The lavish motors of a late 1920s car girl

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Mexican-born Hollywood star Dolores del Río knew how to deal with cars, or so it seems. She is seen here filling the radiator of – well, the greyhound mascot points towards a Lincoln. But which version of the Lincoln is it then? There is a number of short moving images that Getty has put online and in which you can see Dolores with the same car in 1928 (here is one and here is another one). It must have been taken from one of her movies. Bonus points to those who know which one (we don’t). When you see the motor vehicle from a broader perspective it seems to have a very short wheelbase. A roadster version perhaps? We’re sure you’ll be able to tell us.

Back to our lovely Friday Lady for now. Miss del Río must have been a real car girl. Fact is that she liked her cars to be large, or so it seems. We came across this little snippet of her having just taken delivery of a Cadillac Willoughby Town Cabriolet. Of course there was also a Duesenberg, but preferring the slightly more out of the ordinary rich woman’s motors, we easily fell for a Cord Town Car with coachwork by Murphy of California and owned by the star as well. That car was thought to be lost for decades until 2015, when it all of a sudden came back to the scene in original and unrestored condition. It was rediscovered after more than 55 years of private ownership, during which it only rarely was seen in public – this car, or so it is believed. That was quite a find!

But, hey, to top all these, there was also this wacky three-position cabriolet Cadillac bodied by Saoutchik and painted in a dazzling two-tone purple and with wickerwork of which only a model reminds us of its craziness. Or, hang on. That survived too!

Words by Jeroen Booij. Picture from the archive.

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