Hello everybody - 1936 cadillac convertible -

[godi drexler]

First I d like to say hello to everybody here. I am brand new to this forum, my name is Godi Drexler and I live in germany.

I need your help as I just bought a 1936 Cadillac convertible/roadster here in germany and this car comes without any paperwork or tags on the firewall. It is a true restauration projekt with the drivetrain missing. It was replaced by some 4 cylinder russian engine, gearbox and rear axle. WOW! 
But anyhow  I am glad that I found this beauty and I am willing to bring it back to its former look and back on the road where it belongs ... 

First thing to help me is to know if cadillac used VIN Numbers on the frame at this time and if, where can I find it? I need to find out much more of this car - how it came to europe etc etc and at least if I am going to bring it back to road I ll need some identification numbers or other historical information.
I will try to post a few pictures the next days and I hope that you can help me with her. Maybe someone can identify her and knows the car? I will be happy to hear from you.
Thank you very much.

Godi

[Steve Passmore]

Frame number is on the top of the left hand side of the chassis Godi,(looking from above) around the steering box area. So glad you have saved this car, there are two 36 Cadillacs here in England, mine is a hard top coupe and there's a convertible owned by a famous pop star. Some pictures of your find would be good and perhaps we can work out what series it is.  The correct drive train will be difficult to find, both the Cadillacs here do not have their original engines.
Steve

[godi drexler]

Hello Steve thank you very much for answering. As I dont have the car here at my place yet I have to be patient and cant take pictures and search for VIN Number. But I will pick it up on Monday (we have lot of snow here thats why it takes time) I will search for the VIN immediately then and I will inform you! Because of the wheelbase it seames to be a series 80 chassis/car? I hope there is the VIN somewhere this would help... : )

Ill get back to you as soon as the car is here at my place. Can I find pictures of your 36 here somewhere?
Thanks again.

Godi

[Steve Passmore]

email me Godi and Ill send you some pictures, also of the convertible coupe here.

[Steve Passmore]

Now that fellas is what you call a modified car, found in Romania, Godi tells me it has a 4 cylinder east European engine, some unknown drive train, virtually no interior, wrong headlights and in the wrong position, lots and lots of missing and wrong parts, but the interesting thing is it comes with a story about being a present from the mayor of New york in 1936 to the king of Romania for his wife! Another strange thing is he doesn't have a complete frame number, only the start digits of  3A 1, Could this story be true? and why only part the number.
Sadly there's so much missing of hard to get parts I have to agree with Godi that customizing it in some way will be this cars only salvation unless he can find a complete parts car, even then a sedan wont give up all the parts needed for this convertible. I wish him the best of luck and will do anything I can to help.

[Thomas McDonald]

Interesting indeed.  As to the story about the King of Romania, take it with a large grain of salt.  In 1936 the King of Roumania (as it was spelled before the communist period) was Carol II and had long been divorced from his wife.  He had a notorious public affair with Elena Lupescu, and abdicated in 1940 after Hitler and Stalin annexed large chunks of Roumania for Hungary and the Soviet Union.  However, back to cars: Carol II was a noted car lover and one car of his that has survived is a spectacular 1937 Franay bodied Packard Super 8 in the Motor Museum of Riga in Latvia (I recommend it for its amazing collection of ZIS and ZIL limos, soviet copies of Buicks and Packards for the most part).  From photos I have seen the official cars of the Royal Family of Roumania at that time seem to be mostly Lincoln Ks.  Interestingly there is a link with the Mayor of New York and a Queen of Roumania:  when Queen Marie (mother of Carol II) visited the US in 1926, she was greeted in New York by flamboyant mayor Jimmy Walker, who rode with her in a ticker tape parade (the car was a Packard...).  I lived in Romania for two years (great country) but there is not much in the way of old cars....

Thomas McDonald
1937 Cadillac 7029
CLC #24747

[godi drexler]

Hello Thomas.
Thank you very much for your reply. I was almost to give up searching for the "truth". I sent an email to the official website of the royal family of romania.  Carols son Michael of Romania is still alive and I hoped to get answer or information about cars belonging to the family this time. But unfortunately no reply at all... : (
Can you help and let me know where you found these photos of the familys cars?

Thank you very much. Kind regards.

Godi

[Thomas McDonald]

Dear Godi

Indeed former King Michael is still alive and now lives again in Romania.  He is 91 years old, and in my opinion a great and good man and it is a pity that Romania did not reestablish the constitutional monarchy after the fall of the communist regime.  Michael is also a car enthusiast, and you should get a book that has recently been published in Romania "Masinile Regelui" (The King's Cars) written by his son in law Prince Radu.  I have not yet got a copy but from what I can tell there are lots of interesting photos -- Buicks, Lincolns, Alfas, Jaguars and jeeps.   On the pre-war side I think there is a photo of a 1938 Cadillac limousine (difficult to tell more based on the photos I have seen on the internet).  I will order a copy though my office in Bucharest and let you know in more detail when I get it.  In any case, it is of course possible that your car was a present by Carol II to his mistress Elena Lupescu, but this is probably going to be hard to establish and I doubt whether Prince Radu would have any information about this. 

Can you send me some photos of your car?  Where in Romania did you find it?

kind regards

Tom

[Thomas McDonald]

Dear Godi

I have found on a Romanian site (Rezistanta Urbana) a very interesting photgraph dated 1941 of King Michael and Marshall Antonescu in a motorcade driving in a 1936 Cadillac (either a series 85, 75 or 70) Convertible Sedan.  Antonescu was the effective ruler of the country after the abdication of Carol II the year before.  Michael (Mihai) was only 20 at the time.  The photograph was taken at the Arch of Triumph in Bucharest -- at the time Romania was allied with Hitler.  The second car in the motorcade looks to me like a Horch.

