I found the sale listing for this Turino Turquoise 1963 Cadillac Series 62 convertible by accident, the result of a very unhappy battle with unhelpful search engines. However, when I took a closer look, I realized that this car had an unusual and delightful special order interior.
How I came to this listing was a frustrating story. I was doing a series of image searches trying to find a surviving example of a rare 1963 Cadillac color called Frost Aquamarine Fire-Frost, one of the five special-order iridescent metallic paints Cadillac offered that year. As too often happens lately, this became an infuriating battle with search engines: Google and Bing Search have apparently decided that terms they think are synonymous with one or more search terms are adequately relevant, AND they now often ignore Boolean search operators (remember those?).
So, searching for “1963 Cadillac aquamarine” kept returning results for blue and turquoise cars that were definitely not aquamarine, on pages that definitely did not contain the word “aquamarine” in any form. Attempting to put aquamarine in quotation marks, to indicate I wanted an exact match, or adding the + operator to indicate that the “aquamarine” term was mandatory resulted in my being confronted with CAPTCHA challenges for entering suspicious query strings. When I solved the CAPTCHA, the search engine proceeded to ignore the operators and continued to give me turquoise and blue cars, including many that were not from 1963. I got mad; I think I had a right to be.
One of the results I got before I gave up to let my blood pressure drop below the boiling point was the Orlando Classic Cars listing for the 1963 Series 62 pictured here. (The seller incorrectly identified it as a De Ville, but in 1963, Cadillac offered convertibles only in the Series 62 and Eldorado lines.) I already knew that this was not Frost Aquamarine, but Turino Turquoise, which was not a Fire-Frost color. On the other hand, a turquoise Cadillac is always worth a look, and some people say turquoise is calming, which I certainly needed at that point.
So, I was scrolling down through the photos, trying to think calming thoughts. 1963 Cadillac convertible, Turino Turquoise, black convertible top … hello, what’s this?
A turquoise and white leather interior! While I’ll concede that turquoise and white might have been a bit dated for 1963 — more ’50s than Kennedy era — I don’t think I can adequately express how delightful I find this combination. I’ve said often that I don’t like convertibles, but if I had the means, I would buy this car in a second just for this interior. (The car is no longer for sale; it was sold at a Mecum auction in 2020 for $55,000.)
Now, the question that immediately sprang to mind was whether there was any chance that this interior was actually original. The listing claims “paint, chrome and interior are all original,” but while the Series 62 convertible did come with leather upholstery and this does appear to be the correct “biscuit and button design with pinch seams,” none of the eight normal color choices listed in the 1963 color and trim options was turquoise. There was light blue, but this is hardly light blue (except perhaps to Google Search algorithms).
However, the sale listing makes up for its gaff with the model name by including both a photo of the original bill of sale and, miracle of miracles, the body/trim plate. (Seriously, if you are selling a car or truck in some online venue, INCLUDE A PICTURE OF THE TRIM PLATE, and make sure it’s actually in focus so people can read it!) The body plate lists the paint code as 29, which is Turino Turquoise, and the top code as 2, which is black, but the trim code is 00, which means a special order. Hmm!
Looking at the bill of sale, we see that this car was ordered nearly fully loaded (air conditioning, AM/FM radio, power vent windows, 6-way power seat, automatic headlight control), and there’s a line item for “SR 63 Special trim,” for which the original purchaser paid an extra $86.00 plus tax. (“SR” stood for “Special Request.”) The top of the invoice again lists the 00 trim code.
Neither the bill of sale nor the trim plate indicates what the special order trim was, but delving into the recesses of the 1963 Cadillac dealer data book reveals that one of the special leather interior colors available that year WAS turquoise (code 46L), with medium turquoise carpeting (check) and a turquoise steering wheel rim (also check).
This color would ordinarily have included turquoise seat bolsters and a turquoise lower instrument panel, but there was a procedure for specifying different colors for specific interior areas, and it appears that specifying a white lower dashboard and white bolsters (which also included white door arm rests) was possible — it was just a matter of getting the salesperson to correctly fill out the special order form.
So, it looks like the original buyer — who was NOT, as I initially assumed, the long-time owner indicated on the title, the late Harold C. Jean of Bloomington, Indiana, who bought the car used from the original dealer in 1964 — really did order the car this way, taking some pains to specify exactly how they wanted it. To my eyes, that was just about perfect, even though it isn’t Frost Aquamarine.
