And the snow stopped, and the sun came out, and some of the snow melted, and there for me to behold was this creature formed from molten steel over half a century ago, and it was magnificent. All rise, please, and let us pay some respect.
Let no mortal say that I am filled with spite, for I am not. Yes, I may have uttered some unkind words toward Cadillac, but that was mostly directed toward present-day Cadillac. This, most assuredly, is not that present-day Cadillac.
Is it the color? It could be the color. In fact, I’m quite certain that the color has a lot to do with it. It’s called Adriatic Turquoise Iridescent if I am not mistaken. And it is all that and a bag of chips. Actually, it’s all that, the aforementioned bag of chips, and 52 years of avoiding carefully maintaining the finish that gives if the perfect look now. But the color, the color is just one thing about it.
Steelies painted silver, exposed lug nuts with, ahem, patina, and then shod with Cooper Discoverer outline white letter tires more often seen on a pickup truck. But giving this big lug a stance and style far more reminiscent of I don’t know, something more traditionally muscley, more iron, more…just more, lot’s more. This may be the leather jacket over the white T that is not ever, EVER, EVER! to be seen in a Cadillac boardroom. But it is hot. And the fender skirts are still there too.
I mean, those tires, and those wheels, and the overall look of this thing are all just meant to be started up in the morning, revved high for about five seconds to break the dino juices free and not quite flowing and the temps up to nowhere near where they should be, and then with a crank of the wheel and a drop of the shift lever and a flex of the ankle the proper way to exit the parking space is just to spin the tires and hang the tail out there, Magnum P.I. opening credits style, let it slide into the street, and rocket down the block all in far less time than it took to write this fabulously run-on sentence of mine that’s even longer than the Cadillac being discussed. Deep breath.
After all, this is… The Standard Of the World.
Nothing gets in the way of the majesty of the magnificence here. Not bills, not the job, not the rent, not the old lady, and certainly not The Man. If you have to ask, then you can’t understand the answer. You don’t even speak the language. I don’t even know you. You may not even know yourself.
7.7 liters, 472 cubic inches, 375 horsepower, 525 foot pounds of torque. Just about right.
Light ’em up, light ’em up, light ’em up, light em! It’s gonna be a good day. And then run through the night, from the Big D down to the Big Easy it’s only 1,067 miles. Some rocket fuel for the car, more rocket fuel for the driver, 11 motivated hours and you’re there to look for Madame Begue’s but find it or not you’re having some eggs Sardou with a bucket of café au lait and a few hot beignets for that second wind, you don’t care if you spill powdered sugar all over your shirt. It’s white.
It takes a dedicated driver to wear through the original seat fabric and then also to wear through the saddle blanket cover and then to keep going with it all. The big hardtop delivers though, comfortable, easy to handle with one finger or two, body splayed just so with one knee up, and when the time of year is right the cold fingers of the air conditioner running through your damp hair, either from the shower or the sweat from the hot day.
Or maybe the windows are open with nothing to get in the way from pillar to pillar. Maybe windows down and A/C for you don’t care. You don’t need to. You don’t answer to anyone. Unmarked though is the passenger side, but the charms of this big little devil, excuse me, deVille, should be enough to fill that with whatever your pleasure may be without much effort.
Your mamma may not have wanted her babies to grow up to be cowboys, but she never said anything about not growing up to be a Cadillac Man. Otherwise you’d have to settle for a Cowboy Cadillac and why bother with that when the real thing exists.
In any case though, like I said, I’m not a Cadillac Man, but if I was a Cadillac Man, this would be my Cadillac, man.
Extra points for Ice Cube!
Adriatic Turquoise Iridescent, now THAT is a color, man.
Actually, several colors it seems at this point.
Glory be! Mr. Jim gets the Cadillac Love! Even the radiance from Jim’s smile has punched its way through the inter webs to greet a person at 6 am.
Mark your calendars, folks. CC has reached a magnificent new milestone. The site may as well take the rest of the day off ’cause ain’t nothing going to get any better.
Turquoise looks good on most ’60s and early ’70s cars, doesn’t it? Yet, you don’t see too many old cars painted turquoise these days, or at least I don’t. I hope your area doesn’t get much salt, Jim. It would be a shame for that Cadillac to succumb to rust all these years later. Great car and writeup!
When the first thing I see on a muggy Monday morning (in the middle of a long drought) that is going to be hotter than yesterday but not as hot as tomorrow, is a Turquoise Cadillac hardtop after a light snowfall, well, I never thought I’d say it, but I miss slush!.
These are the ones that kind of amaze me at their survival. I salute the person who will keep pouring gasoline into the thirsty old girl as long as she keeps moving under her own poweer. Most of the ones that looked like this were gone by maybe 1985 or 1990.
How long will it be before the Tesla is moved out of its place of honor for one of these? Maybe it already has been? You definitely sound like you have a bad case of The Fever.
