A road trip through my native Michigan last month was a reinvigorating and life-affirming experience. This was my third such annual excursion where I had taken a whistle-stop tour through the Great Lake State, visiting and staying with friends for one or a handful of nights as I piloted my rental car through the lower peninsula. It occurred to me while this was happening in real-time that this was exactly the kind of road trip I had always wanted to take as a teenager or young adult, and that I had now had the chance to do this for three, consecutive summers.
This trip was different than in years past in that I had trusted my phone’s navigation system to take me through Michigan’s two-lane byways instead of on large expressways for a significant chunk of my journey. This facilitated viewing completely different vistas than I otherwise would have experienced, including passing through small towns and communities, some of which I had never heard of before.
Much of the rest of my plan was the same, as I sought out local types of establishments that were rich with local flavor, mostly eschewing many familiar types of chain restaurants. It was on the third day of my Great Michigan Adventure 2025 that I found myself in the Detroit suburb of New Baltimore (or Chesterfield, depending on whether you trust Google Maps or the restaurant’s own website) and eating breakfast at Gus’s Coney Island before heading up north toward Alpena. Seeing that I was going to be taking main interstate I-75 for much of the way, and also given that there are usually gas stations and restaurants near exit ramps, I let my phone’s navigator lead me to the intersection where Gus’s was, and I knew almost immediately that this is where I was going to eat breakfast.
Growing up in Flint, Michigan, there had been myriad diners and restaurants like this that catered to all laborers who worked different shifts at the various General Motors “shops” (factories) that dotted Genesee County. There are still great diners in Flint, though just one twenty-four hour spot remains, which is Arlo’s on the east side. Still, there was something very Flint about Gus’s, which drew me in with its familiar-feeling ambiance. This second Monday of August fell within the week of Detroit’s annual Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise, but with the exception of a few, stray vehicles seen out and about, this ’60 Cadillac was my first major, up-close classic vehicle sighting during my twenty-four hour stretch spent in greater Detroit.
The lady in the passenger’s side was a bit guarded (understandably) but sweet, and after some exchanged greetings and friendly banter, she let this complete stranger, me, take a few photographs of her beautiful Series 62 convertible. She had been waiting for her husband, who was inside the restaurant, to return. I also had the chance to shake his hand on my way into, and his way out of, the restaurant, as he had recognized me as the guy with the camera who was taking pictures of his classic Cadillac. Summers in mid-Michigan are my favorite. Our love of cars seems to bring all of us together in random, unexpected, and affectingly genuine ways, even in some of the shortest interactions.
After being greeted inside the restaurant, I chose a booth and was met by a friendly server who in short order had brought me over a menu along with a much-needed cup of hot, black coffee. After ordering the three-meat breakfast special, I sat and observed my surroundings. I was on vacation, but this was just a random work day for everybody else, including for many of my friends I had planned to see that week. A quiet group of guys who looked like regulars and possibly retirees sat on stools at the counter, hovered over their plates and occasionally talking amongst themselves. Steve Harvey hosted on old episodes of Family Feud showing on TV screens mounted high. It was a moment of contentment in having successfully unplugged from my work-minded brain.
When my giant plates of inexpensively-priced food arrived, it occurred to me that this, this meal in front of me, was a real, ‘Murican breakfast. For real. And I immediately drew a parallel between this food that I was about to wolf and that large, 4,900 pound Cadillac that had just left the parking lot. So, yes, the ecology, responsibility, and the need for more fuel efficient cars… I understand and agree that significant shifts in the approach to designing and building cars were needed, even if some of the initial responses led to wonky results, like giant five-mile-per-hour bumpers. Similarly, advances in health science meant increased understanding that in order to live longer, people had to think more intentionally about nutrition, cholesterol, calories, staying active, and a few other things.
1975 or ’76 Cadillac Seville. Downtown, The Loop, Chicago, Illinois. Thursday, 10/16/2014.
I’m proud to say that I’m reasonably physically fit for my age, and I exercise regularly and pay attention to proper nutrition. With that said, this giant, greasy breakfast that was loaded with salt scratched an itch in me that day that nothing else could have come close to scratching. Cadillac had famously offered the 1975 Seville as its smallest and most costly offering in an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of smaller, prestige-minded imports that did more with less size. People liked the first Seville, and maybe there was some overlap on a Venn diagram with those fitness-minded people who also took to tofu and granola in the ’70s. The downsized DeVille of ’77 was also a massive sales success, even if the ’82 “Cimarron By Cadillac” was a failure from both a critical and sales perspective.
