posted at the Cohort by Colin
Cohort Pic(k) of the Day: 1994 Cadillac Fleetwood – The Only Car That Actually Looks Better With These Wheels
– Posted on June 5, 2020
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Curbside Classics Archives
posted at the Cohort by Colin
Better? Better than what a stick in the eye? I think not!!
No, no it does not.
exactly what I was going to write…
Better? No.
Less objectionable than other large cars with like wheels? Slightly.
All that chrome at the lower edge helps offset the wheels. That’s the ‘improvement’.
+1
I wish spinners would make a comeback.
Who needs spinners when you can have plastic spinner hubcaps?
Well, those wheels repeat one of GM’s concept car ideas from the ’50s. Roto-Static Hubs. They’re horrible, but at least they’re Earlistically horrible.
I wanted to like these cars and really tried. I failed. They are just not attractive cars. The wheels don’t help them (nothing can) but do not hurt them either.
Hilarious! Occasionally, an owner with a good eye for tasteful and complimentary wheel design, will miraculously improve the looks of an equally unappealing early 90s domestic luxury car. I never considered these Dynasty-inspired Imperials attractive at any time, but these wheels, were a nice choice by this owner.
1000% disagree with the wheels. But I do love the last of thes Fleetwoods as well as all the 94-96 B-bodies. Aside from the rims and questionable chrome B pillar trim applique, this one looks very well loved and still pretty stock. Somebody has this car just as they personally want it, and that’s all that matters.
Big round fail. It looks like a Conestoga wagon IMO.
Only way to make those wheels look good would be to pull that chrome band over the fender wells… as low as possible.
Honestly, these cars are so bad, pretty much any change is an improvement.
Slow day at CC?
Good thing Paul wasn’t floating a bid for elective office today…
Must Have Vogue Tyres on Dayton Wires!
Although a set would probably cost more than the car is worth at this point. Sad!
The haze produced by aging eyes tends to soften much one looks at. It awaits you all.
Although I do like the car but would prefer a 91 to this year. Sitting one night (2016) at an In and Out Burger on US 5 around 9pm I spotted a car exactly like the one pictured below drive in. I approached the owner at the counter, he had just bought it and was driving it down to a house in Phoenix. It was a 70,000 mile car. Gorgeous.
Forgot the picture
I owned the spitting image of that car for a number of years (minus the wheels), bought used when I was 22 years old and sold a few years ago while still under 40. Definitely made me not the target demographic for the car. But the attention my girlfriend would get when she had to borrow it from time to time…
Anyway, there was a lot to like about owning and driving one. I personally find the Fleetwood’s styling to have aged the best among the 90s B-/D-Body cars. The extra length combined with the admittedly kind of ridiculous chrome along the lower half of the car hid the bulbous width of these cars better than on the Caprice and Roadmaster. The weird vinyl roof on the vast majority of the Broughams is unfortunate, and if I’d bought mine new, I would have insisted on not having one. Styling is inherently subjective, but I’d say that the Fleetwood is a better application of the styling themes used on it and the contemporaneous Deville.
It’s also possible to look at these Fleetwoods as cynical attempts to sell Caprices for twice the price. But that’s was generally true with the D-Bodies once Cadillac stopped using its own engines, which after the demise of the 368 was probably for the best. And as far as cynical plush-mobiles go, these Fleetwoods did have bespoke bodies, sharing only the front doors with their B-Body siblings, and the interiors were generally made of much nicer materials. The fake wood was still pretty garbage, but there wasn’t a ton of it. Most of the interior was covered in good leather or good color-matched vinyl and soft plastic, even the majority of the door panels.
Most importantly, they were great road cars. Soft and comfortable as you’d expect a traditional Cadillac to be. Mine would put my girlfriend to sleep in minutes on pretty much any road trip. They weren’t handlers, but with the B-Body bones, they handled better than you would expect. The LT1 V8 gave them plenty of power and still gave about 25mpg on the highway, all on regular gas, which in my mind isn’t bad for a car almost identical in size to a 59 Cadillac.
My main issue with the car was that by the time I sold it with 225k miles, the parts availability was surprisingly poor for a car that was only 22 years old. You couldn’t find lots of parts that were Cadillac specific, and the non Cadillac specific parts that were generally available were more expensive than they should have been.