I have tried to attach the photograph to this message.  I suppose your car is a convertible coupe rather than a convertible sedan?

Tom

[godi drexler]

Hello Tom, great picture. This is phantastic, even if this is not my car!
Mine is a convertible coupe and, as I found out with the help of steve passmore, its a series 70. I did not find it in romania myself, I found it in germany. After a long time forward and back and up and down I could at last buy it. I was "restored" in romania - I gues in the 1980ties. It came to germany in the 1990ties and since then it was given from one hand to the other and noone ever tried to find out something about it. I was the first  person to detect the frame number for example. Unfortunately there is not much left of the original cadillac stuff such as door handles and all the "little things". All the tags are gone and paperwork is lost as well.
It still has built in an romanian drivetrain (4 Cylinder ARO engine transmission and rear axle).
In my opinion the only chance to bring it back to the road is to "customize" it. I dont believe that anyone can find a good coupe for example to use the parts...

I will try to show a few pictures here.
Thanks for your information and help.

Godi

[godi drexler]

Here come some pictures.
Godi

[C.R. Patton II]

Hello Godi

Welcome to the Cadillac & LaSalle Club.

Thank you for sharing your acquisition with us. It looks like a 1936 Cadillac 7067. This had a 346 cu. in. engine with a starting sequence of 3110001-3115248, 135hp 7 qat crankcase, cooling system 29 qt., two mufflers with a ride stabilizer and hydraulic brakes. The Fleetwood is 131 inch, shipping weight 4690lbs selling for $2695.00. Only 5248 70 and 75 Series automobiles were manufactured. This is not my era of expertise. I would also suggest that you go to the home page to join our national club and acquire an Authenticity Manual to guide your restoration.

There is one listed in our club directory. Please become a member of the Classic Cadillac Club in Germany. They are great guys

[N Kahn]

What a gorgeous car, dare I say it might be more intriguing to leave it with its Russian heart and wrong parts?

[Bob Hoffmann CLC#96]

Interesting topic so far. If you want to find out where the car was sold, you can. It costs $50 & they will send you a copy of the original invoice showing colors & equipment & where it was sold.
Look on the CLC home page. There is a link to authenticate your car. Do what it asks.
HTH, Bob

[Steve Passmore]

There by hangs a problem Bob,  Godi does not have the original engine which would have been the chassis number so he would know what number to give the GM archives,  his car has virtually no chassis number so I don't know what the archives would make of that. I suspect they would take his money then say they cant find it.
I have never seen anything like it but he only has the start digits and not enough numbers, and there's absolutely no sign of the numbers ever being removed as I first suspected with it being East European.
He has just 3A1 or something as short as that, and that's all, when it should have at least 3 more  digits behind it. the A would translate to 11 on the engine.

Godi was hoping that the 1 after the A designated it as the first off the production line, I'm more inclined to think it would have read 0001, but its a nice thought.

[godi drexler]

@ Nedeem: I even thought about this opportunity as well... But somehow the 4 Cylinder engine is undeserving for such a car. And you should see how everything is done here. Lacking good material there is everything used wahat was availlible, such as wooden bars plastic bottles, foam stuff foil and hundreds of different clothes to insulate the roof etc etc it is not really nice to look at.
I statred to dismantle it and steve had a good steering wheel for me  (the one on the pictures didnt fit, was just fixed witha big nut - dangerous9 so that now I can move the car better.
I still dont know how to go on so I just wait for the weather to get better/warmer and meanwhile I hope to find out more about the cars history.

Thanks everybody for your engagement.
A few photos of the"status quo" attached. 

Godi

[Bob Hoffmann CLC#96]

Steve,
We need 7 numbers.
The 3
The A = 11
So... we need 4 more #'s. They have to be there. They may be faint & hard to see. There is some kind of acid that will bring out #'s. Cops use it for serial #'s on guns that have been filed off. I'm not sure how far Godi wants to take it.
HTH, Bob

[Steve Passmore]

I hear what your saying Bob and I know what numbers should be there, trouble is Iv studied the picture of where Godi has cleaned off the chassis and there really seems to never have been other numbers, and the number that are there look factory to me, there are no signs of any being removed, see what you think.

[Bob Hoffmann CLC#96]

Steve,
I agree. Maybe it's a true export car & no frame # was assigned?? Can you verify any export cars in England & see how they were handled? Are you sure it's a 70 series car? Bob

[Steve Passmore]

Defiantly a 70 series Bob. Chassis number starting with 3,  131" wheelbase and the wider grill.
The only factory import here belongs to a famous pop star, it resides about 20 miles from here in a restoration shop for servicing and improvements the winter months and spends the summer months in France. I have helped with some aspects of the car in past years but its usually by invite only. I have no free access to it unless I'm passing by when it happens to be there.

I have pictures of a 36 coupe exactly like mine taken in the London area in the 60s but shes long gone now.  I would guess the cars imported here were in single figures.
AS Godis car is a LHD, they may have had different numbers than the export RHD anyway, but all the RHD  US cars Iv owned have never had a different Chassis number,  at most they would have a E or something on the end. 
Some US cars that were assembled here did have UK specific chassis numbers but Cadillac s were not one of those assembled here, at best they came "Knocked down" basically just with their wheels and some other components removed and placed in a big crate, that bypassed the import duties.