, whether Oldsmobile ordered these sedan deliveries or the coachbuilder offered them is unknown, as is the name of the coachbuilder.

It’s these gaps in the story, along with no known images of the vehicles or reporting of them in period, that casts doubts on the legitimacy of these vehicles being factory produced, if not factory-sanctioned by Oldsmobile.

The story goes on to say that the seven vehicles were given to the managers at Oldsmobile’s main factories (which stretched from California to New Jersey) for use as parts haulers and runabouts. After some time in this role, the sedan deliveries were apparently sold on to local dealerships and filtered into the community from there. The 1950 models are said to carry period-correct ID numbers for the model year, according to those who back their legitimacy, but no such claims are made for any sedan delivery from 1949.

One other source says Oldsmobile produced only one sedan delivery as a prototype in 1950, while there are further claims that Oldsmobile front ends, tail lights and trim were grafted onto Chev and Pontiac sedan delivery bodies in the 1960s and ‘70s to convincing effect, despite the differences in panels, wheelbase, dash sections and other elements across the three models.

What lends credence to the claim that these sedan deliveries are later creations is the fact that the examples pictured both have one-piece windscreens; a feature not offered on any Oldsmobile in 1949 and only available on the 98 model in 1950.

Fact or Fiction

So are these sedan deliveries the real deal or not? This writer is sceptical, as too many elements don’t add up. A coachbuilder pitching to Oldsmobile for hearse, ambulance, and possibly even sedan delivery work does make sense: certainly more than Oldsmobile commissioning the build for internal use.

And on that point, if the ‘parts runner’ thing is legitimate, why build and finish them to such a high standard? In-house hack vehicles tend to be basic to the point of skeletal in terms of both engineering and appointments, so why all the chrome trimmings and the latest Rocket V8?

Of course, the story of them being factory-built or factory-approved by Oldsmobile could be completely accurate, too.

Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter, as there’s no issue of misrepresenting a budget model as a million-dollar machine here. Legitimate or not, these Oldsmobile sedan deliveries are still pretty cool and the people who’ve bought them in recent years (see breakout) have made up their own mind regarding the facts and are happy with what they’re got.