Featuring: Jack B. and Bark M.
It occurred to me recently that I’ve only used about one-third of the pictures my friend Jayson Coombes took at the Gilmore this past September. So here we go, for another round! Like before, this is pretty much visual, with little to no text. Enjoy!
Note: Today’s post is by my friend Jayson Coombes. You may remember him from the excellent photos he provided for several of my Cadillac posts earlier this year, including the 1958 Fleetwood Sixty Special, 1957 Coupe de Ville and 1977 Seville. Those cars were at the Cadillac LaSalle Club Grand National meet in San Marcos, Texas, and Jayson drove the subject of this article, a 1984 Seville Elegante, all the way there and back, with nary an issue. Here’s its story. -TK
I’ve had the Seville Elegante for a little over 5 years. I’m the third owner and it was sold new in June, 1984 at Frank Kent Cadillac in Fort Worth, Texas. Still has the original dealer emblem on the trunk. It has every option offered for a Seville in 1984, except for the Touring Suspension.
In 1970, Cadillac first offered a power sunroof on selected models. Up until that time, sunroofs on American cars had been rather limited. It was available on the Thunderbird in 1960, and I imagine there were other instances, but by and large it was not common.
Today, sunroofs are no big deal. Heck, you can get them on just about any 2018-19 model, from a Civic to a Rolls. But back in the early ’70s, they tended to be limited to premium European cars. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Jaguar and the like.
The 1979 to 1985 Cadillac Eldorado was downsizing done right. So many times, when emission standards, fuel economy and plain, simple customer tastes change, the results can sometimes be…awkward. But in the late ’70s, GM had it down pat, thanks to Design VP Bill Mitchell.
Mitchell was one of the best. He took over as head of GM Design when Harley Earl retired in 1958. But Mitchell was an old hand by then. He’d been with GM for decades, and produced some great designs decades before he was awarded the helm.
It is well documented that I am a fan of the Cadillac Seville. All of them. No, really. Part of it is that one of my first toy cars as a tot was a 1980 Seville made by Tomica, which along with my 1/64 scale Continental Mark III, Fleetwood Brougham and Mercury Cougar Villager station wagon, introduced me to Brougham at a very early age. My favorite? The 1976-79. But I like them all to some extent.
And when they’re in that classic Cadillac color known as, depending on the year, Colonial Yellow, Cream Beige, Light Yellow and finally, Cameo Ivory, this author takes note.
I’ve always had a thing for early ’50s Cadillacs. When I was in second grade or so, my grandparents got me a hardcover “coffee table” type book called Decade of Dazzle. It was a book on Fifties cars, and one of the featured cars was the 1953 Cadillac Eldorado. Looking supreme in white over red leather, it left an impression on me. And later that same year, out on a trip to the Jewel-Osco with my Aunt Candy, I got a 1/43 scale 1952 Cadillac Series 62 sedan in pink and white. I still have it.
Of course, the 1953 Cadillac was the final iteration of the all-new postwar 1948 Cadillac. It inaugurated the classic Cadillac fishtail fin, and in 1949, the small block V8. In 1950 it was totally restyled, though it still bore a close resemblance to the 1948-49 model.
The Coupe de Ville. Is there a more famous Cadillac? Oh sure, most people who are into cars know the classic Cadillac model names. Sedan de Ville, Fleetwood Brougham, Seville, Eldorado, Sixty Special. But Coupe de Ville is such a great name. And it was attached to great cars. From 1949 to 1993, they were the sporty Cadillac, the Cadillac for flashy types. And pretty much every year they were good looking cars, perhaps some years more than others. But any 1950s Coupe de Ville was a sharp set of wheels! Today we look at the 1957 model.
Hershey is always a big deal to car nuts. Friends of mine have been, but not me. Well, my comfort zone, living in the Quad Cities, is a circle roughly between Des Moines, St. Louis, Chicago and Milwaukee. Within that circle, I can drive to a car show, concours, model show or whatever and still have time enough to attend, enjoy myself, have lunch or dinner, and get back home, all in the same day.
Fortunately, I have friends all over, and Dave Smith, a good friend of mine who lives in Connecticut, made the drive to Pennsylvania. As a result, he took many excellent photos. As a result, I was able to do a virtual tour from the comfort of my own home. As will you. This is, quite simply, a photo tour, short on text and long on great pictures! So sit back, scroll, and enjoy. And many thanks, Dave, you’re a gentleman and a scholar.
In the early Sixties, Cadillac Motor Division received a bit of flack from some of their customers as to the growing girth of their offerings. Said irritated customers, living like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons in their Victorian era mansions in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, were finding that their new Cadillacs were too big for their garages. So Cadillac decided to offer a new model. A shorter Cadillac.
And so, for the 1961 model year, there was a new model, the short deck Series Sixty-Two sedan. (UPDATE: The ’61 was actually in the de Ville series, the brochure showing it as a Sixty-Two series is incorrect. Thanks Dave Smith for the info!). Its primary difference was a shrunken rear deck, all the better to fit in 1920s-era garages and to assist in parallel parking in Manhattan or on Boylston Street in Boston. Standard equipment and interior trim were just as elegant and luxurious as the regular, long-tailed model. That ought to show those moneyed East coast swells, right?
