posted by Roshake77
Even in their country of birth, seeing one of these increasingly scarce big, wide and low Cadillacs in traffic is quite a sight, as its proportions and gingerbread are such a contrast to the rest of the traffic. In Budapest, Hungary, turn up the contrast control another 50 or 100%. This big bruiser must be a highly effective head turner there.
The last of their kind; no wonder folks all over the world as snapping them up. Now if one of our Cohorts could just find one in New Dehli…
Despite being mere 15 inchers, these tires manage to fill the front wheel well quite satisfactorily.
The tiller for the helmsman. The call goes to the engine room: “Half Ahead”. The 500 cubic inch machine revs up a wee bit and the ship glides effortlessly along.
Small craft keep their distance, not wanting to be bounced around in its wake.
Three random thoughts. 1) That back bumper/taillight design is still, after all these years, an amazingly unattractive/uninspired effort by GM Design. 2) That may have been the least attractive steering wheel design of the entire decade. 3) No whitewall tire should ever have a narrower white stripe than this.
The taillight/bumper design looks very fifties to me, like it’s itching for a dealer-installed Continental kit.
Cadillac wasn’t ready for a full redesign? The new bumper standards forced GM to stick the tail lights under the trunk opening, but the car still had those rear fenders that used to house them and too expensive to redesign. So they created this ad hoc design where there are reflectors where the lamps used to be and beefed them up to meet the bumper requirements.
It looks pretty sad. They ended up with a rear end with copious amounts of style, but without any purpose – like that stuff they did 20 years earlier. While it kept the traditional look from that generation, it was obviously in need of an overhaul.
In the original ’71 restyle, the business surface of the rear bumper was at its top (not including the fin) and too high for the new standards. The ’73 2.5 mph bumper was a huge, ugly hunk of chrome below the trunk lid. Cadillac was trying to avoid the protruding wrap-around bumpers that the side impact standards forced on other cars.
They did a much cleaner design for the ’77, still with the big side and shelf fillers, but with the lights in the fins where they should be. I guess the lower vehicle weight meant it didn’t need to be as massive.
I wonder where Cadillac styling would have gone if the US hadn’t introduced those 5mph bumper laws?
Personally I’m partial to the classic narrow-strip look of the Michelin X.
I always liked the rear end and steering wheel on these, and prefer a thinner whitewall. I thought it pretty cool as well when that steering wheel turned up in the otherwise unremarkable’77-‘78 Buick Riviera. My favorite feature on this Cadillac generation is how the warning lights and clock were banked horizontally on a ridge across the top of the dashboard. Just my not deliberately contrary random thoughts ✌️
One point in favor of Malaise Era big cars is that at least they no longer had scary overloaded tires. The brochure says the stock tire on these brutes was LR78-15, which is equivalent to a section width of around 235mm with a 75-series or 80-series aspect ratio. Better brakes as well — 428.5 sq. in. swept area is not lavish for a car this big, but adequate enough for Sunday drivers once you get used to the breathe-lightly-for-full-lockup power brake effect.
One possible reason for moving the taillamps from the bumper corners to the rear panel is to protect them from damage from low impacts, parking bumps.
In the 70s, apart from the new bumper regs was the idea that the bumper was to protect more fragile parts of the car, such as the grille and lights. If you look at period pics of cars in NYC, for example, many have oversized bumper guards even.
It is possible that complaints from customers of earlier Cadillacs from corner light damage weighed on the decision to move them to the rear panel. Also, assembly costs may also have played a part as GM was increasingly impacted by bean counters above all else, to their ultimate detriment.
On the white wall side, these look period correct for thickness. I just watched a retro review on MotorWeek of a Caprice with what I thought were too thick whitewalls for the early 80s, but clearly the car was supplied by GM. I think any wider and it becomes too wide for this era though.
Blackwalls would also work in my opinion as this car does not have wire wheels.
The 500 ci V8 was only rated at 190 HP but 300 plus pounds of torque in ’75 and ’76.
There are 4 cylinder engines nowadays that make more HP than that. (though not as much torque)
I believe I’ve read about more than a few 4cyls with more torque than that.
Cadillac themselves have/had a four with 350lb ft of torque (the same engine found in a Chevy Silverado). And there are lots of others too.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/new-car-review/curbside-review-2020-cadillac-ct4-premium-luxury-awd/
But are those 4 bangers so under-stressed they can run with extra virgin olive oil in the crankcase?
In the early ’80s I had a co-worker with a convertible.
What a parade float!
Just another great example that proves that old auto industry adage that “Americans ‘talk’ horsepower, but they ‘drive’ torque”.
I might go so far as to suggest these big, malaise-era gas V8s are almost diesel-like with their low horsepower but still respectable torque numbers with the only difference being substantially worse fuel mileage. If GM hadn’t done such a half-assed job engineering the Olds diesel, they might have actually taken over the market.
360 lb-ft if I remember correctly. My stepmother had a white ’76, and my father had a silver ’75 with fuel injection (215hp, 400 lb-ft). He was happy to average 16.5 mph driving from Chicago to Phoenix in late 1977.
Make that mpg.
The hood ornament is for a Fleetwood, but it looks better than the chrome crest outline offered on the ’75-6 Deville, which didn’t get the wreath until ’85.
Despite their 130″ wheelbase, these had a noticeably smaller turning radius than our 126″ ’68 Electra.
What a beautiful car! I fondly recall my parents buying their first Cadillac in 1976. It was a 1975 Sedan Deville in the light green and boy was that a fantastic looking car. I’ve loved this style ever since. The next car they purchased was a used 1979 Deville they picked up in 1981. That too was a nice car, but just didn’t have the overall look of the 1975 IMO.
Forever immortalized in Boogie Nights as pornographer Jack Horner’s (Burt Reynolds) car.
Paul is mellowing in the yellow hue of this car. Proof it is hard to not love this lovely time-capsule on some level.
Admittedly, not my favorite year of this generation DeVille. The ’72 worked out some of the kinks of the ’71 introduction, and represents what Wayne Kady and crew were going for.
But, this car is the zaftig doppelganger of the 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham I had many years ago – a loaded car with the exact same coloring throughout. While I enjoyed that car immensely, I wouldn’t necessarily want it back, life is too short to relive it. But, to pilot this voluptuous beauty and watch the hood ornament bob up and down on that exaggerated hood, already in the next zip code, would be a delight while slowly going nowhere in particular.
Not mine, I had the appropriate wide whitewalls.
Yes popular all over the planet now these big ol barges even here with our ridiculously overpriced fuel, they tend to be Sunday cars not commuter machines, but the thirst is outside my paygrade.
We’re there ever any American production vehicles with an engine larger than this?
Yes. A number of pre-WW2 luxury cars had significant larger engines.
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