At first, I thought it was another mid-70s Olds Ninety Eight. I found one of those in this very parking lot a year before (see it here). Because really, the Ninety Eight didn’t look very different from the contemporary Cadillac Sedan DeVille, which this turned out to be.
There. See? But the Olds had similar destruct-o-matic filler panels. Why buy the Cadillac when you could get the same body and most of the luxury at your Olds dealer for less?
Oldsmobiles, of course, came in conservative colors. I think most of them were pea green. But you could get your Cadillac in one of six metal-flake Firemist colors in 1976. Take that, stodgy old Oldsmobile!
This poor old Sedan DeVille looks very tired. But clearly it made it out for someone’s weekly grocery-shopping trip, and for that we salute it.
What a whale!
Those other cars weren’t originally parked around it, they and the shopping cart, were pulled in by the Cadillacs sheer gravitational pull and character.
I love this thing, even in this shitty shape, it has “don’t screw with me” written all over it, it looks like something Uncle Buck would drive.
Uncle Buck’s Marquis was even roughly the same color, wasn’t it?
The sheer size of these things does impress me (and that’s coming from a guy who daily drives a Crown Vic). There is a blue ’72 that has recently appeared in my neighborhood, and while it’s a good deal less ragged than this example, the size is (save for the battleship bumpers) the same. It wears the bulk well though–plus-size fashion.
From what I recall, it was more of a burgundy than this color.
Would I be able to fit a Detroit Diesel 6v71 engine under the hood.?
Not sure if it would help the fuel consumption any..I just like the sound of those Detroits.
Wait, don’t tell me – the owner’s manual would tell us that these special Firethorn paints will never need waxing. Wasn’t that the come-on for every extra cost paint color to come out of Detroit – ever?
Anyhow, this looks like the perfect Urban Assault Vehicle. 500 cubic inches of asphalt menace!
As a friend used to kid me when I had my ’78 Coupe de Ville (not that I want to admit to that any more), “It says right here in the owners manual that you own the road, drive and park anywhere you want.”
From what I’ve seen the Firemist colors were like a double throwdown metallic with extra metallic on the side. This paint is pretty DOA, but a low mileage preserved one of these with the Firemist paint glows in the sunlight.
Weird that someone would bother to replace what must have been a wasted rear bumper, and not the trim…
It’s my understanding that this trim is rather hard to find. The panels are generally in poor condition, unless the car is a relatively low-mileage garage queen. I’ve seen numerous Cadillacs, Buicks and Oldsmobiles from this era at local car shows, and these panels are invariably the weak spot.
Seen this one around
I remember seeing some years ago that there were fiberglass replacements available. The only drawback being if you or someone else decided to test whether or not your bumper would still take a 5mph prang, well, there went a few hundred dollars worth of filler panel and all the paintwork and labor to install them.
Do you mean the fillers or the chrome trim around the fillers, the fillers are available for all of these Cadillacs,the chrome trim around the fillers is a tougher find, the best alternative, if yours are shot or missing, is to make some out of chrome door edge guard, you can buy a roll and cut it to fit the new fillers, you would have to be a real expert on 70’s Cadillacs to tell the difference.
I can vouch for their availability – this old Cadillac parked on my street suddenly had new fillers this week:
More of the car. It’s a nice driver.
The supports behind the battering ram bumper were prone to rusting out and the entire bumper would fall off the car. It happened to my otherwise fairly clean ’76 Cutlass. The rear bumper was the casualty as the wheels would shoot salt water and crap at the support all winter.
This bumper had a thick chromed outer shell backed by a very thick almost beam like structure that bolts to what amounts to two shock absorbers. The inner beam was painted black when new, but was prone to rust – likely made of recycled ’60s Ford frames.
Ironically, a small collision would frequently be your cue that your bumper was done. I backed into a light pole and that punched my shock absorber through the beam.
Ask me if I think the 5 MPH bumper standard was a plus for consumers. Think of it: added cost to build, added weight in a time of high gas prices, prone to failures due to rust, and more expensive to rebuild after a light pole bump. I should have written Congress a thank you letter!
That’s my long form answer to say his bumper fell off and he had to slap one on to get the car legal.
I don’t think the rear bumper has been replaced. If it takes a bump on the protruding end pieces, it generally just moves in on the impact absorbers without bending. All of the fillers are available on the aftermarket now but, as noted, not all of the trim that was on them. Some people just leave it off. A roll of the door edge guard stuff will do in a pinch. Been there, done that, good enough for third place at Caddy club nationals in 2008.
Ahh, the burnt orange (that’s what we Chevy / Ford hoi polloi called it) Caddy. The College World Series has been a part of my culture in Omaha since my youth. The University of Texas has been a common visitor to the series, and I can recall in the mid ’70s a burnt orange ’73 or so SDV with a white top prominently parked among the tailgaters on the corner of the stadium lot.
In addition to the appropriate color scheme, it had a clear plastic bug deflector with Hook ’em Horns posted backwards for the benefit of cars they were following. Also, appropriate Cadillac steer horns. Add Texas plates and no car said Texas quite like that orange Caddy.
I realize it was for visibility, but those side windows on the C pillars ruined the look of the four door hardtops on the GM full size cars of that era. The four door post cars of that era looked better. It’s too bad that GM did not design the window to be similar to the Colonnade styled sedans and have window roll down into the fender with the back door’s window. I knew someone who covered the window on a ’76 Olds 98 sedan and it was a big improvement.
It was a fashion touch. Sort of an answer to the various opera windows on other cars and also it gave the big cars a cheap update that, I think was, sort of consistent with the “colonnade” look on GM’s popular mid-size cars.