Bringing it back to our featured car, though, it was one of 14,000 Series 62 convertibles produced for the model year at an original base price of just under $5,500 (about $59,500 in 2025). The only other convertible that Cadillac offered that year was the Eldorado Biarritz which started at about $7,400 (roughly $80,800), which was over a third more expensive than the lesser model. You’ll have to read elsewhere for a detailed breakdown in terms of what that extra money bought you, but I can tell you that all 1960 Cadillacs were powered by a 390 cubic-inch V8, rated at 325 horsepower for all non-Eldorado models, the latter of which included an extra 20 horsepower. Just under 1,300 Eldorado Biarritz convertibles successfully tempted well-heeled buyers that year.
Being mostly unfamiliar with Cadillacs of this era, I had correctly guessed the model year, but had mistakenly thought it was a DeVille, of which there was no convertible offered for 1960. There are a few, significant external differences between the Series 62 and the Eldorado Biarritz, but my new mnemonic device is the C-shaped side trim on the more expensive car. Newer Cadillacs are smaller, athletic, efficient, and attractive vehicles, and amid the current automotive landscape, I do think they offer a good value proposition for a luxury brand.
However, there are still days when I pine for a seemingly ever-churning metabolism and the ability to scarf down multiple plates of big helpings of not-particularly-great-for-me food, as well as for the day when a Cadillac was a giant, chrome-laden, inefficient, breathtakingly sculpted luxury machine with an unmistakable identity. Eating like this is okay from time-to-time, and I have absolutely no regrets about this breakfast, which I would order again. The thanks I give to both the owners of this Cadillac and Gus’s Coney Island are as hearty as the Three Meats Special I had eaten that day.
New Baltimore, Michigan.
Monday, August 11, 2025.
Brochure pages were sourced from www.oldcarbrochures.org. Click this link for an essay on the 1960 Cadillac Eldorado Seville from this past April from Aaron Serverson.
Ooooh, that breakfast! This is a great analogy, a comparison of the classic American big car and a classic American big breakfast. I’ll have one of each, please.
Thanks, JP! Within the context of your comment, I’m wondering what kinds of meal metaphors I could have come up with for some of my different automotive finds from this August’s trip. It’s probably just as well that I was one-and-done with this idea, but it’s still fun to think about.
1960 is my favorite year for Cadillacs and convertibles are my favorite kind of car. Black is not my favorite color for a car that will spend most of its time soaking up the sun but it looks like this has a white interior which is a bit better. Probably leather, which although that’s more waterproof, it gets darn hot. I’d rather have cloth even though it’s more prone to wear.
I do like the style of the 1960, and your points about black as an exterior color and the feel of hot vinyl leather as a seating surface are well made. I do think that from at least an aesthetic perspective, this particular color combo is a great one. There’s nothing quite like a shiny black car when it’s still clean.
The world is a better place with breakfasts and Cadillacs such as what you have featured.
Just be careful with sausage; sausage is easy to ruin and generally a crap-shoot.
Jason, I’m wondering now if I have ever (to my knowledge) had back gastric luck with sausage patties or links. I’m sure I’ll be thinking about this the next time I order a breakfast like this! I still love bacon, sausage, and ham.
It’s 8:15am here and this post is making me hungry, especially since I’m out of waffles, pancakes, and french toast. My favorite go-to is cinnamon waffles topped with a small dab of Olivio Light olive-oil margarine (from a company incidentally founded by Lee Iacocca’s son-in-law) and about a 15%/85% mix of real maple syrup and Maple Grove Farms sugar-free syrup, the only sans-sugar syrup I’ve found that tastes at least vaguely like the real thing. This product was very recently rebranded; it was previously called “VERMONT SUGAR FREE Low Calorie Syrup”, which always cracked me up because absolutely nothing in the bottle was once part of a maple tree, making its Vermont provenance utterly irrelevant. Anyway, two of these waffles, nonfat milk, and maybe some orange juice and/or bacon allow me to indulge in the classic American breakfast without too much classic American fat, calories, or sugar, and as long as I eat some real food (fruits/veggies) later in the day and work out a bit, I’ll usually stay healthy.
