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Cellpic Sunday – The 1933 Cadillac 355C

Beautiful 1933 Cadillac Coupe.

Glendale, Arizona.

I am a big fan of American automobiles from the 1920s and 1930s. A few weeks ago, I featured a 1929 Packard, my favorite classic automobile, sold at the Mecum 2024 Automobile Auction in Glendale, Arizona. For today’s post, I feature my second favorite classic at the auction, a 1933 Cadillac coupe.

Cadillac has been synonymous with luxury and design since 1902, throughout the 20th century, and into the 21st. The company remains a major player in the luxury car market, known for its powerful engines, spacious interiors, and cutting-edge technology.

This classic 1933 Cadillac 355C 2/4-Passenger Coupe has a 134-inch wheelbase chassis and a Fisher body, which was a popular body style at the time. According to the Mecum catalog, the car is powered by a 346 cubic inch V-8 engine that produces 115 horsepower and is paired with a 3-speed selective synchromesh manual transmission.

The car’s exterior is finished in two-tone cream and orange paint. It has several period accessories popular in the 1930s, such as dual chrome horns, a golf club compartment door, a rear rumble seat, a rear-mounted spare wheel and tire, chrome bumpers, and painted wire wheels with wide whitewall tires. The car found a new owner who won the bid at $44,000 during the auction.

About the photo: I captured the photograph with my Samsung S23U using the widest format possible to get close and keep the entire car in the frame. After importing the image into Lightroom Classic for cropping and cataloging, I then sent it off to Luminar Neo’s Gen Erase module to remove a car’s front fender visible on the right. I then added a slight vignette to the corners of the image to draw the viewer’s eye into the center of the photo. Click on the image above to see metadata if you are interested in pixel-peeping the details.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, also, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

61 comments

  7. What a cool car, very gangster if it was black lol
    Why do chicken coops have two doors?
    If they had four they would be chicken sedans 😁

    Reply

    • Those bowed edges are sometimes quite noticeable, especially on long vertical objects, you know… like trees. >grin< It is often caused by using the wide-angle lenses. Lightroom has tools to minimize the bend, sometimes very effectively, but that can create more distortion in the subject since it shows some bending instead of the trees. Often, though, that’s less noticeable, especially if the subject lacks strong vertical lines.

      Reply

      • “Bowed edges” I knew there was a better name for it. My early morning brain couldn’t think as I asked you the question. I can usually crop the bowed trees out to some degree. Glad to know it’s not operator error 😉

    • Good question, Marie. Most cars are drive-able and they are usually driven onto the auction floor. As with any used vehicle, though, it’s buyer beware. Cars of this caliber, though, are usually in the best of shape.

      Reply

  23. I’m surprised that a cellpic Sunday entry would require editing by such an advance app, Does that defeat the purpose of the cell pic status?

    Nice car, I like it indeed.

    Reply

  29. Hi John, That is a classy looking car. My grandfather loved (and owned several Cadillacs) when I was young. I’m sure a car like this would have made him drool in its day. Someone got a bargain. I think that’s about what my Prius Prime cost in 2018. Almost all cars cost at least that now! 🙂 Great find!

    Reply

    • Sometimes I am amazed by how low the winning bids are on some of these classics. However, I suspect those who are truly in the market and bidding on a car know something I don’t know about the history or how collectable a specific vehicle might be.

      Reply

      • Not only that, it is past its prime collecting years. People our age buy cars back to the fifties. Our kids are more likely to want classic 70s and 80s cars. A real collector, like the museum has them for the sheer beauty of them, but the average Joe doesn’t have room for too many cars that are just for show. My car guy husband wanted his most recent show car to be drivable complete with backup cameras. He bought a 2018 Porsche.

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