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.
After a brief disappearance in 1981 (the color that year, Waxberry, was closer to an off-white than strictly yellow) it returned for 1982 and in 1983 was renamed Cameo Ivory. Other than a brief spastic renaming for 1986-’87.
1986 Cadillac colors
1987 Cadillac colors
To Sunburst Yellow on Eldorado/Seville ’86-’87, Almond on de Ville/FWD Fleetwood in ’86, Sunburst Yellow on de Ville/FWD Fleetwood in ’87, and Chamois on the RWD Brougham and Cimarron in ’87-’88. Confused yet? Cameo Ivory returned in ’88 and remained an available color all the way through 1991.
I always liked it. Likely because in 1986 my parents special ordered a new 240DL wagon from Lundahl Volvo. My mom picked Cream Yellow with a tobacco brown interior, and the color, if not the exact same color as Cadillac’s, was very, very close. My dad liked it so much he had his ’51 Porsche 356 Cabriolet, being restored at the time, painted that color too.
As to our featured car, I spotted it this very afternoon on Finding Future Classic Cars on FB. It looks to be a very nice, if not perfect, example. Sad about the cracked dash, but that’s a pretty common malady on most all 1970s American cars.
Per the ad (the car was on San Diego CL as of this writing): “1978 Cadillac Coupe Deville, one owner grandpa‘s car, garage kept, all original.”
“63,000 original miles runs and drives amazing. No problems, original paint. Very rare to find three-way yellow (ED: not really, this was a fairly popular combo when new, the ’77 brochure even showed one in these colors), new tires, new brakes all original no accidents.
“Registered up-to-date daily driver great classic lotta fun to drive show is a head turner will not last too long asking for $16,500.”
The gigantic run-on sentence that was in the ad was painful to read (I edited it with punctuation, my OCD required it). These were nice driving cars, with the 425 CID and THM automatic. And since they were smaller than the 1971-76 gunboats, they’re relatively practical to drive.
And unlike that ’77 Caprice I posted, this one has all the power options, is the more desirable coupe, and, at least in your author’s opinion, a desirable color combination. Is it worth 16,500? Well, the fillers appear to have been replaced, as there aren’t any cracks/chunks missing out of them. So they won’t be falling apart, but it would have been nice if they could have matched it to the paint.
CA car likely means no or little rust-but that’s not for certain. It’s probably the high side value wise, I’d think more like 9000-9500 tops with that cracked dash and poorly painted fillers. Still an attractive survivor though! My friend Jayson, who’s more conversant on ’70s Cadillac values, had this to say: “Yeah, I agree, not 16.5. They didn’t even finish the pin stripe on the new fillers. That would have helped to conceal the mismatched shades. More of a 10 to 11K maybe.”