Cadillac Series 60 Special Town Car by Derham 1942 - World Of Classic Cars -

Cadillac Series 60 Special Town Car by Derham 1942

In the fall of 1941, as war clouds raged above Europe yet still distant from American shores, W. Deering Howe prepared for wedded bliss. The founder of Transair, Inc., and a well-known Long Island socialite, Howe was to be married for the second time. The bride was Elizabeth Shevlin Smith, another well-connected figure, from a Great Northwest lumber family; her father, Tom Shevlin, had also been a prominent football star at Yale. “She was a strikingly handsome woman,” her daughter-in-law would describe her later in life. “Five-foot-eight, a Junoesque figure, enormous dark eyes, and very dark hair. She also had a fabulous sense of humor.”
Deering Howe’s gift to the new Mrs. Howe was a Cadillac Series 60 Special with custom coachwork by Derham. Indications are that this was one of four Series 60 Special Town Cars planned by Derham for 1942 but, as it turned out, is one of two believed to have been actually built. The car was ordered through a New York retail branch, with a Series 60 Special Imperial Sedan being shipped to Derham’s shop in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, and modified with an open chauffeur’s compartment, padded formal roofline with small backlight, and special Bedford Broadcloth upholstery to the rear seat, which features its own radio, a “Special Request” from Fleetwood.

Cadillac Series 60 Special Town Car by Derham 1942

Delivery of the completed Cadillac was held up by President Franklin Roosevelt’s “freeze” on the delivery of new cars on January 2, 1942, the war having now arrived in the United States. Howe, as a man of prominence, secured a “priority,” and the Town Car was finally supplied to Elizabeth in 1942.
The Cadillac remained part of Mrs. Howe’s life until 1951, when, three years after Mr. Howe’s untimely passing, it was replaced by her third husband with a used Rolls-Royce. It passed in 1958 to Frank Low and, later, to Norman “Bill” McIntosh, owner of a classic limousine service in Detroit, who sold it in 1974 to the present owner, a longtime CCCA member. An exhaustive restoration effort followed, with the engine rebuilt using “New Old Stock” components, the body refinished in maroon with matching genuine leather upholstery, and the rear compartment upholstered in plain tan broadcloth (a replacement for the unavailable Bedford Broadcloth).

Cadillac Series 60 Special Town Car by Derham 1942

The car has been regularly driven over many years, including in three CCCA CARavans in 1986, 1994, and 2005, and it achieved its Primary Custom First Place award in CCCA competition in 1997. It appeared in The Classic Car, Beverly Rae Kimes’s 1990 book on the CCCA and its membership, in a prominent two-page spread in which the owner described it as being “a unique glamorous as well as dependable car.” More recently, it has been displayed at America’s Car Museum in Tacoma.