It’s time, once again, to return to those once upon a time daily drivers of the past, in 1980s and 1990s Illinois. How about a nice opera-windowed Continental? This was taken in Plainfield, IL on February 26, 1986.

Last Wednesday I had an hour to kill before seeing a movie at the local Cinemark (it was the new Liam Neeson action flick, if you were curious).

It’s no secret I love Cadillacs. Even more so when the Cadillac is “triple yellow”, meaning paint, top and interior are all in that classic Cadillac pastel yellow. In 1977 it was Naples Yellow, in 1978 it was slightly paler and renamed Colonial Yellow.

I’ve always loved these early downsized Caprices. I’ve probably mentioned it before, but when I was a little kid there were TWO 1977 Caprice Estates on my block. They looked so cool. One cream, one tobacco brown. Both with Di Noc woodgrain sides.

I was 31 years old when I started traveling for a living. I had just taken a promotion to be a Regional Training Manager with Cricket Wireless, and I was supposed to be covering a fairly small territory of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. I had a very young family—my son…