Cohort William Oliver finally caught this black ’59 Caddy that he had seen a number of times before. And what a catch it is. No matter what you think of it, it’s a car that never fails to turn heads, especially in today’s traffic.
Cadillacs of this vintage always seem to look best in big city settings.
Like this one from a brochure or ad shot on Wall Street. A symbol of success, and the city was the place to make one’s fortune. And the place to still find black ’59 Cadillacs.
I can’t imagine driving that in big city traffic!
Stuff & Nonsense! I drove a truck with a 20 foot box plus the cab off the interstate into down town Salt Lake City by accident. I didn’t run over anything (like a VW). I had a time getting back to the interstate without a map to help.
Really no more difficult then a extended cab pickup or full size SUV. The scary part is finding a parking spot where the car will be safe from careless people using it for a door stop or vandalizing it. Black really is a great color for this car. With all that glass the lack of blind spots is a big plus.
I Can! King of the Road! Move it on over!
Beautiful. That’s what Cadillacs are all about.
This is my favorite version of the ’59, the four door with full wraparound rear window rather than the slanting version which I imagine would be a bit more claustrophobic as far as headroom. The ’63 is still my all time favorite, but I can’t stop looking at this one.
Maybe big, older cars look best in the city because they almost stand out more in reduced space; their dimensions are amplified just as they’re minimized under a big Texas sky, and so we see, clearly, the impression they were intended to make at the time.
To the poster above, driving these boats in big city traffic actually isn’t bad. Power steering is one-finger, and even in New York people will often just stay out of the way. Parking isn’t even as bad as it looks if you know what you’re doing, there’s a ’59 Electra that sometimes parallel parks around here, and I can usually wedge my ’75 Olds 98 into a space when needed. What’s not as fun is the driving itself…never getting up to the cruising speed at which land yachts thrive.
I like the 60 Special better, but I think that the 59 Eldorado convertible is best. I think the 59 Eldorado is probably the best Eldorado of all, FWD or RWD.
I like the 60 Special with the “ice cream cone” air scoops on the side as well, but you couldn’t get them with the wraparound in the rear, right?
No, the wrap around was only on the DeVille and series 62s. But the six window style was like the 60 Special.
Scale is definitely part of it but I think the designs of the bodies are more harmonious with the buildings around it. There’s very little pretension of driving functionality in these old Caddies, no thought of racking up MPGs with an aero body or lapping the Nürburgring at 7:59, these are rolling sculptures, every bit as artful and beautiful as the statues placed in parks and plazas throughout the city.
That’s not a bad way to describe it at all. I also appreciate the curves of these cars against the largely rectilinear city forms. And somehow it just seems “right” to see a car that conveys power and success in a city setting, just like it seems “right” to see a lifted Cherokee out amongst the rocks or a no-nonsense base trim Super Duty at a job site.
America’s fascination with wretched excess !
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I love these cars .
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Amazingly , in the late 1970’s I had a fully optioned ’59 Caddy convertible and I simply left it for the L.A.P.D. to tow away when it needed a new radiator .
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-Nate
I never really cared for these flat tops when they were new but they are growing on me now. One sharp Cadillac!
Great photo, and a nice change from the red convertibles that regularly pop up at car shows. I think the 1959 Cadillac looks best in this body style. The glassy greenhouse, extended roofline and four doors help balance the towering fins.
Ahhhhh yes! From the time when a Cadillac was a Cadillac.These cars look great anywhere.
+1
The roof line stands out the most in this great photo. Today most of the survivors of this generation I see are convertibles. so it makes the roof catch the eye even more than the fins. That the designers went this far out in designing a car for a wealthy, one assumes mature audience shows the confidence they had in what they were doing. Perhaps the world was progressing so fast in positive ways that even the secure older folks wanted to be a part of it.
Remember that line from Mad Men spoke by Bert Cooper.” Here lies Miss Blankenship. She was born in a barn in the Bronx in 1897 and died on the 43rd floor of the Time-Life Building in Manhatten. She was an Astronaut.” Well for all those mature astronauts out there Cadillac has your car.
This is what Cadillac was always about: a car to make the statement that you’ve “arrived” and to turn everyone else’s head in awe and admiration. Sadly, the brand has lost that. I don’t see that magic coming back.
This car is absolutely gorgeous in black!
Especially with those new TV ads showing images of SoHo and lower Manhattan.Sorry Cadillac, the people in these demographics just aren`t buying it.
Agree that there is a bad mismatch between the car, the target and the setting in these ads. Cool, rich hipsters in SoHo wouldn’t be caught dead in a tarted-up Chevy Equinox (aka SRX–I think that is what it is still called…at least until it becomes a “C-something” with the next wave of International alphanumerics sweeping over the brand). The wealthy older suburbanites who actually would buy the thing are not likely to be dazzled by the gritty views of SoHo. Total fail by a brand still desperately in search of itself, and such a far cry by the confidence and swagger embodied by this 1959 DeVille.
While I think that a Rolls is the best statement that you have “arrived”, and a Mercedes S-class is also a runner up, Cadillac’s still have some panache left. Unfortunately for many, most decent current Cadillac’s are sports sedans with a firmer ride that most geriatric owners would not like.
I prefer the “six window” roofline with the sloping backglass to the “four window” roof that this one has, but still a beautiful car.
I’ve had this one by Johan since I was @8 years old. Typical 50’s warpage and no interior but happy to still have it. I agree on the roofline.
The six window has a traditional air, but the wraparound is your Mid Century Modern top choice! The same 4-door hardtop roof was on pretty much everything GM.
I’ve always liked the 1959 Cadillac.
