Over a lifetime, hobby interests can lodge so fixedly in the mind that efforts to displace them with useful material are futile. For me, it's cars. Where the early to middle thirties saw a major car design shift from the radiator far back from the front bumper, the engine slung aft of the front axle, and rear passengers sitting on top of the rear axle (as in the 1933 Chrysler)
— to the radiator moved forward, the engine sitting atop the front axle and rear seat passengers forward of the rear axle for better comfort — as perhaps most noticeable in the 1934 Chrysler Airflow —
the late thirties and early forties featured a style-driven evolution of sedan bodies that elongated the trunk (boot) and so pushed rear passengers forward that rear legroom became a nonevent. I wonder if there was a cultural shift in where the main passengers rode, from the comfortable rear seat to the front seat beside the driver.
Though the design shift shows in Chrysler sedans through the 1948 model year, for illustration, I love these two brochure pictures of 1940 LaSalle sedans. Top, the older design with short "built-in trunk" that replaced the spare tire and trunk-rack on the rear, with ample rear seat legroom
below the new design with elongated trunk as a key factor in styling, but squeezed rear legroom
This was the final year of GM's Cadillac companion car (1927 -1940). The cars were beautiful, but GM consolidated LaSalle as a bottom series Cadillac for 1941 and the marque disappeared along with Marquette (Buick's companion car) and Viking (Oldsmobile companion car), which had been dropped earlier, also Oakland that was eclipsed by its own companion Pontiac.
below the new design with elongated trunk as a key factor in styling, but squeezed rear legroom
This was the final year of GM's Cadillac companion car (1927 -1940). The cars were beautiful, but GM consolidated LaSalle as a bottom series Cadillac for 1941 and the marque disappeared along with Marquette (Buick's companion car) and Viking (Oldsmobile companion car), which had been dropped earlier, also Oakland that was eclipsed by its own companion Pontiac.
The last LaSalle that I remember was owned by the James family, a 1940 sedan of the older, traditional design above, with forward-opening rear doors. They traded it for a new 1949 Buick Super, a lovely car for its day, theirs was this soft turquoise but with a light cream top
Why these things so fixedly abide in a mind that could better have been filled with the useful and helpful - -
Thos+