It’s pretty well established that I’m a Cadillac fan, even the polarizing ones like the Cimarron. And the bustle back Seville. As Popeye once said, I yam what I yam.
But I was recently excited to find out that Hot Wheels was reissuing their Seville as part of their ’80s series–which included a 1984 Corvette too.
So I waited. And waited. For them to appear at Walmart, or Target, or Jewel-Osco. A friend had gotten a couple back before Christmas. So there were many futile trips to stores to see if they’d arrived. They hadn’t.
And then, lo and behold. It was March 26. I was over at my folks for the day, working on a column. When I decided just for the heck of it to check out the Silvis Walmart. And struck gold, Jerry!
Cut out driver’s side glass for the ‘windows down’ effect.
I found four of them. Two for me, and two for my buddy Jayson, who once owned an ’84 Seville Elegante (written up right here on RG!) and had been looking as relentlessly–and unsuccessfully–as I had.
Anyway, I was satisfied. But a couple weeks later I was at Jewel-Osco and found a couple more! At which point I decided to hack one apart and repaint in one of my favorite Cadillac colors–Colonial Yellow.
It first appeared in 1978, replacing the brighter but similar Naples Yellow that was available in 1977. A complementary light yellow interior was available for the full effect.
And so I got right down to drilling out the rivets and taking apart the car, which was pretty easy since it was a Hot Wheels. I dug around in my parents’ garage and found a can of Rustoleum Warm Yellow spray paint.
Tested it on a square of newspaper and was pleasantly surprised at how close it was to the original factory color. So over 4-5 days I gave it five coats of paint, then a couple more days to completely dry, then reassembled it.
I am not a patient person. It’s why I’ve built only a single model kit in adulthood, and that took close to two months from start to finish. Every time it started irritating me, I’d push it aside and ignore it a while.
But I’m pretty happy with how the Caddy turned out. If I find more I might have to do some other colors!