Touring Tough - 1937 Oldsmobile F-37 Touring Sedan

You couldn't call the 1937 Oldsmobile an all-new car, but in truth, you wouldn't be far off the mark if you did. The engine was significantly revised, the frame was all-new, and the all-steel body was re-engineered. Yet, despite the price shooting up nearly 10 percent, Oldsmobile was still able to sell more than 200,000 cars for the year--roughly three-quarters of them like the Touring Sedan you see here.

The newness started with the engine, which dated from the early 1920s. Launched with 169 cubic inches and 42 horsepower, it had been on a comprehensive update regimen ever since, with 55 horsepower by 1928, 65 by 1931 and 90 horsepower (out of 213.3 cu.in. and higher 6.1 compression) by 1935. For the 1937 model year, displacement changed again, to 229.7, thanks to a 1/8-inch overbore. Other improvements included full-length water jacketing, cast-in cylinder-reinforcement rings to reduce cylinder distortion caused by cylinder head and head-bolt stress, and redesigned camshaft and valve lifters. Additionally, the crankshaft was beefed up by increasing the surface area, and the fuel pump was inverted to help prevent vapor lock. Power was now rated at 95 horsepower.

That power boost was necessary to accommodate what was a larger F-series Oldsmobile for 1937. The suspension was largely carried over, though there was now a stabilizer bar on both ends rather than just on the rear, and it was all attached to an entirely new central-I-beam X-member frame. That frame was two inches longer between the wheel centers than the 1936-spec frame, and both stiffer and lighter. The engine was pushed forward four inches from the '36 models, and the body moved forward six inches as well. Rather than having to put passengers atop the rear axle, they could now sit entirely within the wheelbase of the car, making for a more comfortable ride.

The new frame allowed a variety of interesting things to happen to the body. First, because the driveshaft went through the center of the X in the frame, there was no more driveline hump, and the floors were completely flat. The popular "turret top" all-steel construction that showed up in 1935 really just extended to the roof, though. For 1937, Oldsmobile engineers dismissed the wood framing from the rest of the body (just in the sills, at that point), which allowed it to sit 3.5 inches lower on the frame, and they raised the doors 3.5 inches to make it easier for people to get in and out. The forward shift and longer wheelbase also helped, as did the rear doors, which were five inches longer than those on 1936 models. Oldsmobile presented a clean, Art Deco face to the wind, while high-mounted brake lights were an intriguing touch.

There is always a penalty to pay for advancement, and in the Oldsmobile that penalty was twofold: an F-37 (as the division's six-cylinder line was known for 1937) weighed roughly 130 pounds more than a comparable F-36 from the previous season, and the price went up $75, to $895 for an F-37 Touring Sedan like the one you see here. Seventy-five dollars doesn't sound like much, but that's a nine percent price rise from year to year, which you'd think would give buyers some concern. Except it didn't. Oldsmobile sold just over 200,000 cars for 1937, a division record; two-thirds of all Oldsmobiles for the year, in both six- and eight-cylinder forms, were Touring Sedans--the difference between a standard sedan and a Touring Sedan was the integrated bustle-back-style trunk, a look later copied on the 1980 Cadillac Seville.

Strangely, despite the litany of improvements year to year, Oldsmobile said almost nothing about any of this in its brochure. Car companies had a habit of calling everything "new" every year, whether it was or not. Was it wanting to avoid this overuse of the term "new"? Was it the knowledge of a public skeptical of engineering advancements, the idea that Oldsmobile's customers may not necessarily understand or care about the division's technical achievements, or simple modesty? Hard to say, but it's difficult to understand what makes a 1937 Oldsmobile special when even Oldsmobile itself was soft-pedaling everything that made it a quantitative improvement over the 1936 models. So we found one to drive.

Herb Mettler of Waitsburg, Washington, has a collection of about a dozen cars, most of which are running. Among the number of Buicks in his collection is this 1937 Oldsmobile--a car that he bought in 1969, and has owned for 47 of its 79 years. This very Oldsmobile started Herb's car collection--the first of hundreds of cars that have come in and out of his garage over time. For that reason alone, because it was the first of all those that followed, it's not going anywhere.