(Incidentally, I’m STILL striking out on photos of 1963 Cadillacs in Frost Aquamarine. I found two auction listings — possibly for the same car — of Eldorado convertibles that were originally that color, but clearly aren’t now, but if there are others out there, no current search engine seems willing to let find them.)
Related Reading
1963 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible — Call me Ishmael (by Jeff Sun)
Curbside Classic: 1963 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible – What’s A Caddy Like You Doing In A Place Like This? (by Tom Klockau)
CC Global: 1963 Cadillac Eldorado – Fabled City of Gold Discovered (by Robert Kim)
General Motors Greatest Hit #13: Were The 1963-64 Cadillacs the Greatest Postwar Cadillacs? (by Laurence Jones)
1964 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado – The Brief Return Of The Open-Wheel Eldorado (by me)
Confusingly, the list I’ve attached (compiled by a third party) did say “Full leather interior trims in all available colors can be Special Ordered except Series 62” but then added “Non-standard two tone combinations were available Special Order”. So “SR 63 Special trim” could override everything to get the White Leather / Turquoise leather combo? The All Turquoise Leather (Special Order Interior) was listed for all models so presumably mixing it with White Leather wasn’t any sort of engineering challenge and the US$86 would have covered whatever would have been the scheduling costs. I suppose the restrictions were introduced as a form of production-line rationalization and US$86 was a reasonable fee for any disruption (at this time the bikini-clad & neoprene-tailed “mermaids” hired to splash around in the Submarine Lagoon at the Disneyland Resort in California earned US$65 a week). I’ve seen Continental Mark IIs with a similar color-mix for the leather although it was always the inserts which were white. I agree it may not have been what Jackie Kennedy would have done but it has a charm.
It appears so. The dealer book says, “Customers who desire leather of another color or two-tone combination may choose any Convertible or de Ville leather listed on page 63. Order such cars on a special order, extra charge basis. At the same time, a custom selection of carpeting, instrument panel color, etc. may be exercised.” Page 63 lists 15 colors for the leather upholstery, lower instrument panel, steering wheel rim, top of instrument panel, headlining (obviously not applicable to a convertible), and carpets. It goes on to explain that for special order interiors, “Type 00 in trim space. Specify the seven basic components (six on convertible – no headlining) of the interior color of upholstery combination wanted. … The duplicate copy will be returned as a confirmation of the factory’s interpretation of the order.”
The book warns that for any special order like this, it will take about six weeks for delivery, and the order isn’t cancellable “as irrevocable commitments are made to vendors for materials.”
(In Cadillac ordering-speak, the bolsters were “the front, center, and side portions of a seat cushion” and the inserts were the cushion facings and the corresponding sections on the doors and rear side panels. Since the bolsters were separated from the inserts by seams regardless of color, there was no technical challenge in combining material of different colors — I guess what you were paying for was really just the additional logistical and labor costs of having to put together a special combination.)
Would Cadillac be willing to build any color combination a customer wanted, or would they fear building a red inserts with blue bolsters in a metallic gold exterior, fearing the person who ordered it might back out somehow leaving a dealer with an almost unsellable car? (or does “uncancelable” mean a buyer can’t legally back out and must buy the car? Could they back out if they pay a stiff financial penalty? (or put down a non-refundable deposit upon ordering? (Maybe all special orders worked that way; this was before my time).
Oops sorry about severe open/close paren mismatch
The question of whether to require a deposit was probably one that came down to the policy of the individual dealer and their relationship with the particularly customer. However, in my experience, retail businesses often treat special orders as nonreturnable/nonrefundable, and depending on how the contract of sale is structured (which is almost always going to be in the retailer’s favor), signing the order may well be a legal commitment to buy. I’ve never had clothes made from scratch by a tailor, but I assume it’s the same thing there. Also, the dealer data book says the factory sent back the duplicate of the order form to indicate how the factory interpreted the special request, and if it was something really strange, the factory might kick it back as a misprint unless accompanied by a note confirming that that was definitely what the customer wanted.
