How often does one get to see a 40 year old car in its original environment, seemingly untouched by the passage of time?
Seeing this 1977 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham parked on a driveway near Washington, DC’s Embassy Row made this question stick in my head. Readily identifiable by its 1977-only taillights, this Fleetwood Brougham from the first year of downsizing represents what I consider to be one of Cadillac’s high water marks, combining the right-sized 1977 GM full size body with the highest mechanical specification that Cadillac would offer until its traditional cars faded into irrelevance in the 1990s: four wheel disc brakes, rear sway bar (visible below the axle, of course), and optional fuel injection to feed the proven Cadillac big block engine, reduced to 425 cubic inches for the downsized 1977 models.
A 1977-79 Fleetwood Brougham equipped this way was one of the last gasps of Cadillac being the Standard of the World. This 1977 Fleetwood Brougham in the triple black of a car for VIPs, original looking down to its body-colored wheel covers, looks completely at home here, a car for a man or woman of means who could be either behind the wheel or behind a chauffeur, equally comfortably. Whoever owns it is a serious fan of Cadillac with excellent taste.
Do you know if that car is for sale?
It was…I own it now and it lives in Canada as of September 2018. It is an ultra rare triple black with Astro Roof example.
We had a neighbor who had a ’77 Sedan deVille, all black. And my mother had a new ’77 Electra 225 sedan in silver with a red interior. They were the two most expensive cars in our middle-class neighborhood.
I was just beginning my affinity for new cars at this time, so these newly-sized luxo boats will always have a special place in my history.
The 1977 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham (wallpaper):
The B pillar on these Cadillacs just didn’t look right from day one. It makes the car look like it’s sagging behind the front doors. The look was supposed to mimic the Duesenberg Twenty Grand but it just looks wrong.
Apparently GM agreed with you since they did away with the tapered B-pillar for 1980. But something was needed to distinguish the 1977 Fleetwood from the Sedan deVille, since the former no longer had an extended wheelbase or extra length.
Here’s a photo of a Duesenberg Beverly sedan. I thought its B pillar was designed to compensate for the earth’s curvature.
Small detail, likely overlooked or never even thought about twice by most, even original buyers of this car. Yet… even decades later, such subjective subject matter here.
Always been one of my favorite features/details on the ’77-’79 Fleetwoods. Still bothers me when I see the next gen body w/o it, or some new version of it appropriate for the re-design that followed.
and to note: personally, I do rank the 1979 Fleetwood Brougham (i prefer the crisp 79 grille & 78/79 taillamps over 77), overall ahead of the next gen. I think they built a Fleetwood for the times that’s just about as close to perfect, (on ALL thrusters, BTW), as you’ll ever get. Design-wise, I feel it’s up there with a ’63 or ’66.
About the last year Cadillac that I would be interested in purchasing and maintaining.
I completely agree with Robert Kim’s comments on this model year’s comments on the mechanical excellence and the social class ramifications of what this car stood for.
There is nothing on today’s Cadillac showroom floor that I would be even remotely interested in purchasing.
Sadly, besides the Escalade……….i’m inclined to agree with you:(
Nice shot!! i’ve always liked these tailights best they remind me of the 69 caddys. the 78 models with the in bumper tailights were really nice too, very Cadillac’ish. and you are right these are the last of the true “standard of the world” Cadillacs.
Love this!! I almost thought this was a period photo. Reminds me a bit of an ’81 or so Caddy that JPC wrote up within the past year.
I love the clean ’77s.
My first thought was of the movie Sunset Boulevard, only with a Cadillac instead of an Isotta-Fraschini. 🙂
Great picture! I always found the details slightly better done on the 78-79, and always found this to be the most awkward angle for these cars. The beltline that folds itself into the hood power bulge made the front fenders look too low to me, and the fenderline behind the C pillar was too high, giving the side of the car a stairstep effect.
