While I’ve never owned a floaty boat of a car like a Cadillac, Lincoln, or Chrysler, I’ve long been curious about the other side of the fence. Nobody expects taut suspension and easy parking in this genre, but mid-century luxury cars evoke a certain style and a period when people aspired to American luxury, instead of the current day British, German and Japanese leaders. And as leaders, Cadillac offered some futuristic equipment including power seats, locks, and mirrors, fully automatic heating and air conditioning, front cornering lamps, and dual speed wipers. Luxury features included a 340hp engine, optional wood interior veneers, and leather or wool seats. They also had the (relatively) stark look of mid-1960s GM cars, with cleaner, less ornate styling as also seen in cars like the contemporary Buick Riviera and Oldsmobile Toronado. Today’s 1964 Sedan de Ville is available for $3300 in South Lake Tahoe, CA.
Posts Tagged ‘cadillac’
Faded Glory – 1964 Cadillac Sedan de Ville
August 7, 2013The Whale Series – Cadillac Couple
July 17, 2009In the last few years (maybe with increasing wisdom age) I’ve started to see the appeal in pre-70s Cadillacs. They seem to have been built before a time where the accountants held the reins at GM, before the badge-engineering phase, and when Cadillacs were something you aspired to instead of laughed at from the wheel of your Euro-mobile. In the last few years they’ve regained some of their appeal, but to find a rusty-but-trusty candidate you really have to reach back into the sixties. Which, as I found, is pretty hard to do since anything that’s not just a project is at the higher end of the price range of cars I like to feature. Both the cars featured today are late 60s cars, a design period which is often overshadowed by the more garish Cadillacs of the 50s and early 60s, but these have their own sort of understated, simpler elegance.
First in this two-fer is this 1968 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham in St. Petersburg, FL. I normally stay away from eastern cars just because the likelihood of rust is that much greater, and sure enough, this one has a few spots here and there. But on this car you still get the elegant stacked headlights and pillarless bodystyle. It does need a bit of work to revive it, as it’s been stored for 6 years, but the seller implies through his comments on the brakes that the car is driveable. Clearly, you’d want to look into the quality of his restoration, but since he did it himself he should be able to comment on the work done. For a Cadillac of the period, these have minimal chrome and a really tidy design.