In the 1930’s Cadillac was at its very best, with the V16’s comparable to a Rolls. Even the Fleetwood 75’s had a number of body styles, which might have compared to todays high end Mercedes. After the War, Cadillac’s Fleetwood 75 lineup collapsed to a limousine model. Had Cadillac been more sensible with the Eldorado Brougham and not tried to out do the Ford Continental, they might have been successful in bringing back a true top of the line Cadillac. As it is, post war Cadillac are really the low end Cadillacs, barely more than a top of the line Buick Roadmaster.
Brings to mind this photograph by the late great Gary Winogrand.
It appears that the ’59 has been photo worthy for a long time.
I am on record as not being a huge fan of the 59 Cad, but this one is as attractive as they get. Flying wing roof in conservative basic black.
There is one much like this running around Indianapolis, that I have seen from time to time, but never at a time when I could photograph it. It is an original car with just enough wear and patina to make it cool as can be. With black and white interior. I need to find this car again.
That car does look great in the city.
Even when I was a kid in the ’70s, the big fin cars from the late ’50s were mostly gone. I do recall being in an entrance line at the Nebraska State Fair about 1976 where the line next to us suddenly picked up speed. A ’59 Flat top Sedan DeVille driven by a couple of old ladies swooped by. You remember that massive fin going by.
I think I’ve seen one other in the wild – a few years ago. A white convertible with a black top fueling up at a major interstate truck stop in Colorado. It appeared the driver was taking a new purchase home.
In 1959 this was indeed the Standard of the World.
I never liked the 59 Cadillacs, even when they were new when I was a kid. Cadillac, Lincoln/Continental, and Imperial were all over the top for 1959. By 1961, only Imperial retained the wild style of the 50’s. I loved the 61 Cadillac (and the Lincoln Continental even more) from the first time I saw a picture of one, so 60’s sleek and modern. Still looks good to me.
The Cadillac with the cantilever roof is pretty cool, but really it is and always has been the epitome of Harley Earl garish kitch.
The Lincoln and Imperial of the period may have been over the top. If you mean over the top awesome.
and the Imperial…
The Lincoln is amazing, but with its beautiful sweeping lines plus curved glass, I say Imperial for the win.
That’s a 58 – I think the 59 was even more over the top – look at that grille! I definitely preferred this one to the Cadillac when I was a kid.
What always strikes me about the ’59 Cadillacs is how after several years of hulking, bulbous, intentionally heaving-looking Caddys, the ’59s look so lean and lithe, relatively unembellished when viewed from the side except for a simple straight chrome strip, with smooth flowing lines and simpliity. That is if you can take your eyes off those giant fins, which of course is impossible. But the ’59s, despite being noticeably longer, look lighter than the ’58s. I think the opposite was actually true.
The ’71-’73 Cadillac’s side flanks reference every body contour of the ’59s
I’m with those that prefer the 4-window body style with wraparound rear window to the 6-window version, on all the GM B/C-bodies of this year.
I see your point. It reminded me that Raymond Loewy managed to make his 59 Coupe de Ville look very lean and lithe.
Wow, never knew that car existed! I’ve always wondered what a ’59 Caddy would look like without the fins. Save for the fishbowl windshield, this could easily pass for a ’63 or ’64 model – only five years wouldn’t be much if we were talking 2003 to 2008, but American cars of the early to mid ’60s looked nothing like those from half a decade earlier.
I never heard of this car before either. The (re)styling looks like something that would’ve come out of Ghia’s studios in the mid 50’s. Glad that it’s been found and restored due to its provenance, but knowing that it started life as a 1959 Caddy, I’d still say that the car is ruined.
Amen. The car looks generically pleasing if it were some Renault or some such but knowing its a 59 Caddy, the thing looks grotesque.
There is little difference in weight between the 58’s and 59’s, both weigh around 2200 kg.
There is just something wrong about measuring the weight of any 1950s Cadillac in kilograms. 🙂
I have a couple of degrees in Physics, so I like the metric system. I found the weights on a Cadillac history website where they were listed in kilograms. However the Classic Car Database lists the weights as follows:
________________1958 _______1959
Sedan de Ville — 4855 lbs —– 4825 (4 window) 4850 (6 window)
coupe de Ville — 4705 ——– 4720
60 Special – – — 4930 ——– 4890
I could convert this to stones…..
Hey, that’s my car next to it!
Exceeding handsome and impressive, especially in an urban setting. All the ’59-’60 four window flat-roof GM’s are the wildest of that mid-century modern excess!
Now, a challenge: capture a ’59 or ’60 Eldorado Brougham with custom body by Pininfarina in the wild!
This was the last one that I’ve seen in the wild – circa 1990’s. The decision was being made to restore it or use it as a parts car.
Wow, I hope it was saved. Only 101 of these were made for 1960, on top of just 99 (!) made for 1959. While not as flamboyant as earlier Eldorado Broughams, these are super rare cars that very accurately foretold the styling direction Cadillac would take in the 1960s. They were also hand built in Italy by Pininfarina (Caddy chassis shipped over, completed car shipped back–looooooong before the Allante).
View #2
View #3
A dream of the past come to life.
brannan st sf
The building in the background across the intersection in the first photo is perfect!
Agreed. Looks sort of international style, but with just enough curves to make it unusual. Probably a little younger than the Caddy but it does seem quite appropriate.
Corner of Yonge & St Clair, in Toronto.
The one thing about driving these in the city as opposed to a 20′ truck is the bumps and potholes. They had them in 1959, too. These big luxo steamers would bottom out pretty easily. If you left the City and traveled up the Saw Mill Parkway, your chances of getting a Darlington Stripe on the median guardrail were pretty good.