The catalogs and reference books all say it shouldn’t exist, but according to both its owner and the shop that built it, the 1939 Oldsmobile Series 60 that won the Ridler Award at this past weekend’s Detroit Autorama not only came from the factory as a convertible but is also the last of its kind.

The short-lived Series 60 represented the most basic Oldsmobile one could buy in the late 1930s: a small six-cylinder-powered car fitted with the GM A-body shared with Chevrolet and Pontiac. While Oldsmobile introduced a convertible in the Series 60 lineup in 1940, for 1939 Lansing only offered a business coupe, a club coupe, a two-door sedan, and a four-door sedan. A literature check at the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum in Lansing, Michigan, turned up no evidence of a convertible Model 60 from that year.


But Billy Thomas of Corpus Christi, Texas, claims that the car he started with when he set out to build a show-winning car was a one-owner 1939 Model 60 convertible, a claim reiterated by the shop that built the car for him, Customs and Hot Rods of Andice near Georgetown, Texas.


“It was an original convertible when we started with it,” said Michael Kaiser, the shop manager at Customs and Hot Rods of Andice. “Both the title and frame say that it’s a 1939 Model 60 convertible.”