"The engine and interior were all original when I bought it. I'm the third owner, and so the second owner had some bodywork done--the original owner had it in a carriage house, and apparently he used the fenders as a guide, because both front fenders and one of the rears were scraped up and full of dings. Once the second owner had some bodywork done, he had it repainted black.

"I did have it repainted in 2013. I had a lot of parts off, and almost had it stripped to bare metal, when a friend offered to repaint the whole car and reassemble it for $2,800. I thought, you got a deal! He took out a couple of dings I didn't even see, one in the door and one in the trunk lid, and finished it back in black." Black shows everything, but pictures show how straight the steel was to begin with. "I also applied POR-15 to everything from the firewall to the trunk so it would never rust. And after a while, the interior didn't look good anymore, so my brother totally redid the interior."

That's it? "Well, one of the valves was sticking once. I guess it had sat for quite a while." The answer to the cure? "A little Gumout. It was only on the one cylinder, anyway. Oh, and I did have to put new wheel cylinders on the front. There's a guy near here who rebuilds them with stainless steel sleeves. I rebuilt the master cylinder, too." The driveline remains unrebuilt. Not bad for a car that now shows 46,000 miles on the odometer and which has gone on classic-car tours extensively throughout the Northwest. "We took that car on a lot of tours," Herb recalls. "It was the only one we had at the time!"

This Oldsmobile suffers from the same collection of ergonomic issues that most four-door sedans of this era do: a tall, narrow door; a high seat cushion and a gigantic steering wheel combine for an awkward squeeze in for all but the most petite and limber driver. That taller door does make life easier, however. It's difficult to tell whether the running board helps, getting you closer to the door opening, or if it's an impediment that must either be stepped over or puts you so high that you have to bend in extra-wiggly ways to slip into the driver's seat. Frankly, scooting across the big bench seat from the passenger's side is more convenient, despite the shifter coming up out of the floor. Luckily, the seat goes back far enough that all but the girthiest drivers are accommodated. There's also terrific headroom once inside--a benefit of the new lower body with the same overall height.

Seated and looking out, you are again very much in a car representative of the era: there's nothing that gives away the idea that it's a relatively high-tech machine. The windows on these first all-steel Turret Tops are a bit on the small side, considering the upright seating position, voluminous headroom and panoramic view the plush driver's seat gives you, and the passenger's-side front fender is all but invisible from the driver's chair. There are some curious interior touches, most of them on the instrument panel: there's a clock and an ashtray in the face of the glove box door, and the speedometer markings are actually molded into the chrome bezel, rather than printed on the face of the gauge itself. The Art Deco font is a treat, but isn't always the most easily read at a glance, despite the markings being picked out in bright red paint; in some light your desired speed is a little tough to see. And that's my excuse, officer.

Once the ignition key is switched on, find the start button--it's on the floor, located above the gas pedal in a position not readily seen from the driver's seat. It takes a novice some fumbling around to find it. Press it with your toe, and all 229.7 cubic inches of flathead power turn over with little hesitation. At idle, the straight-six purrs sweetly, a contented kitty at your feet, with sound well-damped by the plush interior materials so that only a gentle bass hum comes through. There is, in that low note, a suggestion of power.

But once you get going, the idle purr is a bit more strained as you work through the revs, and at road speeds the engine sounds as if it's working rather hard to keep things going. There's little doubt that you're in an automobile motivated by six cylinders as you accelerate; the power is smooth, but there's only so much that 95 horsepower can do to accommodate nearly two tons (curb weight, plus 500 pounds for driver and passenger). This may be why the gas pedal feels so on/off to us. Aggressive throttle tip-in to throw you back in your seat can occasionally be mistaken for actual power, and in lieu of startling performance, the L-head engine's Carter one-barrel carburetor may have been set up to leave an impression off the line. (The six was responsible for roughly three-quarters of Oldsmobile's sales that year, but the extra power and torque of the eight would have been a dynamite addition.) Whatever the case, it's not a throttle that you casually roll into. Change gear, engage the clutch at the very bottom of the pedal's long travel, and that shifter is a tad wobbly in its moorings but has a surprisingly short throw considering the thing is nearly a yard long.