Any 1960 Cadillac, especially a convertible, is an obvious and universally-recognized classic, and an interesting one because it’s not quite as iconic as the ’59, but still over-the-top compared to just about any other car, including other Cadillacs. There are some aspects of the ’60 design I like better. like the smoother tail fins with built-in taillights rather than the ’59’s jet pods, but the stacked round lower lights never worked for me as well as the ’59 design. The ’60 GM lineup was likely the first done under Bill Mitchell’s tutelage, and he clearly gave his staff a “tone it down” edict. But being a facelift year there was only so much that could be done, so there would be one last year of space-race rocket-inspired exuberance before the more rational, sobering ’61 full-sizers with their tidier styling and proportions took over. The ’59s and ’60s were too big, too inefficient, too impractical, and awesome because of it.
I just finished eating lunch at work on my break, and reading your first paragraph made me hungry for a good, vacation-style breakfast all over again! I mean, with the cinnamon, too?? What is not to love about that?
“…And awesome because of it.” 👈 This.
Ohhhhh….now I want to go seek out one of those breakfasts. Fortunately, as you’ve discovered, they’ve not vanished entirely (and that’s putting Denny’s aside altogether); and where you can find them at local places, they always seem to be offered “all day”. It occurs to me that this is probably exactly due originally to the fact that they were offered at places that catered to shift workers where “breakfast” might be almost any time of the day. Now, it’s probably more out of tradition or maybe some notion that one should get their body running before loading it up with all of that food.
Yet, I still want one. All the better one on a road trip such as the one you describe.
Terrific analogy to the Cadillac. Nothing stands in for a Cadillac of this era, no matter how good I suppose it is that they are in fact as rare now as they are.
Thanks, Jeff! Speaking of Denny’s, one of the things I had most looked forward to doing with my new-ish AARP card was eating at Denny’s and using that discount. Alas, it hasn’t happened yet, but hopefully I’ll be traveling somewhere with a Denny’s and will be able to bust out that card and get what’s coming to me!
Sadly Denny’s has decided that grease and oil should be a significant part of every meal .
I’m loving these comments and I think tomorrow I’ll break my rule and have eggs and a slab of ham or maybe corned beef hash……=8-) .
-Nate
Ah, that kind of breakfast. I remember a time when I could eat that kind of thing every day. But being a 1960 model myself, and after major heart surgery last summer, I’ve come to realize what the phrase ‘everything in moderation’ means (my cardiologist’s words). Thankfully, I’m not stuck eating bland food, as my lovely wife knows how to bring the flavor to a health diet. Since she switched to a Mediterranean menu, we are both eating healthy, but enjoying these new-to-us flavors. Good stuff!
Now having said that, when over this past weekend, I had brunch with my parents in the retirement community to where they moved this past spring, my choice was breakfast, and not too dissimilar from the featured breakfast! Looks like it’s back to Chicken Shawarma for me, for now… 😉
Regarding the ’60 Caddy, this is one of my favorite vintages. While still ostentatious, it was a refreshing toning down that was needed after the overwrought ’58 Caddy, and the wild and crazy ’59. This much more understated look was a big improvement, IMHO.
As always, Joe… Nice to see you here on a Tuesday in your old time-slot!
Rick, thank you, and also good on you for making the necessary adjustments based on what it sounds like your doctor said. I should be clear that if my own physician had told me that under no circumstances should I eat like this, I’d follow that advice, but for now, I’m letting myself have a breakfast like this every once in a while. Like you, though, I have learned to substitute new-to-me and great things for other things I may no longer have. I think thankfulness is the key to so much.
I agree with some that the ’59 Cadillac was doing entirely too much visually, but that’s actually a huge part of its appeal for me. The ’60 seems to retain much of the over-the-top-ness, but somehow more tasteful. I dig it. I dig them all.
I rode in a few 1959-60 Cadillacs back in the day. Other than maybe the four door sedans, they have the interior room of a Chevy but with a whole lot more car around it. The two door hardtop back seat had one of the worst passenger room/car size ratios in history (besides the head-baking rear window). Still awesome in their own way, of course. But at least the also huge 1958-60 Lincolns had their own body with acres of space inside.
You make a practical argument for the boxier, reverse-slant-window roofline of the same-era Lincoln Continental in terms of rear-seat comfort in closed models. All that glass in the Caddy’s backlight is pretty to look at, but you mentioned “baking” back there, and I could totally imagine that sensation.
Aesthetics are different, though, and in terms of style and though I can find things to like about both the Cadillac and the Lincoln, it’s the former for me.
