For the past several years, the arrival of fall has meant that the Food Network returns to regular rotation among my favorite cable channels, with all of their seasonal baking contests. It’s not that hard to deconstruct this in my own mind. The year’s fourth quarter will bring two food-centric holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas), beach days are over, and Food Network remains up there with Golden Girls reruns on the scale of soothing TV programming. I generally have to watch my intake of sweets based on genetics, but when dietary cheat day rolls around, I definitely treat myself. Perhaps with the prospect of holiday-themed baked goods on the brain, one of the first things I had thought of when I had spotted this ’84 Seville a few weeks ago was raspberry torte.
I’ve never been a baker. The extent of my oven use was the occasional cooking sheet of Nestle Toll House cookies or a pan of brownies. I haven’t done that for years, probably since college close to twenty-five years ago. I hadn’t even heard of a “torte” until freshman year, when one of the guys on my dorm floor attempted to make something called “Alexander Torte” using the oven in the shared kitchen. I remember him expressing that it hadn’t quite turned out the way it was supposed to, but I’m sure he has had the last laugh with the hot spouse and great career. With all of that said, I still didn’t know the difference between a torte and a cake when I wrote this and had to look it up.
Apparently, a torte is richer and denser than cake, light on the flour and often with ground nuts substituted in. It also generally has more layers than cake, with fillings that include mousse, buttercream, jams, or fruit. Torte sounds like cake taken to the next level of caloric concentration, with even more elements and thickness packed into every slice. This is all consistent with the ’84 Seville. If a regular, midsized luxury car of the mid-1980s was cake, the Seville was the torte, taking out regular ingredients like a conventional, three-box profile (the “flour”) and adding in every extra thing Cadillac could mix into its batter and slather between its tiers.
There were different treatments up top like the full cabriolet roof we see here (which were offered from the factory), that inimitable rear styling and droopy side profile, and questionable powertrains that included both a 350 Diesel V8 that came standard from this generation’s first two model years (1980 and ’81) and also a V-8-6-4 variable displacement engine that was, well, less than robust and reliable. And don’t forget those wire wheel covers. This ’84 Seville is even shaped a little like a dessert, like some sort of French pastry as viewed in direct profile.
“Torte” as the name of a dessert has often confused me, as the other thing that comes to mind is how similar it is to “tort”. I don’t know anything about legal concepts like tort, even if I had watched my share of The People’s Court when I was growing up. All I know is that tort always sounded like something bad or implying fault, being the French word for “wrong”. A partial definition I found online states that a “tort is an act or omission that gives rise to injury or harm to another.”
One could look at this Seville and see the omission of the silhouette of a proper-looking trunk to be wrong and an injury to one’s taste, the epitome of “negligent styling” on a car of its class and high price point. Consumers liked them, though, purchasing only a few examples shy of 40,000 of them in ’84, its fifth model year. By then, the base engine was the fuel-injected, 4.1 liter HT4100 aluminum V8 with 135 horsepower, with the 105-hp Diesel 350 still on the options list.
1984 Cadillac Seville print ad, as sourced from the internet.
As Cadillac’s most-expensive, non-limousine offering for ’84, its base price of about $22,500 translates to about $66,400 today (the dollar goes about a third as far in 2023 than in ’84). As far as the color of the this example, I couldn’t find anything on the Cadillac paint charts that quite resembles the raspberry jam-like hue that we see here, though Light Maple Metallic might be the closest. Cadillac was big on the “maple”-themed colors that year, with Crimson Maple Metallic and Autumn Maple Metallic also being available. (Somebody pass me the syrup… I feel like I need some pancakes right now.)
I’ll be clear… this isn’t my all-time favorite look on a Cadillac, and yet it is still compelling and attractive to me in its own, distinctive way. The ’80s were known for excess, and the popularity of these Seville flagships in their day (with the similarly bustle-backed ’84 Lincoln Continental selling about 75% of the Seville’s number) certainly make a case for a nice, new example being like a “torte” in the refrigerated, glass display case of the local Cadillac dealership. Or of “tort”, depending on how you feel about the styling. In any case, they were rich-looking and worthy of the metaphor of your choice.
Magnificent Mile District, Chicago, Illinois.
Thursday, September 21, 2023.