Judging by the dealer book, Cadillac regarded special interior orders as a balancing act: They could increase customer satisfaction (and encourage prospects to order sooner to accommodate the extra lead time), but if they were too out there, even the customer might be disappointed. So, the data book recommends taking a “firm stance” with “emphatic recommendations” to steer customers towards harmonious color arrangements, and getting the customer to definitely confirm each part of the request to avoid “misunderstanding” on delivery. I assume if they had a well-heeled customer who was determined to have the color scheme match the colors of his favorite football team or something like that, most dealers would go along with it and just make sure he signed or initialed each part of the order.
Interestingly, the databook also explains:
This treatment makes me realize why Cadillacs were once so popular. I can almost see myself in a early-’60s Cadillac now because I love having so many choices and being able to really get a car the way I most like, at no significant extra cost. Nowadays it’s like “Do you want white, silver, gray, charcoal, red ($2,000 extra cost) or black? And which trim level, S, SE, or LSE? No other options. $65,000 for your off-the-rack car.
It applies to this day. Assuming this particular Cadillac needed a full restoration with a new interior, an upholstery shop, as well those who cater vintage car owners who supply material in the original pattern, such as SMS require payment up front before proceeding with the order.
I’d be interested to know if Kagi can find what you’re looking for.
I’m afraid I’ll never know: I would literally rather set myself on fire than give a search engine company my credit card information or tie my search history not only to my IP address, but to my legal name and mailing address.
Great job, detective!!! The search engines are starting to piss me off too….
That interior just screams “Miami Beach”. Harold C. Jean’s conservative Hoosier neighbors must’ve been absolutely aghast.
Miami Beach was exactly my first thought, as well.
I like how the order code for whitewall tires is ‘BW’. That’s not confusing at all…
I so miss when not only could you choose from eight interior colors, but you could also order something customized if you wanted something other than those eight.
I’m not clear on what the difference between aquamarine and turquoise is. I’m thinking the former has more blue in it whereas the latter has more green? Google isn’t helping me; it brings up lots of things like the chart below showing 25 shades of aquamarine that run the gamut between blue and green, with a few outside even that.
I share your frustration with search engines that ignore what I tell them, and also AI-enhanced search that returns wrong answers.
Cadillac order codes were frequently baffling: The dealer books insist on using single-letter codes for the model and body style rather than the actual model number (which is much easier to decipher — the Series 62 convertible was model 6267, which is what appears on the trim plate, but it was coded “F” instead). They then used single-letter codes to identify the major options and option groups, so Group A is options W-F-E-Y or T. The alphanumeric RPO numbers other divisions used in that period were MUCH easier to keep track of.
In this case, Frost Aquamarine was a special metallic paint, which had big flakes of aluminized pigment to make it especially shiny. The color-coordinated Cadillacs post I ran the other day has a 1963 Eldorado Biarritz in Frost Green, which was a different color of the same Fire-Frost metallic paint. Turino Turquoise was a different shade, but more importantly, it wasn’t a metallic paint, and it wasn’t shiny like the Fire-Frost colors.
The Eldorado in this post has the 1964 equivalent, Firemist Aquamarine: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/1964-cadillac-fleetwood-eldorado-the-brief-return-of-the-open-wheel-eldorado/
Along the same lines, there’s the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S super-high-performance tire. Surely “4S” designates “four season”, right? Nope, it’s a summer tire; 4S denoting not all-season capability but rather the fourth generation of a Sports performance tire; be sure to swap on snow tires in the winter!
Well, I guess we’ll never know what Mr. Jean’s neighbors thought, since he passed away in 2011. Although he was a member of a car club, so that probably explains some of the attention he put to making that special order. (This information our Robot Overlords deigned to provide before they started giving me all sorts of information about various other people simply with the first name of Harold, or sometimes Howard, despite my putting Mr. Jean’s full name in quotation marks.)
Great search and find Aaron. I too, if I had the means, would absolutely purchase that car with that color interior.
I agree with the search engine problem. Any time your search includes a generic color name (like “green” or “aqua”) you will get 25 different varieties of that color because too many photos are not linked to a particular color name. Ugh. And it’s worse on uncommon colors or uncommon cars.
Turquoise was still huge in 1963, but its run of popularity was nearing the end. Almost every American manufacturer still offered a Turquoise interior and Turquoise paint. Ditto kitchen appliances and bathroom fixtures.
