Once upon a time, one of the distinguishing features of American luxury cars was that not only were they available in a whole rainbow of colors, you could coordinate the colors both inside and out. Here’s a sampling of 10 Cadillac Fleetwood Broughams, Coupes de Ville, and Eldorados from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, showing off their color-coordinated wardrobes.
Gathering images for this post proved more challenging than I expected. There’s no shortage of colorful Cadillacs in the world, but I decided to set a couple of ground rules: They had to be reasonably original (no candy-apple restomods); they had to be parked outdoors (indoor and studio shots seldom show off color to advantage); and their paint, upholstery, and vinyl roof or convertible top all had to be the same color. (This last stipulation ended up crossing a lot of great-looking late ’50s and early ’60s Cadillacs off the list — they so often had two-tone upholstery.)
The easiest combination to find was triple black, so I went for a black-tie version: a 1968 Fleetwood Brougham that the listing claims was originally purchased by Herbert F. Johnson, the president of Johnson Wax.
I’m guessing Johnson had a chauffeur and usually rode in back, enjoying the ample rear legroom and folding footrests. The folding seat-back trays fitted to the Fleetwood Brougham in 1966–1967 were dropped this year, presumably due to federal safety regulations; there were map pockets instead.
Finding a suitable red car was surprisingly tough. There are still plenty of red Cadillacs, but even where they had red upholstery, they often had white tops. This 1975 Coupe de Ville (the same car pictured above) finally fit the bill: It’s Firethorn, one of the extra-cost “Firemist” metallic paint colors Cadillac offered in this period.
The orange look of the the De Ville’s “Dark Firethorn” plaid upholstery is a partly an optical illusion, but there’s nothing illusory about the rare Mandarin Orange paint job on this 1975 Eldorado hardtop:
Yellow was unexpectedly easy. Luxury car buyers of the ’70s seemed to like yellow, and if they wanted to color-coordinate down to the wheel discs and seat belts, Cadillac was prepared to accommodate them:
Green wasn’t scarce either — in the ’60s and ’70s, Cadillac sometimes offered three or four shades of it at a time — but, like red, I found it often paired with white tops and sometimes white upholstery. A welcome exception was this gorgeous 1963 Eldorado Biarritz in Frost Green, one of five Fire-Frost colors offered that year. “Fire-Frost” was a metallic paint that used larger-than-usual pigment flakes for an iridescent look:
The reason this particular car made the cut where so many early ’60s Cadillacs didn’t was the top. Cadillac offered convertible tops in both green and emerald this year, but survivors often seem to have white tops — I wonder if people ordered them that way to begin with or if restorers now prefer white.
When it came to blue, there was an embarrassment of riches. The matching-top stipulation led me to pass up some of the interesting turquoise and aqua selections, but shades like this handsome Innsbruck Blue were more common anyway:
Personally, I would have preferred the available Antique Dark Blue leather upholstery, but this De Ville has the D’Elegance package, which included button-tufted “Magnan” ribbed knit cloth. I’m not a fan.
There were sometimes also some darker blue selections, like the very sharp-looking Spectre Blue Firemist, pictured here on a very sharp-looking 1968 Eldorado:
Early ’80s Cadillacs are hard to love because of their engine woes and the feeling that their late ’70s themes had outstayed their welcome, but you could still get your color-coordination fix with cars like this Royal Maroon 1983 Fleetwood Brougham. (If you’re wondering, the listing from which these photos came offers no explanation for why there are whitewalls only on the front wheels — it makes the car look like it’s running on space saver spares in back.)
This Cerise Firemist 1975 Fleetwood Brougham looks more mauve than cerise to me, but who am I to argue with Cadillac color merchandising staff?
No, your eyes don’t deceive you: This car does have landau irons on its padded roof. So far as I know, these weren’t a factory option — for a while, the big Fleetwood 75 limousine did offer a factory landau package that could be ordered with landau bars, but they didn’t look like this — but if I guess if one must put simulated landau irons on a car, a long-wheelbase sedan is more appropriate than a two-door Thunderbird. As I’ve mused before, I suspect the Fleetwood Brougham was often purchased by chauffeur-driven customers and by livery services looking for something a little more wieldy than a Series 75 limousine. I’m not sure livery services would have gone for Cerise Firemist, though.