Simply love the 1980-85 Cadillac Seville, it’s unique bustle-back styling in my opinion, sets it apart from all other conventional rear end Cadillacs of the 1980s. Regardless of your opinion of this styling you have to agree, that like the tail fins on a ‘59 Cadillac or ‘59 Chevrolet, this was expressive styling that we sadly no longer see. Todays car buyers are satisfied with square shoe boxes called SUVs.
Yes, the few 1980-85 Sevilles that survive in original form, will my opinion become collectable classics within the next decade.
You make a great point about the anonymity of today’s luxury vehicles. There is (or was / has been) a very nice, two-tone example in my neighborhood that I was able to photograph and feature here about five years ago.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/in-motion-classic/in-motion-outtakes-1980-cadillac-seville-tan-lines/
Boing!
And there it is, that odd moment when a car long-detested suddenly mellows into something likeable. It’s not that the dear Seville will ever be a beauty – from pompous grille to incongruous Manx-butt, it can never be – but its very flamboyance suddenly coheres to me. It’s an expensive US car of its time, and, faux-convertible roof, faux-’30’s rear, faux-wires (and faux-performance diesel), it SHOULD look just like it does. Maybe being coated in raspberry did it for me: ironic, because till just now, I’d be blowing a raspberry AT it.
I baked, as a kid. My poor family had to eat my earnestly-produced productions, which were inevitably from the sickly-sweet end of the cake spectrum – I WAS a kid – and politely offer words of praise, shortly before no doubt coming close to a coma from the ill-effects.
Tortious tortes, really, if served to an unsuspecting public. Like this Caddy once was, and was (but is this day personally forgiven).
I love that your family was game and ate your culinary creations. I’m sure they were great and much better than I might have concocted that that age.
I also agree that this Seville is now at the age that its extra-ness now works for it instead of against it.
Looking at this Seville, one can almost imagine the goings-on in the design studio…the front possesses a certain Cadillac ambiance, the doors integrate well into the front, then, well, it’s almost like “Hey, Irv, this sum-buck is getting to be too long – just want to chop the back and foist it off as some design language baloney?”. The final result has a certain AMC Gremlin vibe to it that just does not work. That is tort at its finest.
The aftermarket grille on this example isn’t a flattering look. Nor is the roof covering.
Despite that, for whatever reason I do like these cars. Perhaps it is due to the tenacity GM displayed in releasing a car that was so out of the norm in appearance. When was the last time GM did that, Aztec aside?
My in-laws had an ’83 Seville when I first started coming around. It was right at ten years old at the time. I drove it once, making it the first Cadillac I can remember driving. It was rapidly showing its age but they also got 177,000 miles out of that 4.1 liter engine.
I must respectfully disagree with a prior comment about these becoming collectable. This example is 40 years old; if these Sevilles were ever going to be collectable, such would have been happening by now. Rather, I submit these will be a footnote in GM history, gaining that place due solely to the bad judgment displayed when designing the ass-end of this thing.
Joe, this was a delightful find.
I’m thinking that in that design studio, someone must have ordered pizza that day. They saw the triangle shapes, and were completely immersed in the pepperoni ambiance. They held a slice up to the design board and boom – the line was traced!
Were they “hangry” after being held late in the studio until meeting a certain deadline? “Nobody leaves until we lock this part down…”
Thanks, Jason! It was your comment and another one further down that had me covering the rear third of this car with my thumb and envisioning a longer, more conventional side profile. To balance the design with a longer rear end, and to your hypothetical boardroom scenario, it would have made the design significantly longer, to where it might have been encroaching on downsized DeVille territory?
Honestly, I would like to think that more desirable versions of these will become collectible, but that’s probably also because I think no car should be unloved. Cash For Clunkers shattered my heart in certain, completely nonpolitical ways…
These Sevilles seemed to attract diverse clientele: the early bird dinner special folks, up and coming sales “professionals’ who favored white dress shoes and adjustamatic slacks that would only consider an American ride, and pinky ring wearing members of a large social organization that never existed.
Personally I think the Fox body Continental got the look right but the Caddy was tackier and thus appealed more to certain folks. These were the early retroclassics before it was such a huge thing and I respect both cars for taking a more daring design path especially from such conservative divisions. I loathed this Seville as a kid but I’d happily have one now (even this color or even a Mary Kay.)
In 82 they got the best factory optional sound systems for their time by Bose the same year the HT4100 came out. Very GMish. They also deleted the chromed vents and other interior details. I gb recall the no cost optional Buick 4.1 V6 four barrel had the same hp as the HT4100 with slightly more torque and better mpg..
