Excepting the Series 75 limousines and formal sedans, Cadillac offered only hardtops and convertibles from 1957 through 1964. Although the plush Fleetwood Sixty Special would become a pillared sedan in 1965, it was still a four-door hardtop for 1964, making this Seacrest Green 1964 Sixty Special one of the very last four-door hardtops ever to wear the Fleetwood wreath and crest.
At some points in its lengthy history, the Cadillac Sixty Special was distinguished from lesser models by distinctive styling; at other times, it was somewhat bigger and offered better appointments for rear-seat passengers. The early ’60s Sixty Special was really neither, and it took a well-informed Cadillac spotter to recognize the differences between the fancy Fleetwood and the cheaper Sedan de Ville and Series Sixty-Two sedans.
The 1964 Sixty Special was still a big car, make no mistake about that: It was 223.5 inches long on a 129.5-inch wheelbase. The curb weight of this air conditioned example is probably around 5,075 lb. However, its exterior dimensions really only differed from other models in overall height, which was a bit greater than a four-window four-door Sixty Two or De Ville.
Assuming you were too far away to see the emblems, the easiest way to distinguish one of the Fleetwood models from cheaper Cadillacs was by the chrome trim on the rocker panels, fender skirts, and rear fenders. This was installed instead of the body-side chrome rub strips found on the cheaper models, giving an “uninterrupted sweep of the side panels.” The aftermarket rub strips on this car are incorrect, but I can’t entirely blame the previous owner for adding them; the rocker trim didn’t do much to protect the doors and fenders from carelessly opened doors and runaway shopping carts. (I’ve never understood why automotive stylists are so violently opposed to providing sensible protection from day-to-day parking lot mayhem.)
The rocker trim was shared with the Eldorado convertible, but the Sixty Special had its own unique four-window hardtop roof, with wider sail panels than either of the cheaper four-door hardtop models. From some angles, the sharp crease above the backlight resembled the simulated convertible roofline of some 1962 GM two-door hardtops, but I think the intent was for it to look like a scaled-down, pillarless version of the Seventy-Five limousine roof.
For comparison, here’s a 1964 Seventy-Five limousine.
Cadillac claimed the Sixty Special roof offered “additional privacy for rear compartment passengers” and enhanced “the regal formality of this most luxurious sedan.”
Our featured car lacks the padded vinyl roof, a $134.20 option that would become increasingly popular over the next few years. Above is a different 1964 Sixty Special with the vinyl top (and minus the aftermarket rub strips). For 1965, Cadillac would help to promote the padded roof by making it the defining feature of the Brougham option for the Sixty Special, ancestor of the later Fleetwood Brougham.
The 1964 Cadillacs still had fins, but they were returning to a vestigial state. On this car, they seem like a bit of an afterthought. Looking at them, I can’t help thinking that the Cadillac designers could have simply raised the rear fender line and carried it through to the taillight. They apparently had the same thought, since that is exactly what they did for 1965 and beyond.
The Fleetwood Sixty Special and Eldorado shared the same powertrain as the 1964 De Ville, whose engine had been expanded to 429 cid and matched with the new Turbo Hydra-Matic transmission. (The Series 62 and 75 retained the older 4-speed Hydra-Matic, but it was on its way out.) The bigger engine and new transmission gave very snappy performance for a car this size, especially with the 3.21 axle supplied with air conditioning.
In 1964, a Sixty Special started at $6,366, $733 more than a Sedan de Ville. This price included a couple of pieces of equipment optional on the De Ville, principally power vent windows and a two-way power seat, but you were mostly paying for the fancier Fleetwood trim.
This car was built with tinted glass, a 6-way power seat, air conditioning, a rear defogger, and front seatbelts (which were newly standard for 1964). It also has floor mats, an AM radio, cruise control, power headlamp control (an auto-dimming system, sometimes called Guide-Matic), and Twilight Sentinel automatic headlights with timer.
With all these features, the original sticker would have come to $7,379.80, a relative worth of about $91,700 in 2025 dollars. Despite what you might assume, it was possible to get some decent discounts off MSRP on a new Cadillac back then, especially during the doldrums of the selling season.
You could get full leather upholstery in the Sixty Special, but this one has “Dorset” floral print cloth in a diamond biscuit-and-button pattern, bolstered in green leather. It’s a surprisingly cheerful combination, especially when offset by the wood veneers.
In 1964, the trim on Fleetwood cars was still actual wood rather than vinyl applique. The data book says the veneers are Baku wood, “imported from western Africa.” Below the door veneer on the driver’s side, you can see the armrest panel is brimming with switches for the power windows (which had a new lockout switch this year to prevent kids in the back seat from attempting to toss their siblings out a window at speed), plus the controls for the power seat.
When the Sixty Special became a pillared sedan for 1965, it also gained a longer wheelbase, providing extra rear legroom compared to lesser models. That was NOT the case in 1964, and as you can see, the Sixty Special didn’t have an abundance of knee room for back-seat passengers. It was no worse than a Sedan de Ville in this respect, but it wasn’t any better either, although the different roofline did provide a bit more headroom.
For 1965, the Fleetwood Sixty Special regained its B-pillars. Cadillac also returned pillared four-door sedans to the cheaper Calais and De Ville lines, but they were always far less popular than the four-door hardtops, which I think a lot of Cadillac buyers had come to expect. However, the change worked out well for the Sixty Special, whose sales improved by better than 20 percent in 1965. Pillared sedans seldom look as good as four-door hardtops, but for solidity and side windows sealing, they do have their advantages, especially for what’s basically a six-passenger formal sedan. (Cadillac did compromise somewhat by using frameless door glass.)