According to the 1964 data book, 7.7 percent of 1963 Cadillacs were Turino Turquoise, which was kind of mid-pack in popularity. (There were so many color choices back then that almost none of the individual colors went on more than 10 percent of cars, and a color that went on more than 5 percent was doing pretty good.) So, people still thought the exterior paint was fashionable, and you could still get turquoise cloth upholstery on the standard trim options list, but the turquoise leather interior was relegated to the special leather list.
I’m not really into colors, I’m happy with white or silver or gray vehicles and black or gray interiors, which I know is heresy here at CC. But I love words, and like LA673 I immediately noticed the BW code for WSW tires, as well as the $4.05 “Dor Gards”. I guess for only four bucks you can’t afford to buy all the vowels. But Frost Aquamarine Fire-Frost has me puzzled; I realize Fire-Frost is the type of finish, and Frost Aquamarine is the color, but the use of the word Frost twice in the name still seems awkward. Which is definitely not a word that otherwise applies to the body styling and interior design (independent of colors) of a 1963 Cadillac.
Properly speaking, the name of the color was just “Frost Aquamarine,” with “Fire-Frost” referring to the set of colors (which were extra-cost except on the Eldorado). However, Cadillac apparently also decided it sounded awkward, as the 1964 and later metallic paints were “Firemist [Color]” instead.
Off topic….but I have to say that I was surprised when the 1970 Chevrolet Impala was introduced, they revived that pointy headlight treatment from long past Cadillacs. What a throwback and odd revival.
https://barnfinds.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/1970-Impala-front-e1669401203690-630×390.jpg
What and awesome find – and I share your frustrations with search engines.
I did find an article:
https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/news/2006/01/22/a-long-cadillac-with-all-the-extras/48307423/
…from the Bloomington newspaper that says that Mr. Jean bought the car used in 1964 – so he wasn’t actually the person who ordered it in this combination from the factory. I REALLY wonder who it was. One guess would be that the owner of Wilson Oldsmobile-Cadillac ordered the car and used it for a year… but that’s just a complete guess.
And if anyone would like to put a face with the name, here’s a photo of Mr. Jean from 1960s – taken for a church bulletin:
Thanks for the link! I’ve added that to the text.
A lot of Cadillac owners would trade in every year, so it wasn’t terribly unusual for year-old models to end up on dealer lots to be resold at a sizable fraction of their original sticker price. I wonder what the original buyer traded it in on!
Good point – I could easily see this being the annual pride-and-joy of a serial Cadillac buyer.
That said, this still would have been a costly car even as a year-old used purchase, I had assumed the car’s owner would have been a “captain of industry” or some other kind of flamboyant wealthy person. From what I can tell, Mr. Jean didn’t fit that profile at all. He worked as a salesman for a meatpacking company, lived in a modest 3-bedroom rancher where he and his wife raised 4 kids (though the house did have a nice, oversized two-car garage), and didn’t seem to be a flamboyant person at all. Looks like he was simply someone who took a fondness to this unique car, and cherished it for decades. Interesting story.
I would say he actually meets the profile of a typical Cadillac owner very well, especially a used one. Cadillacs were aspirational for the middle class, and affordable for those with a fairly decent paying job, which he appears to have had. One saw Cadillacs in lots of very middle class neighborhoods. And no titan of industry would be caught dead buying a used one.
BEAUTIFUL and Elegant car. So Nice.
I was confused by this: “So, it looks like the original buyer — not the long-time owner indicated on the title, the late Harold C. Jean of Bloomington, Indiana, who bought it used from the original dealer in 1964 — really did order the car this way…”
Harold Jean bought it “USED from the dealer”? How did he “order it” like that if it was USED?
I’m assuming it’s a TYPO.
Anyway, thanks for the hard work on researching it. again, Beautiful Cadillac Car.
It’s not a typo, but I suppose the wording could be clearer. I’ll fix that.
That is a delicious interior. Kudos to the original buyer for specifying it. He must have been quite the Cadillac aficionado, familiar with what was available through special orders.
“As too often happens lately, this became an infuriating battle with search engines…”
Well, they’re called search engines, not find engines.
All too true, Fred, all too true.
That car is just dreamy even if it isn’t in the color you are looking for. Hope you do find a good picture of a Cadillac in Frost Aquamarine, I’m dying to see what it looked like.
Chrysler had a color in the late 70’s called Russet Sunfire that looked really good.