1970 was quite possibly the last good Cadillac. The 1971-76 models were bloated (even compared to this not exactly svelte specimen), use increasingly cheap interior component (like GM’s injection molded door cards), looked increasingly similar to the rest of GM’s full sized cars, and were quickly bogged down with 5-mph bumpers and increasingly stringent emission controls.
The giant plastic binnacle on the ’69-70 dash felt more hollow and even cheaper than the smaller ’71-3 one. With the high back front seats, head restraints, and small greenhouse, it could be a bit claustrophobic and dark inside. My grandmother had a black/black ’70 Calais and a black/gold ’72. I prefer the exterior of the former and the interior of the latter.
I enjoyed the post, but the subjunctive mood would work better in the title: If I were a Cadillac man. Not for me, because I am a Cadillac man, though they don’t now make anything I really want.
Agree that 1970 was the last “real” Cadillac, a once aspirational car with little competition, even within GM. In 1971, two factors came into play that changed this dynamic. First, the Caddy was cheapened and decontented, especially the interior. Gobs of molded plastic replaced die cast chrome and high quality upholstery. Second, lesser GM products grew in size and power, mimicking Cadillac and cheapening the Caddy experience. There was little difference between a ‘71 Caprice and Calais. And with the optional 454, the Chevy outperformed it as well, at thousands of dollars less. The beginning of a long, long slide for the brand to where it is today. A curiosity that few luxury vehicle buyers ever consider.
I’m sure that more appropriate tires can be found, given time and money. But if you need one or more tires NOW, or are shopping the used tire market, you take whatever fits. These days, high aspect ratio tires are much more commonly found in truck treads.
High aspect ratio (70 or higher) car tires in 14 through 16″ sizes are becoming hard to find, and most of those still available are either low-end cheapies or expensive tires aimed at owners of vintage cars. Many thus choose readily available SUV tires that are available in sizes to fit old land yachts, are reasonably priced, and are of high quality. The only issue is that they’re designed to hold more weight than the original tires were, which can lead to a rough ride if you don’t choose carefully. Some of these have solid or outline white letters, but only on one side.
Over/under on how many dead hookers you can stow in the trunk?
Not as many as you’d think from the exterior. I believe it was only ~17 cu ft due to shallowness and the huge spare in the middle.
There are far more nefarious ways to make a living that somehow get more respect, so under.
You’d definitely need to wear cowboy boots to drive that, quite a find Jim!
The patina on that is just so western US, transplant it to any other location and it would deteriorate swiftly.
this is a Caddie at the tipping point: Either it is restored now, or it’s gone.
And it is a pre-malaise-era Caddie, so restoring it might work at reasonable costs.
The size of the passenger compartment looks tiny in comparison to the rest of the car when looking at the side profile of the car.
That’s always bothered me, too, because the body is so massive for the glass area. Gotta love the proud chisel tip fenders and fins, though (both ruined in ’71). The very rare pillared Sedan de Ville had a larger greenhouse for better proportions and more rear legroom and headroom, but it doesn’t have the crisp lines of the hardtop or the pillared Fleetwood.
pillared: https://www.flickr.com/photos/daveseven/16552649949
I posted my correction of the issue with the too small C pillar on top of the massive body, in the past. Here it is again. Major change for the better.
I thought so too. The hood and trunk seem so long its almost got something of a Fuselage Chrysler look in profile….
I wonder why so many of these Caddys are used to live out some sort rebel in a dystopian fantasy rather than to recreate the gilded age they were designed and built for. I guess dystopia seems now a more realistic future. Sad.
I would not call the late 60s or 70s a “gilded age”. Not by a long shot.
We’re obviously in a gilded age now, so you should be happy, not sad. And that rather obviously explains this Cadillac, and the statement it is making.
It must have been a little bit gilded for the buyers, despite the high tax rates leveling declared incomes and capital gains, since leasing wasn’t around to lower payments. Like the plastichrome on the dash, it rubbed off as inflation pushed the upper middle class into higher brackets through the 70s.
An inflation-adjusted graph of luxury auto prices over the decades might be interesting, except there were often big discounts for cash back then, so it would be difficult to be accurate.
People did lease cars in this era (and you’ll find occasional references to it in consumerist auto magazines like Road Test), it just wasn’t nearly as common as it is now.
Peak CC. Thanks Jim!
This may be the leather jacket over the white T that is not ever, EVER, EVER! to be seen in a Cadillac boardroom.
GM CEO Mary Barra’s leather jacket is her uniform. I even found a picture of her with a white T under it! 🙂
I think she is HOT. Even with the dark rimmed glasses. WOW!
Perhaps that explains the Cadillac doldrums…. There’s clearly been a contravention of the proper norms.
reminds me of:
“Here’s the hippy dippy weather man with all the hippy dippy weather, man”
+1 – That was the first thing that came to mind upon reading the title.
After all, this is… The Standard Of the World.