A nice meandering no pressure road trip, that’s the dream. As you mentioned, it’s interesting to take one and realize that others are in the usual workday week grind. It makes it just that much more satisfying. Since I’m retired, every day is kinda like a vacation, Summer is a busy time for my Wife and I. So far we’ve taken trips to Oregon, Washington State, and Reno. Coming up are Pismo Beach and Windsor. With lots of shorter runs.
Those big old Cadillacs were pretty good road trippers in their time. I miss those old land yachts. Current large luxury SUVs, like my old Navigator, carry on that same opulent style of motoring. It’s one way to relive that era.
Jose, I think it’s so great that you and your wife are traveling in retirement. That’s also goals for me, eventually whenever that is.
I also think I did it right by padding the arrival times (for the most part) at my various Michigan destination points by a little bit of time in order to be able to make little stops to photograph things or whatever else. I did cut my arrival times s little close a few times, but as I like to say here, everything happens or doesn’t happen the way it’s supposed to.
Breakfasts like that are great on cccasion! Here in Charlottesville, Virginia we have a place that serves breakfast all day plus lots of other reasonably priced culinary delights. It was established in 1951, and if memory serves, it’s the 2nd oldest continuously operating restaurant in town.
Nice find also with the ’60 Cadillac! I prefer it over the ’59 with the modestly toned down styling, but it retains the fantastic 1959-60 GM wraparound windshield, a testament to Harley Earl’s design sense!
Just the thought of breakfast served all day makes me happy! Even when I see a specific IHOP on the north side, I can just imagine the aroma of hot coffee, pancakes, and syrup that must be on the inside. Breakfast and travel seems to go hand-in-hand, and I love that association.
Funny comments about the big American breakfast, add mushrooms, tomatoes, black (blood) pudding, beans, toast or fried bread, big mug of tea, lose the pancakes and you have a regular “full English” served by cafes the length and breadth of the kingdom, the staple breakfast of those who work outdoors and need the calories.
When I work on client site and stay over, I love to start the day with a full English, it really sets you up for the day, I feel hungry for one now
Actually, now, so do I. Except for the blood pudding. I’d probably try it once… and end up liking it. I ate some things in my father’s native Liberia that year we all spent there. I may end up including some of that in an essay here one day.
Back in the early 1970’s I bought a Black 1960 Caddy series 62 convertible for $150.00 – drove it for 5 years and had a “LOT” of fun doing it!!!!!!!
Even adjusted for inflation, $150 (in ’72 would = $1,200 today) seems like an incredible bargain! Let the good times roll!
This article resonates strongly to me, an aging Boomer .
Thank you for the many thoughts you included .
This is a fine old Caddy survivor, I hope it lasts many decades to come .
I agree, seeing American Land Barges is a thing I seriously miss .
I’ve owned a few but only because they were dirt cheap at the time .
I actually briefly owned a 1959 Caddy rag top, it needed a radiator and had every option mentioned in the sales blurb you added, maybe it was the top of the line, who knows ? .
It was free and the radiator co$t $150 way back then in the 1970’s, shortly before old caddies became valuable .
I let the L.A.P.D. tow it away on street sweeping day .
I too like little local diners, they’re becoming extinct one by one, when traveling I always look for government or tradesman trucks in the morning, if there’s a bunch I know where breakfast will be .
My Sweet often comments on why I have a salad for breakfast, I pine for that “Lumberjack Special” but I’m too darn fat now and need to eat less crap .
-Nate
It definitely seems like a truth that many vehicles which are underappreciated by a certain point past their prime will eventually be appreciated, including your example of the Caddy you had towed away. In fact, I think this is a tenet of his very site.
I love all meals, but there’s something special and nostalgic about a hearty breakfast.
I never really cared for Denny`s. I always looked for a Shoney`s instead. Good pancakes, decent sausage patties, hash browns,dry cereals or oatmeal, Also good cornmeal and bran muffins, fruit bowls and good coffee. An 11 AM or so meal held me all day and I generally would do a ‘late’ dinner at about 7.30 to 8.00 pm. Unfortunately my Type ll diabetes kind of put a limit on what I could eat, but since I lost about 40 pounds over the last 3-4 years, who`s complaining?
I can’t recall ever having eaten at a Shoney’s, but what I can say is that this chain seems to have been a southern thing. I don’t remember Shoney’s even being on my radar until I had lived in Florida. I do love Denny’s though. Congrats on your weight loss, BTW – that’s impressive. I like when life has a way of rewarding our good choices, even when they’re somewhat forced on us.