I also preferred the full windowless C pillars.
Same here. Much better without the extra window in the C pillar. I never understood why GM would put this on all 3 of the C body cars.
I’ve always loved those Firemist colors too. I think I’m getting nostalgic for vinyl tops too!
I imagine that it was pushed through to re-fresh the looks of the 1971 cars for their last 2 years on the market, I don’t mind it as much as the loss of the hardtop C-body coupes after 1974(1973 for Cadillac).
I agree thought that if I was presented with a window or non window C-body, I would go with the earlier non window car, actually I like these more with impact bumpers than the earlier versions without, these cars were so big that the big crash bumpers really didn’t negatively effect the styling, to me, the “bumper-ed” ones look tougher and more substantial, because, well, they are, they have a 100lb LOG on each end of the car.
Those extra 100lbs of weight hanging 1 foot fore and aft of the wheelbase must have made for some very interesting handling characteristics.
It’s weird, but I like the looks of the 1971-74 Buick Electra and Olds 98 without the C-pillar windows, but on the Cadillacs it looks stodgy, so I prefer the 1975-75. Yeah, I know it’s the same roof on all three cars. Having owned both, I will say the visibility advantage of the 1975-76 helps in parking.
Wow, y’all really are having an intense Winter, there is still snow on the ground in July! He, he, he, har, har.
We need cars like this on the road since after all if we all drove Leafs, Volts, and Priuses there would not be enough gas tax money to pay for road repair and the highways would be a sea of dull colored vehicles.
Four door nightmare, trunk locks’ stuck
Big dice on the mirror, grill like a truck
Lifters tickin’, accelerator’s stickin’
Somethin’ on my left front wheel keeps clickin’
My hooptie
Why did you edit it down so drastically? I’m glad I read it before you did so; great song.
Red light rusher…econobox crusher….
Heading to Tacoma, BANG, BANG, better make a u-turn.
My homie got a 1/4 Lbs and threw the pickles on the floor. Smart man he is in my opinion.
Like you, Jim, I’d prefer an Olds Ninety-Eight, but Cadillac sure made ordering a car a lot more fun. Make mine a Greenbrier Firemist.
I thought it was too long of a post…
Not if it’s a good one. I have a very hard time getting the lyrics of songs when I hear them; maybe my ears, or something else about me. So reading the lyrics is a bit of a revelation to me. Songs should have subtitles. 🙂
So true!!! Great site Paul by the way!!!
For a few years in the early 1990s at the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) fall meet in Hershey, it always seemed as though there was at least one 1976 Fleetwood Brougham for sale in Florentine Gold Firemist with a white vinyl roof. They were always in mint condition, and were definite head-turners even then.
Those filler panels must still be available either that or the car I saw recently has never been in the sun before unless this model didnt have them.
That’s a 1965, they wouldn’t have them, the fillers really didn’t appear on Cadillacs until 1974, the 1973’s had small filler pieces for the rear impact bumper, but the 1974’s got the famous “Magi-Rot”TM filler panels.
Cadillac of 1965 would have never accepted those filler panels, which looked ill-fit and awkward even when the cars were relatively new. Those panels are evidence of The Decline.
Or so I’d like to believe.
Ditto. Well said.
This is the color I think of when I think Firemist. Love it!
A friend has a nice Crystal Blue Firemist ’76 CDV with white leather and white coach roof. It is one sharp luxocruiser!
Back in the late 90’s I had one of these in about this condition as a daily driver. Bought it for $450 off a sleazy used car lot. These 500 V8 drivetrains are very hard to kill.
Don’t forget if you wanted a hood ornament on a C body Cadillac sedan you had pay extra for a Fleetwood
Even the Fleetwood didn’t necessarily come with a hood ornament, Cadillac started adding hood ornaments with the 1971 Eldorado, which came with one standard, later the big cars started getting hood ornaments, but only on what Cadillac called “special editions” like the d’Elegance trim, deVille Cabriolet, Fleetwood Talisman etc etc, Cadillac made the stand up hood ornament standard across the board on the downsized 1977’s.
Can we start a “Cars of Meijer” series 😉
Reminds me of a funny story…
So in 2011 I take my soon to be bride (proudly born and raised in New Mexico and more Spanish/Mexican in her than any other of her mixes) to Ohio to meet the family a year prior to our wedding. Wanted to have her meet the family and generate some excitement for the upcoming nuptials.
We’re in my parents Suburban and driving along through Toledo. We pass a Meijer store and I here my beloved say: “‘Mey-hair’? What’s a ‘Mey-hair’ store?”
Dude. You would not believe how many CCs I find in parking lot of my nearby Meijer. Scroll through my posts — you’ll see.
I think it’s geographics — this Meijer is close to the inner city. Other Meijers in my area are much more suburban and you don’t see CCs in them very often.
I have noticed several, and I think JPC got one there as well. I think it’s ususally the signs on the cart corral that stand out to me.
Baby-shit brown. Who the hell bought these nasty-ass colors?
Amberlite Firemist sounds like a minor character from a Harry Potter movie.
True!
The worst part was that these earth-tone colors were not exclusive to Cadillac, or even cars.
My parents bought a 76 Sedan De Ville brand new. If you are ragging on them, you never rode in or drove one!
Whether you love or hate the color of this Cadillac, you have to appreciate that they offered variety. I miss the days when a broad range of interesting colors was simply considered necessary. Look at the standard palettes for most luxury cars today, and you have shades of gray, black, white and maybe a blue. Where is the luxury of choice?
Last seen around ’80, IIRC. No such luxury since.