I feel your love for this old boat, and I’d rock it too, but it had stopped living up to that claim a while back. Frankly, it was always a bit of a specious claim, but up through about 1964, a Sixty Special could still feel…special, and competitive with the best luxury cars anywhere. After 1965, Caddy chased volume, and in 1967, the interiors were really decontented, painfully apparent in the Calais. The last time I sat in one of these, I was a bit shocked at how cheap, dark and claustrophobic it felt behind the wheel.
Speaking of, this rather looks to be a Calais and not a DeVille, from the very short script on the rear fender. I can’t magnify the image enough, but that’s what it looks like to me.
It says “Sedan” and then there’s a hole, presumably for the deVille part. The weathering above the Sedan part looks legit, not like someone badge swapped anytime remotely recently. Probably another reason I’m not a Cadillac Man, they all look the same… 🙂
Enlarged…
Yup; it’s a sedan alright. 🙂
Tautology in Chrome.
Agreed. That dashboard looks barely better than those of contemporary MOPARs, and that is not a high benchmark.
The dash appears to be De Ville. I can see possible mottled wood grain inside the binnacle, while the Calais had black plastic there and where that wide “metal” stripe is. Some De Villes have a fakewood stripe and door panels, which must have been optional over the metal stripe and cloth door panels.
My grandmother’s ’72 Calais had the wood inlay around the wheel but no other woodgrain. The ribbed fabric shed badly after a few years but didn’t fall apart.
I hadn’t realized they’d dropped the V under the hood and trunk crests in ’70, only to restore them in ’72.
I know that for ’70 DeVilles, cloth-upholstered cars got the cloth door panel and brushed aluminum dashboard inlay.
The leather-upholstered cars got the door panels and dash inlay with “Oriental Tamo wood”, which I believe was still genuine wood at that point albeit paper-thin.
Just brilliant. And every legally licensed driver should have the chance to spin out, Magnum P.I. opening credits-style.
That front seat looks positively grody, but somehow, I just don’t care. Excellent piece.
You’ve been saving the word “grody” since last week’s piece, I just know it. Gag me with a spoon…
Thank you.
I would drive it every day
My 66 is nicer. Same color. Headlights are stacked instead of side by side.
That stance with those wheels and tires…please tell me that it has Flowmasters (probably not; too expensive), or Cherrybombs, or just cheap Turbo mufflers. That 472 wants to bark as well as it bites.
Hello is the caddy for sale.
Nothing quite like a Cadillac, man….once you get one, you’re hooked!
Unless it was a Cimmy…or a early HT4100…or a …I’ll stop now.
Our latest addition to the fleet is this 92 Brougham 5.0. Write up coming soon!
I was the Cadillac Kid & now a Cadillac Man.
Once you have a Cadillac , you never go back.
A 1962 ad intoned : ‘ Owning a Cadillac displays to the world the drivers , unique good taste’.
Some people are intimidated , jealous & don’t get the swag.
The 69 – 70 was basically the same as the 65 – 68 , with increasingly more power : But Cadillac designers , who had class & looked the part ; brilliantly changed the front & year end.
The massive front screamed power & prestige .
‘ Get out if the way ‘ & rear – sedate elegance .
Someone loved that car & so do I .
Look how big the snow free area is under the beast.
Where were the pictures in this post taken at?
Fort Collins, Colorado, early this year.
Thanks.
The 1970 Cadillac was a miss for me, as for as styling, mainly from a side view. Too thick a body and too thin a C pillar. I modified the C pillar, and added color coded wheel covers and a door guard molding running down the center of the body to remove some of the mass of the body. After those changes, the car has a much more of proportioned – in my opinion. The massive thick body and thin roof, even bothered me when they were new and I was 21 yrs old.
That’s quite an improvement, and it still isn’t dowdy like the sedan. The ’67-8 had the same problem. I suspect they were trying to make the largest possible difference from the formal Fleetwood greenhouse by making the hardtops’ C pillar as small as possible.
The bodyside molding was standard. The owner must have removed it when repainting. I know the ’71-6 models would rust around the little metal knobs that held it on.
1970 Cadillac with the factory C pillar and wheel covers.
I like it, hope it gets a bit more love before the tin worm gets it .
I can’t imagine feeding this thing, wow .
-Nate
First car I got when I got my first bartending gig. 1977.
I am a caddillac man one of my uncles taught me how to drive in a 1956 caddillac in 1958 I was just 7 years old he would put me on his lap and give me the steering wheel and he had the gas pedal and brake , by the time I got 11 years old I could see over the dashboard he had a 1959 caddillac then at 15 and 6 months old I got my drivers license in 1968 I got my first caddillac a 1963 sedan Deville, since then I’ve been driving caddillacs and still do
But the 65′ 66′ interior and dash is SO much better !!
Notice how big a patch of the street is “snow free”, courtesy of this massive ride?