Thank you for this. I do wonder how many takers there were for the Bui-llac, and if I might have been tempted to go that route myself if I was in the market for a new Slantback.
A very apt analogy. These bustleback sedans seem to me to be an attempt at something fancier (than conventional cake), but the end result is just a bit too much and ultimately unnecessary. Still, these Sevilles, from the first couple of years of my entry into the post-college job market, when the idea of any new car was pretty much a fantasy (well, I suppose that 40 years later that part is still true), were amusing to look at.
I still find the design and conceit humorous.
Thanks, Jeff. What continues to fascinate me about these cars is how consistently well they sold for such an extreme exterior design.
Call me crazy, but I’m a sucker for each of the big three’s early eighties bustlebacks. The Caddy, though, would be a distant second to the rarest and prettiest (and biggest POS) of the bunch – the Imperial.
And yes, I like Gremlins and aero deck 442s as well.
While I never really liked the styling of any of the bustlebacks, the vague warmed-over Ford LTD ll-like look of the Imperial, turned me off them fairly quickly. Their resemblance to the unappealing and contrived late ’70s Ford, itself a refresh of the overstyled Gran Torino, had me thinking it was something Iacocca may have orchestrated.
Wow! Looking at this image, it occurs to me that if I put my thumb over the side character line on the Imperial, it suddenly becomes less of a bustleback and more of a conventional coupe with a really high-set trunk. This is in contrast to the Cadillac (and Lincoln), which both have genuinely sloping tails. With the Imperial, it’s all about that character line on the side.
I had also never associated the Imperial the LTD II (in profile), but I must begrudgingly agree ever so slightly with you there.
Perhaps, we can refer to the ’81 Imperial, as the ‘Hustleback’. Another Iacocca hustle. 😉
Agree with all of this. The bustleback Imperial is a genuinely good-looking car to my taste. I have a die cast, 1:24-scale Gremlin X on the desk at which I type these essays. And I also have a soft spot for the Olds and Buick Aerobacks.
Since you opened today’s story by mentioning the Food Network, I can also recommend the New Scandinavian Cooking Show on PBS. Very entertaining and informative. All cooking takes place outdoors in Norway. Being of Norwegian descent myself this show is especially interesting, but anyone interested in food will enjoy watching it.
John, thank you for mentioning this, and I think I need to check this out. I enjoy watching the art of food preparation. I can’t explain it fully, but it’s comforting!
Your articles are a Tuesday highlight. Unique find, of one of the more controversial cars of the time.
I recall as a kid, liking the first gen Seville’s design. Another car I liked during that era, was the new for 1976, Aston Martin Lagonda. I thought it looked even more stunning, and futuristic. I was admittedly disappointed in this 1930’s-inspired Seville style. Hoped at time, Cadillac would go more in the Lagonda direction, with the followup Seville. With a sleeker, chiselled look. And more European-inspired. If not nearly so exaggerated, as on the Aston Martin. Something, they eventually pursued in the early 1990s.
Thanks, Daniel! I’m trying to imagine an alt-world history where the Seville v2.0 had a wedgy, sexy profile like an Aston Martin Lagonda. I’m sure it wouldn’t have worked for the same reason that elevated-height vehicles are the norm today. Even now, I’m imagining me grabbing the A-pillar of this car to get up and out of it.
“If not nearly so exaggerated, as on the Aston Martin…”
Less vertically compressed profile, of course. Crisper, more European-influenced lines, is what I was hoping for. 1980 Ferrari Pinin would have been a world-class look for the ’80 Seville. Without turning off their more traditional customers. Like a more conventionally-proportioned Lagonda.
I remember excitedly awaiting the arrival of this car when I first read about it in 1979. As the youngest of three siblings, I usually was confined the the center rear seat position on family outings, meaning my legs were always straddling the driveline hump of our cars (all which had been RWD up to that point). All American cars (and most imports) from my birth through 1978 had RWD except the Eldorado and Toronado, both which had flat floors front and rear which made me think FWD was awesome – but what a waste putting it only on a pair of huge, expensive, inefficiently packaged coupes – just the absence of rear doors meant my parents would never buy one. The downsized ’79 E bodies (now including the Riviera as well) started making more sense – but they still were two-doors exclusively, and a bit too narrow for comfortable center seating despite bench seats front and rear. But they had the all-important flat floor, along with high-tech engineering like IRS. Then I learnt the Seville was moving to this basic FWD platform for 1980 – finally, a four-door FWD car from GM! I assumed it would look more or less like a four-door Eldorado, which is to say, quite attractive. Maybe I could convince my folks to buy a Caddy just to spare me the misery of having no legroom.
