It’s common knowledge I love Cadillacs and Lincolns…well, at least until they started killing sedans left and right, but never mind that. Let’s ignore the current state of American luxury and go back to when a Cadillac was a Cadillac. Big, chromey, V8 powered, with bench seats and torque torque torque! Like this ’69 Coupe de Ville.
My friend down in the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area, Jayson Coombes, sent me the link to this car a few weeks back, I clicked and was immediately smitten.
While there was a red available in ’69, it was a dark metallic hue, San Mateo Red. So this is a Resale Red special (d’oh!) but I still like it, with that white vinyl top and white leather.
As the auction site related, “This is a very well preserved 1969 Cadillac Coupe DeVille which has been owned by our client for the past 13 years. He and his wife have been longtime members of the Classic Car Club of America and the Cadillac LaSalle Club and have enjoyed a beautiful collection of important cars. With the exception of paint color change, this Cadillac is completely original and a survivor.”
“This Coupe DeVille spent much of its early life in and around Grand Rapids, MI. In 2007, its current owner purchased the car with just 26,000 miles, and shortly thereafter brought the vehicle to Tucson, Arizona, where it has live since. Originally painted Colonial Yellow (5036L), this Cadillac was repainted a vibrant fire engine red by the previous owner. Despite the age of the paint job, it shows quite well.”
“Since arriving in Arizona, this Coupe DeVille has been very well cared for and driven a mere 13,000 miles in the last 13 years. Interestingly, a dealer sticker was found in the glovebox from Harvey Cadillac Company of Grand Rapids, MI. The sticker shows the car sold in 2002 with 21,955 miles, suggesting the previous owner only drove it about 4,000 miles over 5 years.”
At the time Jayson sent me the link, it had ten days to go. While I’d have appreciated it a little more in its original Colonial Yellow, the red with white interior and matching top is undeniably striking. If you want to stand out cruising around, this would be a good candidate amongst the sea of silver silvermist Camrys, Rogues and Fusions.
10 Comments
Tom,
Nice CDV. 1969-1970 are really great cars. No consideration of gas mileage by the designers but hay gas was .27 a gallon, That original interior is worth the price. It takes 6 full hides to recover those seats so someone is going to get a nice car.
It was discussed on the Forum and of course someone commented on the color.
http://forums.cadillaclasalleclub.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=e3d5ff0039e122586c4b2ab21638dbfe&topic=162799.0
However San Mateo Red in its original form tended to fade (years before clear coat). Colonial Yellow is an aquired taste color so I can see why the color was changed.
If you or any of your friends are interested in a DeVille of this vintage I can highly recommend this car as it mechanically new. The owner is quite a mechanic and does all his own work…. And he spent the money to correctly cover those huge seats in leather. It is the nicest 1970 SDV in our region.
http://www.clcpotomacregion.org/70cadillacforsale.htm
Lynn,
That is quite a price difference between this CDV and your friends SDV. Do you think a faded patina original yellow would have upped this cars value? When the cars were 15-25 years old and still common, both faded and resale red were common looks on the rough side of town.
What a sweetie and that GLORIOUS RED .
I’d prefer the original Colonial Yellow but this looks fine and is a nice driving car when all is right .
I miss these boats .
-Nate
While I love the exterior styling on these cars, the interior leaves me a bit cold. The single seam down the center of the driver’s seat screams “line your butt crack up here” to me, and the swaths of cheap plastic and plood (portmanteau of “plastic” and “wood”) is a depressing decline from the formerly lavish interior treatments on these. At the time, i guess, plastic was modern and cutting edge, but it hasn’t aged well, in terms of both style and durability.
I owned a couple of ’67 Imperials, and a ’69 Caddy coupe similar to this one (except silver with white interior) and the Imperial was far and away better in every regard. The exterior styling was a bit more subdued, but the interior quality was way nicer. The 440 and 472 were completely different engines, too- the 472 probably better suited to what most people back then wanted out of a luxury car, but open them both up on the highway and the 440 was much more at home propelling 2-1/2 tons of steel to double the posted speed limit.
The bright red on this one turns me off; I have spent enough time driving in the inner cities here on the East coast to have seen many a car of this style and this color end its life sputtering to death run out of oil, or crashed violently into a freeway divider, piloted by someone without much regard for life or property.
Given the choice in ’69, I’d take the Imperial first, with the Lincoln and Caddy tied closely for 2nd.
You would have also found a 1969 Imperial much downgraded from a 1967. They by then had also lost their unique separate frame for just a formal rendering of the fuselage style. We like to complain about the changes but remember that change is always more expensive than leaving the same and the expense of change was required here by the government requiring a level of crashworthiness nowhere else in the world was even contemplating. The era of what was good for General Motors was good for America was over.
No disagreement, I’ve sat in a 69 Imperial and they are plastic fantastic, like the Caddy. I understand that regulations required the removal of brightwork in the interiors and the blunting of crisp features. But I’d still take the Imperial, year for year, over the Cad.
All that said, it is much easier nowadays to keep an old Cad operational; a lot of the parts on the Imperials are NLA and the complexity of them requires an engineering degree to reverse-engineer repairs.
The mid sixties Imperials are some of my favorites as well. My favorite was the 65s with the glass covered headlights, even if it some how got by on a 413 V8.
Your remembrances on the 440 versus the 472 were instructive. When I read it i thought how perfect for a state troopers car, where so many 440s found homes.
Mike said : All that said, it is much easier nowadays to keep an old Cad operational; a lot of the parts on the Imperials are NLA and the complexity of them requires an engineering degree to reverse-engineer repairs.
BINGO ! AIR TEMP II ~ gah .
-Nate
Update: the auction ended and the car sold for $16,895.
Four different shades of blue! Now you’re lucky to find one.
When I was in Boy Scouts in the early 70’s, someone’s parents had a red Deville convertible with a big chrome hood goddess. I remember it as a ’69, but it was brighter than San Mateo Red, so it could have been a ’70. I rode in several of that vintage, and they had more road noise than Grandma’s ’72 Calais (perhaps it was the tires), and a lot more than my ’74 Fleetwood.