1939 Dodges were called Luxury Liners

We hope this column is a learning experience for you; it certainly is for us. Recently, just days after researching the 1946 Mercury Eight when it was highlighted in What Is It?, we saw two of those postwar cars in a 1947 film on television.

A week earlier, those Mercs would have been faceless old round cars before Detroit took to the elaborate – and distinctive – styles of the 1950s. We like picking up bits of automotive knowledge along the way.

We patted ourselves on the back for learning something and hope you get the same edification and pleasure from this column.

Another example: Until now, we would never have been able to tell you that the close-up of the grille we showed you last week was on a 1939 Dodge Luxury Liner (D-11) Deluxe Town Coupe.

The D-11 was created to celebrate the 25 years the Dodge Brothers had been assembling cars. Before 1914, they had produced engines and chassis for pioneers such as Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford since 1900.

Dodge was able to, well, “dodge” the Airflow streamlined design blunder that stunted sales at both Chrysler and DeSoto, but its handsomely restyled bodies for Dodge’s silver anniversary featured dual taillights along with headlights that were built into the front fenders. Hoods were still the split type that raised up from the side above each fender, and the windshield reverted from one to two pieces of glass with a vertical divider in the middle to allow for more glass surface.

What did last week’s clue mean: “This make’s founders made a financial killing from another manufacturer”? Our readers knew that John and Horace Dodge earned millions from Ford after investing early in his company. Among them was Bob Holbert, of Louisville, Ga.:

“This is a 1939 Dodge D11 Luxury Liner, the first of the streamlined Dodges that were built until 1942 when Pearl Harbor shut down auto production in the U.S. for the duration. The car featured a straight-eight engine and added safety features of a flat dash with no protruding knobs.

“The red stripes in the photo clearly identify this as a 1939 model. I am partial to Dodge, owning a 2016 Charger R/T that is very reliable and great fun.”

He said the brothers didn’t actually make the killing themselves: “Both Dodge brothers were dead before their widows sold out to Chrysler and pocketed the fortune. In fact, one of them invested $240 million in municipal bonds to live off the tax-free interest. Even at 3 percent, that is a lot of money.”

Other readers identifying the car were:

AIKEN: Bob Ennis said the 1939 Dodge Business Coupe: “My first guess said a 1941 Plymouth because this was the car I learned to drive. Next I said maybe DeSoto and finally settled on Dodge. The Dodge was the only one that had the three red lines on the grille and the matching red markings on the bumper guards.

“The Dodge brothers built cars since 1914. After the Dodge brothers died in 1920, it was bought by Chrysler in 1928. All the Chrysler products were similar in design. My only Dodge was a 1978 Aspen station wagon with the 318 V-8. It was actually a very reliable car.”

AUGUSTA: James Wall said it was a 1941 Plymouth because his uncle had a Special Deluxe. He remembers the bumper guards sticking up.

Gary Engen said: “You pictured a 1939 Dodge Luxury Liner. Could be two-door coupe or four-door sedan. Somewhere I have a photo taken in 1943 of the car that my mom and her sister drove with me, a 2-month-old, from Tennessee to Southern California where the family lived.

“I remember Mom saying they drove a several-year-old Dodge sedan that her brother, who recently joined the Navy for WWII, loaned to her to transport us back from the Tennessee Army post where I was born while Dad was going through Army maneuvers in preparation for his unit’s deployment to Europe. It is possible that we traveled in a 1939 Dodge; who knows?

“What an adventure that must have been back then for a 23-year-old mother to transport her new son across the rough, narrow highways of the USA, 2,500 miles west to California in 1943 in that Dodge sedan. No McDonald’s, no Holiday Inns, no interstate highways, no credit cards, no GPS, etc.

“That old Dodge, along with my mom and her sister, have since passed away but I still enjoy hitting the roads today in more complex and comfortable automobiles on the vast variety of America’s scenic highways.”

Walker Mobley Jr. said: “This week’s picture looks like a 1939 Dodge Luxury Liner Deluxe. I don’t know anything to say about this one, don’t know of anyone who had one. Of course, I was just a tiny tot when this car was on the road. Hats off to all of the cars of this era for surviving World War II living on ‘reduced rations’ of all kinds. As always keep these coming.”