In the mid-late 80s I used to commute up and down the street in my city known for block after block of elegant mansions from the first third of the last century. One house was unusual, with two Cadillacs always parked out front on its circular driveway. Both were from 1969-70, a big Fleetwood sedan and an Eldorado, one black and one yellow, and both quite presentable (at least from 50 yeards). It looked like a scene from a sales brochure or alternately a driveway that somehow exempted itself from the passage of time.
Between this photo, and some of Don Andreina’s photos from Australia, we’ve had some great driveway shots lately.
This car and setting reminds me of another Cadillac in Washington, DC that I remember seeing several years ago. When I first moved to the Washington area in 2000, sometimes I would walk around the Embassy Row area. At the time, the Thai Embassy on Kalorama Rd. was (oddly) vacant and somewhat overgrown — and in the driveway was a Cadillac of this vintage. It made for a mesmerizing sight… the combination of a grand but neglected building and a similarly decaying luxury car. I wish I had photographed it.
As for this particular car, I think the body-colored wheel covers were the most elegant wheel design that the B-body Cadillac wore throughout its long lifespan.
That rear sway bar reminds me of how, during the sixties’ musclecar craze, Oldsmobile was the only company to have (or even offer) a rear sway bar on their performance cars. Supposedly, the stated rationale for the omission was that a rear sway bar made the handling too ‘twitchy’. But I’d be willing to bet the real reason was the same as it was for leaving the bar off of the Corvair: money.
FWIW, those rear sway bar equipped Oldsmobile were regarded as the best handling intermediates of the era, particularly when they were paired with the lighter W-31 ‘Ramrod 350’ engine.
Another American car I have experience of in the UK, though it was a 78. I preferred it to my 75 Eldorado convertible to drive.
Wafted along nicely, but the interior quality was not up to much, plastic chrome, cheap vinyl, fake wood.
Black on Black is the best colour scheme for these
It’s amazing how fast this car’s fall from grace was. The downsized ’77 Cadillacs looked and felt so substantial; it was everything you wanted in a big Detroit land yacht, but now with decent handling, manageable dimensions, passable fuel economy, and a more stately appearance. They were classy and forward-thinking, and a bit daring for flouting the bigger-is-better mentality that had defined American luxury sedans. The ’81 that was featured here a few weeks back wasn’t all that different – a lower-displacement version of the same engine with some ineffective cylinder-deactivization electronics and a mild facelift. Yet somehow in just four short years the same basic car had gone from a desirable but right-for-its-time expression of American luxury to a hopeless throwback whose entire aesthetic seemed woefully out of date.
A friend had one of these back in the day. That crooked B pillar made the car look like it was bent in the middle. Stupid design.
The rear glass still only went halfway down. Go figure.
I love this shot!! It truly takes me back to my childhood. This could pass for Uptown New Orleans back in the day. Seeing a Fleetwood back then was still a treat, and the downsized ’77s were definitely seen as fresh and desirable.
I’m a big fan of the ‘77 only taillights, I love how they resemble the taillights used only by the 1969 Cadillacs.
I remember back in ‘76-‘77 my mother saying that the new sized Cadillac didn’t look like a Cadillac due to its early ‘70s LTD/Caprice Size. Twenty years later in 1997 I was working at an upscale urban Garden Center – a customer getting mushroom compost pulls up in a beautiful ‘77 Yellow Sedan DeVille, which I complimented her on, which she replied: “yes, I enjoy this old car, but it is gigantic!” Size can be relative.
I’ve always found the “downsized” 1977 Cadillac to be more elegant and under-stated than the glitzied up (and engine downsized) models that followed this one. As Cadillac progressed into the early/mid 1980’s they became a gaudier parody of this one.
(‘Course when Lincoln downsized in 1980 I switched my American luxury car allegiance quickly and permanently.)
