LaSalle Series 350 History

With LaSalle facing cancellation, Harley Earl's studio presented a radically restyled car for 1934 — the Series 350 — and it is credited with saving the marque. Long, low, and aircraft-influenced, with a tall narrow grille, pontoon-style skirted fenders, and a flowing hood, it was one of the most striking American designs of the mid-1930s and looked like nothing else in GM's range. To cut costs, the 1934 car moved off the senior Cadillac platform onto GM's smaller B-body and dropped the Cadillac V8 for a 248-cubic-inch (4.1-liter) straight-eight engine sharing much of its design with Oldsmobile, rated around 95 horsepower.

The straight-eight years ran 1934–1936 (Series 35-50 and 36-50), with sales recovering steadily as the economy improved — roughly 7,000 in 1934 climbing toward 13,000 by 1936. For 1937 LaSalle returned to a Cadillac monobloc V8 (322 cubic inches) and moved upmarket again in feel, and the late-1930s cars looked increasingly like junior Cadillacs. Sales reached their all-time peak in this final era, around 24,000 cars in 1940.

Despite that strong finish, GM discontinued LaSalle after the 1940 model year. The mid-priced Packard One-Twenty had consistently outsold it by an average of 72 percent over the six years from 1935 to 1940, the LaSalle was cannibalizing entry-level Cadillac sales, and the companion-make concept had run its course. The last LaSalle was built on August 26, 1940; its price slot was filled by the new entry-level Cadillac Series 61 for 1941. LaSalle is remembered today chiefly as the car that launched automotive styling and as a handsome, well-built classic in its own right.