Lowell Fritsche said: “I’d say you have a 1939 Dodge D-11 Luxury Liner. I have been a Dodge fan for a long time. I was told that my father had a Dodge back in the 1920s. I have a picture of him in a car when he was courting my mother. It was taken with all her siblings in front of my grandfather’s sod house. I can’t tell if it was a Dodge. All you can see is part of the windshield and a big spotlight mounted on the post.

“The Dodge brothers had a long history in the auto business. You might be referring to Henry Ford. Seems like the brothers were working for him and wanted more say in the business. Henry couldn’t have that, so I think he fired them. They went out and formed their own company and eventually sold out to Walter Chrysler. They were fantastic innovators and had a hand in a lot of the companies back then.

“I have had three Dodges. A 1955, a 1958 D-500 and a 1961 Phoenix four-door hardtop. I think it was the hottest car I ever owned. Sadly, it was also about the ugliest. I think Chrysler really went overboard on ugly in the early ’60s. They were all great-running cars, and I liked every one of them. Dodge was a good name.”

CANTON, Ga.: David Anderson said: “The Dodge brothers, Horace and John, began supplying parts to auto manufacturers such as Ford and Oldsmobile in 1900. That changed when Henry Ford bought back all of the Ford stock they and others held so that he could use the stock dividends for his own expansion rather than pay it to investors.

“Flush with cash, the Dodge brothers officially began manufacturing and selling their own brand of cars and trucks in 1914. They would get to enjoy their success for only a few year, because older brother John succumbed to the Spanish flu in January 1920 and Horace followed him in December from cirrhosis of the liver. Horace reportedly was quite close to his brother and sought to assuage the sorrow of his death with quite a bit of liquor.

“On a lighter note, it appears there may be some truth to the wild and ribald behavior of the brothers depicted in recent Dodge ads!

“The legacy of the brothers, fortunately, has not been lost to time, because their widows sold the company to Walter Chrysler in 1925. It has remained to this day as one of the last original Chrysler brands still standing.

“Back in 1939, however, Dodge was celebrating its silver anniversary and dubbed its entire 1939 lineup as the Luxury Liner to celebrate its 25 years in business. The cars were all new with a few of the more prominent features being a new two-piece windshield, a column-mounted shift lever and an indicator light in the new ‘Jewel Case’ speedometer cluster that glowed green, orange or red, depending on your speed.

“The column-mounted gear shift was especially touted for the unfettered and uncluttered front-seat access with no (floor-mounted) lever for any front-seat passenger to straddle. The cars, whether in Special or Deluxe trim, were claimed to be the best, biggest and the most luxurious that Dodge had ever made.

“The teaser shot is most likely that of a Deluxe model because the optional bumper detail can be seen, but other than that I can only state with certainty that this is definitely a 1939 Dodge Luxury Liner. Cars of this era are magnificent to see in person for you will never again see any new vehicle advertised with ‘chair-height’ seating and a back seat as roomy as a living room sofa.”

EVANS: Steve Proffitt said: “The clue led me to the famous Dodge brothers for the make of the vehicle. After some research, I believe this vehicle a 1939 Dodge Luxury Liner.”

Jerry Paul said: “This week my guess is a 1939 Dodge Luxury Liner.”

Bill Harding said: “The Dodge brothers had indeed made a financial killing from ‘another manufacturer.’ Actually, there were two manufacturers: Ford and Olds each bought engine and chassis components from John and Horace Dodge in the early 1900s. Ford made the Dodge brothers multimillionaires in 1914, when he bought out their shares in his company. That sweet deal netted the Dodge boys $25 million.

“The lovely 25th anniversary 1939 Dodge D-11 Luxury Liner had a flathead, inline six of 217.8 cubic inches, kicking out 87 horses. As with the engine, there was just one transmission – a three-speed manual with synchronizers on second and third gears only.