Then I found out how they looked. I liked, and still like, the car from the C pillar forward, and the interior is roomy, plush, and a very nice place to be. But that rear end… it wasn’t just ugly, it was inefficient, that sloped lid stealing trunk space (though there was still quite a bit thanks to the aforementioned IRS and being able to move the fuel tank under the rear seat). Not having the droopy butt emphasized by two-tone paint or that drooping silver trim strip (which is missing from this example except on the front fenders) helps de-emphasize the rear end, but only 1980 cars were available this way from the factory; ’81-85 cars all had the silver strip (as did ’80s if they had two-color paint). This may be the first car where I like the vinyl roof (which looks aftermarket to me, though I’m not sure if it is) because it draws my eye away from the bustleback. My first view of this car was in the preview section of Car and Driver, where the not-yet-revealed ’80 Seville was caught on the road wearing camo, a box built over the trunk lid that gave it a normal shape, which actually made the car look eons better, and would have increased luggage space too. Not to mention sales, which were never quite up to ’75-79 Seville levels. Forget aftermarket roofs and grilles; there would have been a thriving aftermarket for replacement trunk lid covers that made the Seville look normal.
I didn’t know about the fuel tank being under the rear seat, and as a boon to trunk space. I have always wondered why I haven’t read more gripes about the lack of trunk space in these Sevilles, and this may help explain it.
You also had me envisioning a fiberglass cap over the trunk to imitate the look of a conventional trunk… that was good for a chuckle. 🙂
I wonder whether the hinges and latch mechanism would have been strong enough to hold such a cap? 🙂 Considering all the oddities and abominations the automotive aftermarket spawned, it’s surprising nobody thought of this.
” … questionable powertrains that included a 350 Diesel V8 … a V-8-6-4 variable displacement engine that was, well, less than robust and reliable …. and the fuel-injected, 4.1 liter HT4100 aluminum V8 with 135 horsepower… ”
Tort 1, Tort 2, and Tort 3.
In my parent’s later years my mother finally got her long desired Cadillac, a V-8-6-4 sitting on a Florida front lawn with a 4-sale sign in the windshield. They put the 5-speed 1982 Accord I gave them in 1983 into their garage and drove up to NJ in the Cadillac. My mother waxed eloquent about the ride and the status; standing slightly behind her my father shook his head, rolled his eyes, and shrugged his shoulders.
Later, he quietly told me the “Caddy” burned more than twice the gas as the Honda and could not get out of its own way. But, ” your mother loves it; she feels like she has finally arrived.”.
When I got into the “Caddy” and shut the door a piece of dash trim fell off. “Fred, that damn thing fell off the dashboard again; fix it right this time.”.
There was also a 4.1 Eldorado that I helped to maintain for an elderly widow in my church in the early 2000’s. After cleaning out a mouse nest in the carb-like EFI air filter, it ran as well as it could, which was weakly, very weakly. It lost all brakes when the brake lines rusted out on a hill with me driving and it had a steady electrical leak my mechanic could not find (hence the battery charger photo below).
The raspberry subject of this post may be an acquired taste, even if it takes years to acquire such a taste. That’s what some say makes the world go around.
But the available engines … all crimes, deadly sins, and Tort 1, Tort 2, and Tort 3.
Why did Cadillac mess up so much in the engine department /cough-Northstar-cough/?
GM pumped out engine families in the ’50s, often successfully. Every division got an overhead valve V8 engine family, or two, or possibly three. The Corvair engine was created from scratch. An aluminum V8 was well under way, and a V6 was spun off from that. The next worthwhile US GM engine may well have been the LS. The Pontiac Sprint 6 was interesting, but short lived. The Vega engine was a disaster. Chevette engines weren’t terrible, but they weren’t developed in Detroit either. Various OHC engines were attempted by Oldsmobile and Cadillac, to little good effect. Various ’50s V8s were scaled down and cut apart to produce disappointing attempts at meeting the engine needs of the ’80s. They’ve never really recovered from the complacency they developed in the ’60s. The Equinox is considered the worst car ever made by some people in the trade because of the engines used, and various Malibus have many of the same failings.
