SIA Flashback – 1948 Cadillac 61: The First Shall Be Last

Arch Brown’s somewhat cryptic title for his story on a 1948 Cadillac 61 in SIA #171, May 1999, derives from the fact that while Cadillacs sported new styling in 1948, they also soldiered on for one more year with the old flathead V-8. And as his evaluation of the Cadillac reveals, there wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with the old flathead, even if the new high-compression overhead-valve V-8 introduced in 1949 made more power from fewer cubic inches. And even though the Sixty-One two-door sedanet represented just about the most basic offering from Cadillac that year, Brown came away impressed.