“Although cruise control was many years in the future, cars of the mid-20th century had a manual throttle control on the dashboard, which meant that when a driver got up to a comfortable cruising speed, he could adjust the throttle control for maintaining that speed. The front styling tells us this is a 1939.”“One more thing. I need to apologize for last week’s comment that 1974 was the last year that the 454 V-8 could be ordered for a car. 1975 was the 454’s last year in the Monte Carlo, but the Caprice and Impala were available with the 454 through 1976.”

Wayne Wilke identified the car – “perhaps the 25th anniversary top-of-the-line luxury model. My dad had a light-gray 1939 Dodge four-door sedan that he had bought new. He kept that car through the war years because car production had been halted and beyond in the postwar years when new cars were in short supply.

“Some time in the Dodge’s early life, a collision with a trolley car had bashed in the driver’s side rear door. With money and collision repair labor/expertise also in short supply, his solution was to tie the door in place with a thick rope. By the way, the Dodge sedan’s rear doors were of the ‘suicide’ array.

“He traded in the Dodge in 1948 when I was 2 years old. I have only three faint memories of the Dodge: the dented door tied in place with a rope, the rear view and the distinctive sound the Dodge made as it was started up.

“When I looked at last week’s photo, I did not instantly recognize it as a ’39 Dodge. I concluded it was a late-’30s car and I started my search in car books and on the internet. I had erroneously concluded that the car was not a Dodge, because if it were I would have recognized it instantly.

“Later, when I identified the car, I realized that I probably had never seen our Dodge from the front. The car had always been parked in our narrow driveway, and the pathway to my seat would have taken me by the dented door, around back of the car and into the functioning passenger side rear door, probably with my mom shepherding me the entire the way.”

Jeff Keevil said: “The swept-back trunk area of the coupes makes them look fast just standing still, but I know the L-head six engine wouldn’t drive them that way.”

GROVETOWN: Charles Jenkins said: “The photo is a 1939 Dodge Deluxe. The five-window Dodge coupe is particularly good-looking. In fact, most coupes of that time are nice! My dad had a ’39 Plymouth, and there is one of these somewhere in Grovetown. I had a ’38 Ford Standard business coupe (one taillight, one sun visor, one windshield wiper). The central dip in the bumper is to accommodate the crank, though I doubt anyone would have used one by 1939.”

Ruth and Jimmy Sapp said: “We think this week’s car is a 1939 Dodge Luxury Liner four-door sedan. We can’t wait until Friday to see if we are correct!”

HEPHZIBAH: Theo Hammontree said it was a 1939 Dodge D-11 two-door fastback.

JOHNSTON, S.C.: Lee Williams knew the 1939 D-11 Luxury Liner: “According to what I read, this car was a new design to mark the 25th anniversary of Dodge. It was interesting to read about the early history of Dodge that I was not aware.”

KEYSVILLE, Ga.: Glenn Widner said: “John and Horace Dodge made a name and fortune in the early 1900s supplying precision parts to automakers of this period, including Henry Ford. They started their own company in 1914, and this beautiful 1939 Dodge bears their name.

“Born in Niles. Mich., they learned how to repair machinery at their father’s machinery shop working on marine engines on the St. Joseph River. Dodge Motor Co. supplied trucks in World Wars I and II. There may be Dodge trucks still running in Russia that were supplied to them in the 1940s.”

MARTINEZ: L.B. Schnuck wrote: “The auto this week is a 1939 Dodge Luxury Liner with bumper trim. The Dodge brothers, John and Horace, were important in Detroit and the automotive history, though both died in 1920 as complications of the worldwide Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. Initially, they supplied parts for Olds, then built engines for Ford and the Model T.

“Given stock in Ford Motor Co. as a payment that was repurchased by Ford for $25 million. Started building their own autos and wartime trucks, company was sold after the brothers’ deaths and later bought by the new Chrysler Corp.”

TIGNALL, Ga.: Gene Wilson took a wild guess at a 1939 Dodge.

NO CITY GIVEN: Michael Hollister said: “It’s a 1939 Dodge. Had the photo been just a bit larger we would have seen the famous Dodge Ram hood ornament.”