I think it would have taken people longer to abandon Cadillac if the 1980 Seville had styling evolved from the first generation and power from an injected Oldsmobile 403. There really was a pretty fine chassis sputtering around under that polarizing costume, one that would have made the first-generation Seville a complete game changer instead of a loyalty test to see who loved GM enough to claim it wasn’t a luxurious Nova.
> The next worthwhile US GM engine may well have been the LS.
I’d go with the Buick 231/3800, although it took awhile to become worthwhile.
Speaking of which, wasn’t this engine briefly available in the Seville alongside the rogue’s gallery of V8s?
The Buick 231 was actually developed along with the aluminum V8 in the late ’50s and early ’60s, although it was certainly improved while GM could do little right with its other engines in the ’80s.
Your mother’s perception of her and your dad’s Cadillac was her reality of it. That was the residual glow of the Cadillac name and its perception as a quality car, even by that time. I like how it sounds that your dad had just let her have that, even if he had to re-fix that piece of trim that kept coming off.
Tying in your Food Network idea… written with apologies to the TV Show “Chopped”…
Ted Allen: “Chef Cadillac, you have been Chopped. Judges?”
IRON CHEF Geoffrey Zakarian: “Chef Cadillac, while your raspberry coloring was delightful, your over the top use of old luxury car styling cues like the Rolls Royce grille and the faux convertible vinyl roof resulted in a design that is not very cohesive. Add to that the questionable engine choices, and the fact that the use of a bustle back for the trunk was a seriously bad attempt at Torte Reform, it is for these reasons you are being Chopped today.”
This made me laugh. An entire CC post could be fashioned from this idea.
I knew tortes. I ate lots of real tortes as a kid in Austria. Seville, you’re no torte.
You’re this:
Aw, c’mon Paul… Raspberry Zingers are AWESOME. They are the Ultimate Twinkie!
The most successful use of the Zinger as a zinger I have ever seen! Still laughing.
How did miss picking some of these up at Target after work today? A missed opportunity. I wonder if Aldi makes an equivalent…
Aldi has great imitation Girl Scout cookies, especially their version of thin mints and Tagalongs in some regions, the chocolate-coated peanut butter ones.
This is the first time I’ve even heard of Zingers.
Talk about a car that I hated the looks of when I first saw it in pictures. As a kid, I think I actually cried. Then I saw one in person and it grew on me very quickly. The thing with these, for me at least, was that they looked the best with No fake tops and the standard grille instead of those big ugly wanna-be RR grilles. They also looked best in the stunning two-tone paint options that gracefully accented the lines of the car. These thing rode very well, were really quiet and no matter which engine you had they would cruise at highway speeds all day long with grace. The V864 was a great engine without the variable displacement. Just unplug the thing and you were good to go. The diesel was good as long as you got a 1981 or newer. The HT4100 was one to avoid in the 1982/83 years, but was greatly improved by 1984. Just don’t plan to sprint to 60 in anything but leisure. Personally, I’d love to find a well pampered 1984/1985 Elegante in black/gray with the diesel. To each their own I guess.
I like that the car had initially provoked such a strong emotional response because you disliked it so much. I have seen beautiful examples in various two-tone combinations. I remember even my grandmother commenting when I was kid about how unattractive she found these. I liked and respected her a lot, so I’m sure that had something to do with my early perception of these Sevilles.
I have an odd fascination for longitude-transaxle FWD-based vehicles. And this (along with the related Eldorado, Riviera and Toronado) was the final gasp of GM’s Unified Powerplant Package, in which the transmission bell-housing wrapped around the engine and was aimed toward the front of the car, with essentially a reversed gearset. That this was carried forward the K-body designation was a distinction without a difference; it was mostly mechanically and structurally identical to the E-body coupes. I would even argue it’s a sort of proto-four-door coupe.
I’ve never loved the bustleback Seville, but I’ve come to respect it as a daring and cohesive design and exuded, if nothing else, luxury and garishness. Contrast that with its successor (the 1986-1991 Seville), whose milquetoast lines, insubstantial C-pillars, slab surfaces and diminutive wheelbase was *no one’s* idea of a luxury car. Our own Mister Niedermeyer has roundly criticized that car, having experienced it when it was new.
I’m all-in with your idea of these pioneering the concept of the four-door coupe – that’s brilliant. And I also agree that what followed definitely didn’t have the same impact, even if (or because) it was conventionally styled. I’d take an ’85 over an ’86 all day.