Data books are fun!
This car is so fascinating, I keep coming back to it. Just one more addition here: Looks like this car sold earlier this year at a Barrett-Jackson auction for $57,200 (surprisingly close to the 2020 Mecum auction sale for $55,000.). The listing is here:
https://www.barrett-jackson.com/palm-beach-2025/docket/vehicle/1963-cadillac-series-62-convertible-288442
That’s also about $1 per mile, which amuses me for some reason.
Great article. The second owner keeping this fabulous car for a lifetime is easy to understand. But I too wonder what caused the original owner to drive the car for only a few months. It would be fascinating to know what he or she was driving the following year. The styling changes for Cadillac were minor between 63 and 64 so maybe another make entirely? Or a change in model to a hardtop? Were there any new compelling options for Cadillac in 64?
I’ve been to Columbus, Indiana a number of times to view the mid-century modern architecture. It had/has some pretty wealthy residents, J. Irwin Miller of Cummins among the most prominent, so that Oldsmobile/Cadillac dealership most likely would have been a pretty successful enterprise back in the day.
I’m assuming the original buyer just traded it in after a year, which was not at all uncommon for well-to-do Cadillac buyers because the resale values were very strong. (Note that according to that newspaper article, the price Jean paid for the year-old car was only about $800 less than it cost originally.) In all likelihood, the original purchaser traded it on a ’64 Cadillac, just to have the latest model.
This Cadillac is striking in this interior color combo of turquoise and white, love it! I can picture a mid-century modern house with a similar turquoise and white kitchen.
I feel for you in the battle with search engines. It seems like we hit ‘peak computer’ around the time Covid broke, and have been on a slide ever since, with companies more concerned with monetization, stalking and advertizing, rather than pursuing what used to be their core service. /end rant.
Lovely Cadillac, but the interior combo does look very 1950s. But then, I tend to look to past decades as aesthetically superior to what we have now…..
Handy tips for Google at least, to make it respect your exact search terms as-entered:
– You can include the magic term “allintext:” (with the colon at the end) in your search query; or…
– After you’ve run your initial search, under the search-terms box at the top, click on Tools > All Results > Verbatim.
This should also make it respect operators like “exact phrase” in quotes, AND, OR, etc.
For those drawn to the retro-look of circa 1963 turquoise, Ms Justine Haupt (b 1987), an astronomy instrumentation engineer at New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, created a rotary-dial cell phone, a commercial version of one she built for personal use because of her aversion to “smartphone culture and texting”. Ms Haupt used a (also circa 1963) rotary-dial mechanism from Western Electric’s Trimline range, mounted on a case 4 x 3 x 1 inches in size with a noticeably protuberant aerial; it used an AT&T prepaid sim card and the battery life was claimed at some 24-30 hours. Minimalist in its objectives, it included two speed-dial buttons, an e-paper display and permitted neither texting nor internet access. As well as turquoise, other designer colors included black, white, turquoise, beige and the wonderful “Atomic Hotline Red” an allusion to the Moscow-Washington DC “hotline” installed in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962). In truth, despite frequently appearing in popular culture, there never was a “red phone” and the US connection terminated not on the POTUS’s desk but in the Pentagon (now HQ of the Department of War) in Arlington County, Virginia.
Although she intended the device as a one-off for her own use, Ms Haupt was surprised at the interest generated and in 2022 began selling a kit (US$170) with which others could build their own, all parts included except the rotary-dial mechanism which would need to be sourced from junk shops and such. Unfortunately, while her engineering was good, Ms Haupt encountered many regulatory difficulties in bringing to market a device which connects to public telephony networks but the project apparently remains afoot.
Search, which peaked technically around 2019 and has been going downhill ever since, will only get worse. Here’s why. https://youtu.be/M4MruTOrLyM?si=EzXSAtpOOhZWnleB
What a stunning Caddy .
? Possibly a fully loaded showroom car ? .
FM in 1963 was a huge deal .
-Nate
Absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I gasped when I scrolled down to the interior shot! (IMO) it looks better with the narrow white walls from the previous auction than the wide ones it sports on the current B-J link. 🙂
I feel your pain with search. I applaud whoever had the guts to specify that turquoise and white interior, although I wonder why it was traded after only a year. These were seriously expensive cars and I would think a special order would earn a few years of service.