While the Calais and De Ville stuck with four-door hardtops through 1976 (the pillared Calais sedan was dropped after 1967, the pillared Sedan de Ville after 1970), the four-door Fleetwood cars would never return to hardtop form. From 1977 on, the Sedan de Ville followed its lead back to a pillared four-door format.
The featured Sixty Special isn’t in the best of shape — aside from the add-on rub strips, the paint is faded, the upholstery is torn in places, the wipers and a bunch of the accessories aren’t working, and it would need an assortment of mechanical and cosmetic interventions to get it into presentable condition. (This is probably why bids topped out at $11,000 on Bring a Trailer in July 2026.)
However, I was drawn to its last-of-the-line hardtop shape and to its appealing color combination.
In the current scheme of things, it’s probably unlikely that we’ll see any new four-door hardtops, but I suspect hell will freeze over before Cadillac again offers a car with green floral print upholstery. Whether you think that’s a relief or a shame is up to you.
Related Reading
1964 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado – The Brief Return Of The Open-Wheel Eldorado (by me)
Vintage Autocar Road Test: 1964 Cadillac Coupe De Ville – “Somewhat Costly Motoring One-Upmanship” (by me)
Vintage MT Road Test: 1964 Cadillac Sedan DeVille – The Fastest And Best Classic Cadillac (by Paul N)
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)
The 4 door pillarless hardtop has to be my all time favourite car. Much more interesting than garden variety 2 door pillarless hardtops. And it does not get much better than a 1964 Fleetwood Sixty Special. My choice colour would be black but a dark maroon example would nice.
Looking at this faded beauty makes me wish I liked driving bigger vehicles .
Oddly, in all but one image (the one with the padded top) this car looks silverish to me .
I hope someone with the proper skills gets this fine car and returns it to the road where it belongs .
? Am I the only one who’s having troubles loading this site’s pages but no others ? .
-Nate
The green car does run (there are videos on the Bring a Trailer listing), it’s just kind of “tired,” with the nonfunctional windshield wipers probably the most immediate concern from a roadability standpoint. Still, it would need a lot of “a little bit here, a little bit there” work to get it looking and feeling less shabby — given its mediocre condition, I think the high bid was pretty reasonable.
I think the silvering you’re seeing is a matter of the very bright sunlight accentuating the faded paint and further washing out the green. (The photo with the padded top is a completely different 1964 Sixty Special in the same color, but with fresher paint and somewhat less extreme lighting conditions.)
Yeah, CC had a rough weekend.
This Fleetwood bears one of my all-time favorite pieces of rare curb appeal: The pivoting quarter window on the back doors. But, like the 1980 Seville and the 1979 Chrysler R-bodies, the sedan has frameless glass. The quarter window hangs at the free edge of the door, unlike the more-common front quarter window. I would guess that this swinging blade was the source of frequent injuries, ne ç’est pas?
My aunt had a 64 Sedan deVille. It is the nicest, most luxurious car that I have ever driven in. That the Fleetwood 60 Special would have been even better is just mind boggling. I’ve been in newer cars that cost into 6 figures. None can compare to this. The definition of luxury just isn’t the same anymore.
My second car, but the first that I really wanted was a ’64 Cadillac convertible. Such a great performing car and because I was a Cadillac lover, I enjoyed it immensely. I paid all of 340.00 for it off a used car lot. This was in 1975, I was 20 years old. I cleaned it up, polished and waxed the paint, and replaced the plastic rear window. It was looking pretty sharp. Sharp enough that a guy stopped one day after seeing me park it at the curb. He asked if I wanted to sell it. I didn’t, but he kept on making higher offers. When he got to 650.00 I just couldn’t refuse.
I’ve had several old Cadillacs and there aren’t any other cars that I wanted so badly. If I had the space in my garage, I might try to get another one. There is just something about (older) Cadillacs. Newer ones don’t move me in the same way.
I owned a 63 model and came to adore this car’s overall shape and the gravitas it oozed, especially with the black paint mine had. For me, the “Fleetwood tell” was those ventpanes in the rear doors along with the trim-free sides. These are great driving cars when they’re in decent shape.
Perusing the annual production for the 1960s Cadillacs, while the other models end in random numbers, year after year, the convertibles and 60 Specials result in what appear to be predetermined number totals. For example, the 1964 Deville convertibles: 17,900; 60 Special 14,550. One reason this might have been standard practice was so those body styles would never be in greater supply than demand, therefore never be in the discount sales to clear inventory at the end of the model year. Discounting a luxury car detracts from its prestige value, something to be avoided.
Nope, the reason for this was that Cadillac was at the limits of their production capacity. (When this car appeared, they were beginning a major expansion program that would enable them to expand production to 200K+ cars a year.) The Series 62 and De Ville sedans and coupes were by far the most popular models, most of them in very high demand, so while the Fleetwood cars were more profitable on a unit basis, Cadillac didn’t want them to take too much capacity away from the bigger-volume products.
Cadillac dealers DID often discount, especially at the end of the model year. Retailers need to balance their inventory with their floor plan costs, which is a different set of considerations than production allocation.