The downside is that the steering wheel's connection to the front wheels has just enough slop in the system that you're constantly correcting, over-correcting and counter-correcting--and that's just in a straight line. The upside is that the ride, with coil springs in front and both front and rear anti-roll bars, could teach a thing or two to some newer chassis we've driven. It's proof that ride comfort and cornering control need not be mutually exclusive. The steering, in particular, is very light just off idle, despite no power assist, and you can really feel what the road is telling you.

Cars like this helped give Oldsmobile the reputation it enjoyed for the rest of the century as builders of comfortable sedans that drove well, thanks to the built-in engineering benefits, even if they were never called to your attention.

Owner's View

I was living in Portland at the time, and I went to see a Packard for sale. It was a rust bucket, and the seller wanted $2,500 for it. I passed, but on the drive home, I saw this Oldsmobile sitting on the street with a For Sale sign in the window. It had just 22,000 miles on the odometer. The owner wanted $600, I offered him $500, he took it, and I drove it home that day. For another $20, I bought a 1937 Oldsmobile heater for it, which the previous owner was going to install but never did, so I'm into this car for $520. I never installed the heater either!

1937 Oldsmobile F37 Touring Sedan

Specifications

PRICE

Base price: $895

ENGINE

Type: L-head inline six-cylinder, cast-iron block and cylinder head

Displacement: 229.7 cubic inches

Bore x Stroke: 3.4375 x 4.375 inches

Compression ratio: 6.1:1

Horsepower @ RPM: 95 @ 3,400

Torque @ RPM: 180-lb.ft. @ 1,600

Main bearings: Four

Fuel system: Single downdraft Carter EE-1 carburetor with automatic choke, mechanical fuel pump

Lubrication system: Pressure, gear-type pump

Electrical system: 6-volt with generator

Exhaust system: Cast-iron manifold, single exhaust

TRANSMISSION

Type: 3-speed manual, synchro on 2-3; floor shift; single dry-plate 9.25-inch clutch

Ratios: 1st: 2.94:1

2nd: 1.66:1

3rd: 1.00:1

Reverse: 3.78:1

DIFFERENTIAL

Type: Spiral-bevel, Hotchkiss drive

Ratio: 4.375:1

STEERING

Type: Worm-and-roller

Ratio: 19:1

Turns, lock-to-lock: 4.33

Turning circle: 37 feet

BRAKES

Type: Hydraulic, four-wheel manual drums

Front/rear: 11-inch drum

CHASSIS & BODY

Construction: Body on frame

Frame: Rigid girder, with I-beam X-member construction

Body style: Four-door sedan

Layout: Front engine, rear-wheel drive

SUSPENSION

Front: Independent, unequal length A-arms; coil springs; telescoping shock absorbers; anti-roll bar

Rear: Semi-elliptical leaf springs; telescoping shock absorbers; anti-roll bar

WHEELS & TIRES

Wheels: Drop center, pressed steel

Front/rear: 16 x 5

Tires: Balloon-type, wide whitewall

Front/rear: 16 x 6.50

WEIGHTS & MEASURES

Wheelbase: 117 inches

Overall length: 190.4 inches

Overall width: 72.1 inches

Overall height: 65.25 inches

Front track: 58 inches

Rear track: 59 inches

Shipping weight: 3,179 pounds

CAPACITIES

Crankcase: 6 quarts

Cooling system: 17 quarts

Fuel tank: 18 gallons

CALCULATED DATA

Bhp per cu.in.: 0.413

Weight per bhp: 33.46 pounds

Weight per cu.in.: 13.84 pounds

PRODUCTION

Touring

Four-door Sixes: 70,433

Total For 1937: 200,886

PERFORMANCE*

0-60 mph: 21 seconds

Top speed: 81.82 MPH

*Source: The Autocar, June 4, 1937

Pros & Cons

+ Utter reliability

+ Smooth Art Deco style

+ Plenty of technical achievement

- Technical achievement underplayed by quiet styling

- Sounds like hard work when it's moving

- A tight squeeze for bigger bellies behind the wheel

What to Pay

Low: $6,000 - $7,000

Average: $11,000 - $12,000

High: $16,000 - $17,000

Club Corner

Oldsmobile Club of America

517-663-1811

www.oldsclub.org

Dues: $30/year

Membership: 6,400

National Antique Oldsmobile Club

Lindworth Drive

St. Louis, Missouri 63124

www.antiqueolds.org

Dues: $25/year

Membership: 1,600