Featuring: Jack B. and Bark M.
I’ve always been into Cadillacs, and that means I’ve always been into Cadillac toys and scale models. Recently my friend in Texas, Jayson Coombes, bought this brand-new release by BoS (short for Best of Show) after I told him about it, ha ha. He was nice enough to take some pictures of it and text them to me.
As you can see, it’s a finely detailed model. I have a few BoS Models myself, including a 1972 Coupe de Ville and 1968 Thunderbird four-door Landau, and the quality is high.
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.
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.
Here we go, ladies and germs, the original Cadillac Seville! Well, original in that this variant of the Cadillac Seville, introduced in May 1975 as an early ’76 model, was its own model and not a hardtop variant of the Eldorado.
The first Seville was the Eldorado Seville, sibling to the topless Eldorado Biarritz. It was available from 1956 to 1960. Starting in 1961, the Eldorado reverted to a convertible only model once again, returning to the convertible-only model it had been from 1953-55. But I digress!
The Seville’s genesis goes back to the early ’70s, when demand for a “smaller Cadillac” caused the GM prestige division to think about a new model. In fact, the earliest styling bucks for the Seville circa 1973 looked remarkably like that of the Hooper-inspired 1980-85 Cadillac Seville.
But fortunately, a leaner, smoother design and, in your author’s opinion, rather timeless design was selected, and was a breath of fresh air in Cadillac dealerships. Here was a cleanly styled flagship (only the Fleetwood limousines cost more) that had fuel injection and manageable size, yet retained all the luxury features that Cadillac owners, a loyal bunch, expected.
There’s just something about 1950s Cadillacs. It really was their decade. Depending on the era, there’s always that gotta have it vehicle. In the ’30s it was a Duesenberg, in the ’40s most likely a Packard, but in the ’50s a Caddy was the American Dream on four whitewalls. Harley Earl, the head of GM Design back then, did whatever the hell he wanted. And usually, it worked. Take, for instance, the 1956 Cadillac lineup.