All in all, I’d say it was a good car for the time that I had it.
In the mid-1990s I would’ve been in my late teens, early twenties. I was hardly the age demographic for these cars or the B-bodies (with the possible exception of the Impala SS), but like you I always had a weird crush on all these cars and their corporate brethren. I knew they were the last of the dinosaurs, and I guess I just respected that. Never drove any of them, but I rode in quite a few at the time – including 9C1 Caprices (front seat, not back!). They made an impression, and I still harbor a desire to own a nice 94-96 SS someday…although I wouldn’t kick a mint Fleetwood out of bed, either.
Totally agree that if I could go back in time, I’d order one without a vinyl roof. Always hated vinyl roofs! There was a gentleman in my hometown who had an all-black Fleetwood of this vintage sans vinyl. It looked quite sharp and just had a ‘presence’ that commanded respect.
I think the Impala aged the best. Because the owners that brought the Impala tended to take better care of them than the others. There are still a lot of Impalas with surprisingly low mileage for sale on e-bay and the prices are declining. Years ago you couldn’t find a decent Impala under $20,000 now they are in the mid-high teens.
The “chrome” on the Roadmaster and Fleetwood dented very easily and fell off even easier. The Impala had no chrome so it did not fall victim to those issues. Also the hood ornaments on the Caprices broke very easily. Again the Impala did not get a hood ornament. In the case of these cars, sometimes less is more.
I didn’t find the chrome to dent very easily on my Fleetwood. Fall off is another matter. The rear quarter panel chrome was notorious for falling off of these Fleetwoods, including mine on the passenger side. It was bad enough that it was rare to find a Fleetwood in the junkyard with quarter panel chrome still on the car. I eventually did find one in a local pick-n-pull, but the real problem was the plastic clips that held on the panel. Those are what broke and let the panels fall off in the first place, AND it was impossible to remove one of the panels without breaking the aged plastic clip at the same time. So you ended up with broken clips that were pure unobtainium. Even once I found the panel in the junkyard, I couldn’t bring myself to drill holes in my quarter panel to attach it with sheet metal screws like on the car I’d pulled it off of. So when I sold the car, I sold it with the panel in the trunk…
These cars looked like expensive coffins. With these tall wheels they look like pallbearers carrying it
I agree with you. Normally I hate those wheels, and while I never cared for the fender skirts used on the FWD ‘89-‘92 Fleetwood, I thought the deVille was a handsome car, something that could not be said about the 1994 model. I have warmed up some to the big GM RWD wagons and Caprice/Impala SS. Don’t like the ‘93-‘96 Fleetwood, but think car these wheels improved the look.
I loved my 93 Cadillac Fleetwood. The stock wheels look so much better than those ugly things. I thought the 93-96 years were the best looking of all Cadillac styles.
It does modernize the ride height.
The ride quality would be interesting, not likely good, but interesting to find out what it is like.
I think the three-spoke wheel design actually looks good here… if the wheels themselves were smaller.
The Cadillac SPG. Who knew….
This car has too much altitude to demonstrate Cadillac attitude.
Pedantry of the day: based on the side mirror, it’s a 95-6, as the 94 still had the mirror attached below the belt line with a stupid dark gray plastic triangle where the mirror is more properly attached on this one.
Saab used wheels alot like this in the early ’90s – just around the time they were getting bought by GM. Coincidence?
I’d agree on the wheels… though ugly, there’s little that could make a bloated whale such as this Fleetwood look any worse.
Three spokes belong on steering wheels. My minimum spoke count for road wheels is five.
These wheels are called blades down in here in Houston.. the original wheels are Brutus monoblock ii’s which were made for Mercedes benzes at the time.. the design is really just a big ass Mercedes emblem if you really look at it lol. Personally I’ve never liked blades, they do look neat on older benzes though in my opinion. I drive an 86 Fleetwood and would never dare put a set of those on mine 😂
I’m in the “like em” camp on 93-96 Fleetwoods, so no I don’t think the wheels look good. Sadly for me, giant chrome aftermarket wheels are more commonly seen on these than stock ones in my part of the world (Houston).
E, I did not know they were called blades, thanks for the lesson!