Finally, this post wouldn’t be complete without a triple white car. I had been looking for a white-on-white Fleetwood Brougham, but settled instead on this fine example of arguably the finest-ever Cadillac design, the 1967 Eldorado:
Although it’s not easy to see in these photos, this car does have a padded vinyl roof:
Inside, it not only has white leather (not, I regret to say, in a very attractive pattern), but also bucket seats and a center console, which were fairly rare on the Eldorado:
Ranking this selection by color, I think the winner is the 1963 Eldorado Biarritz, whose Frost Green metallic paint is both unusual and very handsome, a sure head-turner both on the street and at shows.
I also just love the Emerald leather upholstery, both the color and the natural grain texture.
However, when it comes to which of these cars I’d most want to actually own, there can be only one answer:
This is just a sampling of the vast array of Cadillac color options, which could easily fill a book. I don’t actually like all of them, nor do I like all of these cars, but I’m pleased that they existed, and it’s too bad modern cars no longer offer such a selection of hues.
Related Reading
Cadillac, Lincoln, And Imperial Interiors Of The 1970s: Almost Every Color Of The Rainbow (by me)
1964 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado – The Brief Return Of The Open-Wheel Eldorado (by me)
1966 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado Convertible – The Last Fading Ember of the Rear-Drive Eldorado (by me)
1967 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special And Brougham: Cadillac Builds The Ultimate Passenger’s Car (by me)
Curbside Classic: 1968 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado – Steak Knife (by Joseph Dennis)
1974 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham D’Elegance And Talisman – Go Brougham Or Go Home (by me)
I miss color-coordinated interior/exterior combinations. Add to this the wonderful colors that Cadillac chose for their models. Thanks for the tour!
Put leather seats in that 1975 Coupe de Ville and it’s the spitting image of my 1976 Coupe de Ville, down to the hubcaps. And yes, the red leather seats matched the exterior.
My 1981 Eldorado had a light blue exterior with a medium blue velour interior.
63 in green is a stunner, most of those colours are available now depending on brand, orange and a very bright red can be had at the Haval store, or go look at BYDs line up of colours, I’m on my second roadgrime grey car (silver), it never looks dirty until the wheels turn black great colour but even those can be had in red and several blues.
This outstanding selection demonstrates how impoverished our times are. And not just when it comes to car colors and upholstery.
I owned (and COAL’d) a triple-white ’90 Sedan de Ville. Pop sold it to me when it was old and he was done with it. As with the pictured Eldorado, it had blue carpets and dashboard. I don’t think they built white dashes or carpets.
Lots of people have drooled over triple black cars or triple white cars but who can say they were in love with a triple orange car? ME ME ME!
Yeah, that’s just not good for that model “Eldo”. I do like the color for some other ride though.
I like that ’76s upholstery but it would’ve looked better on a Sedan de Ville (which was still a 4-door hardtop that year) in that metallic blue with no vinyl top.
No doubt the pink cars didn’t have pink interior and tops. I would also take that ’68 Eldorado, though I have learned that dark blue is almost as hard to keep clean as black.
The “68”, blue one is my fav. The white one is “ok”, except for the white interior.
I do love a color coordinated interior, even on lesser cars than these.
Ah. The “good old days”.
Recently, I sold both my older cars. One was a 1986 Cadillac Seville in stunning silver and dark cherry with matching dark cherry leather seats. The other was a 1988 Cadillac Cimarron in the red over silver with the red leather. I loved them both, but have made the decision that I don’t want anything to do with vehicles that burn gas any more and I’m now fully EV.
But there’s zero reason why we can’t get stuff like this any more today. Instead, we have all these bland box SUV’s with little style and even less colors. My goal now is to get back into an older Cadillac or similar (Buick, Olds, Lincoln, etc) and find one with a bad engine. Buy it cheap and then convert it to EV. My dream come true, at least in my head! haha.