Growing up in Brooklyn, NY, I recall seeing many of these Fleetwood Broughams and DeVilles with the “Pierre Cardin Package”, which was offered by several dealerships in the tri-state area. It included a customs 2 tone paint job, where the second color was applied just to the body sides, unlike the factory 2 tone. It was outlined with a gold stripe. There was a faux wood grain strip where the original pin strip would have been applied. Additionally, there was gold emblems, true spoke wheels, gold Pierre Cardin emblem, a Rolls Royce style grille, and sometimes a faux convertible top. There were some interior embellishments as well.
I recall see a few of them (I believe fheu were 1978 or 79 models) at Nelson Balmer Cadillac in Brooklyn. They were ultra gaudy, but they sold tons of them. I had the dealers brochure somewherr in my attic.
I also find that B pillar to be awkward, but it does set it apart from the DeVille. It also may have been an attempt to recall the B pillar of this earlier design. These Fleetwood 60 Specials had frameless door glass with rounded corners, an elegant touch in my eyes. The 75 limo had the doors cut into the roof line, appropriate to it’s role. The 60 Special still combined the the air of a “personal type” driver’s car with luxurious passenger seating. The Cadillac brochures described it at as “their most luxurious owner driven model.”
I agree with the author–the 77-79 were the last ‘real’ Cadillacs.
Yes, the CTS/ATS and CT6 are better cars in absolute terms. But they don’t convey the image of BIG, COMFORTABLE, LUXURY like these did.
I agree with the other comments here — these ’77-’79 cars were, to me, the last of the “quality” Cadillacs for a while. They had MUCH better designed/quality interiors that the preceding “fuselage” cars, and the look just says “all Cadillac” no matter the model or trim. I’m a dyed in the wool FoMoCo guy but a nice one of these could perhaps find a place in my garage, as a nice contrast.
Something I would expect to see Chester Tate driving…
Thanks for reminding me of this highly underrated, ground-breaking show. I was the envy of some of my eighth-grade peers, being one of the few whose parents allowed him to watch the show in its original run.
A memorable line of Chester’s: “I’m Gunga Din!”
It’s like that in Grosse Pointe, and there are few Lincoln Mark series, Cadillac Allante on the long driveway of many mansions.
And I spotted Chrysler Imperial, Buick Riviera in Indian Village also.
I had this as a 1992 Brougham. It was a lovely car. The Chevy 350 performed wonderfully, and 20mpg was possible. A coworker in the back seat said he felt like the President. I bought it with 40k miles, drove it till 125k, then gave it to my brother in law. Ten years later, it still goes.
Contrary to many here, I actually find the 77-79 downsized Cadillacs awkward and less appealing stylistically to what came before and after. Before these you had proper, impressive land yachts whose size and presence was second-to-none. After these, I think the design became more handsome and formal. Some may think the 80s design is overdone, but I think that’s the very point of a classic Cadillac. I have owned and do own many rear-drive Cadillacs, but just could never get into the look of these, especially, as mentioned by many others, that bizarre B pillar. I feel it took them a few years to get the downsized look right, both on the exterior (tail lights, grille, roofline, B pillar) and the interior (door panels, steering wheel). They are mechanically good (compared to some early 80s cads) and have pretty good fit-and-finish (compared to earlier 70s cads), but I’ll still take a 92 Brougham or 76 Fleetwood anyday, which is why I have both!
I always noticed the minor design difference in the B-pillar of the Sedan de Ville and Fleetwood. I, too feel that the tapered B-pillar of the Fleetwood just looks wrong visually, as if it was a manufacturing error. To distinguish the two cars better, perhaps they could have created different roof-covering treatments, instead. Here is a good comparison of the two.
This Fleetwood image from the brochure is different from the actual production cars, which had only a thin line of chrome surrounding the windows with the rest of the frame body colored, instead of the full chrome shown. In ’78 (below), they put a little chrome crest piece at the base of the B pillar, I guess to distract from the non-parallel lines of the pillar that some people object to. But they dropped the light strips above all door armrests that the ’77 had. Criminal!