I am struggling with the torte analogy – a torte is usually considered as a “high end” dessert, made with expensive ingredients and decadently delicious. I am not sure that a torte, thought of in this way, at least, works with this car. If the roof covering had been white, this would have been a red velvet cake for sure. One from boxes bought off the shelf.
The tort analogy works better, because some of the earlier engines generated some real legal problems, whether or not those suits were strictly in tort or not. I remember being taught that a tort is “a civil wrong”. On at least some levels, this entire car qualifies.
I am finding, as some other comments above note, that I do not hate these like I once did. But I do not really like them either.
Red velvet cake! I do not doubt that if the top had been white, that’s where my mind might have gone when formulating my essay idea in my head. And I wasn’t baiting the attorney by mentioning “tort”, but I was really curious to see if you were going to say something in the comments!
Can an automotive toupee (vinyl roof), be described as a car’s raspberry beret?
It’s not the polarizing looks that makes me dislike these most. The 1984 Seville ad says, “Elegant, Distinctive. Superbly crafted.” As the most economical Toyotas routinely rated higher with owners than Cadillacs, in early 80s Popular Mechanics Annual Owner Surveys.
Of the twelve domestic and imported cars Popular Mechanics chose to conduct their PM Owner Surveys for the 1981 MY, the Starlet was the most popular choice of owners, when asked if they would buy another. The Starlet winning more honors than any other car, in the new car evaluation. Ahead of the Sedan de Ville.
Oh, no – for some reason, the video isn’t available in the U.S. It might have something to do with Prince’s estate and videos. On YouTube for years, his output wasn’t available on YouTube here in the States.
The little, robust, RWD Toyota Starlet outranked some Cadillacs on that survey. That’s telling, for sure, in many ways.
Interesting, that the music and video, is fully playable here in the Great White North. Usually, such artist/record company bans affect both countries simultaneously.
Toyota regularly showed up all domestic competitors during that era. Though, I do recall the Imperial doing very well in initial owner satisfaction. The FS Edition, and its Frank Sinatra cassette tape collection, may have helped. 😉
Sinatra himself famously had an unreliable bustleback Imperial with malfunctioning pseudo-fuel injection; I’m not sure if it was traded in for the K car wagon he later drove or if there was a car between them.
I loved Cadillacs since a small boy , and rode in 58 – 70.
They fascinated & smart kids, I hung out with did too.
I remember seeing a black & white blurry picture of the 80 Seville in an. AP photo in the local paper, and was excited.
These Cadillacs sold well.
They stood out , and that was the Cadillac way .
Leadership , and controversy.
The engines awful.
But one must remember, the context of the era , they existed in.
Recession, inflation, high interest rates ; twilight of Cold War , malaise .
Cadillac had the courage to try something different.
Lead ; not follow.
The Imperial & Continental, which came along : ” Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery ” , proves they had some success!
They definitely stood out, and it’s a great point that you make about the context of the time period in which they were produced. A shame about the engines.
I still can’t stand these. Bill Mitchell kept pushing the Hooper-body Rolls thing long past its sell-by date (and its finest expression — the 1963–65 Riviera — had already come and gone), and it utterly squandered any credibility the Seville had as an “import fighter.” It’s distinctive, but so is wearing a propeller beanie.
As for the engines, it ends up seeming like evidence that the old strategy of letting each division design and manufacture most of its own engines was no longer tenable in the era of CAFE and emissions standards.
I look at the second-generation cars, and almost totally forget with all of its flamboyance that the Seville’s initial mission was to fight imported luxury cars.
I would never refer to the second Gen Seville as beautiful. Dramatic, or striking would be my choice of adjectives. Interesting would also be a choice. The original Riviera’s roof line was supposedly based on an impression that Bill Mitchell got of the rear of a Hooper bodied Rolls Royce “shrouded in the fog.” I guess that the fog hadn’t cleared when this Seville was under development!
The rear end treatment is derivative of Wayne Kady’s design for the proposed Cadillac V16. The bustle back was first tried on the ’74 Riviera, as a way to bleach the eyes after the previous boat tail design.
I think that after the styling of the original “sheer look” Seville was applied to almost every four door sedan in GM’s line up, that something else was needed for the corporate flagship. If the Seville had a conventional deck and quarter panels, it would look too much like GM’s lower priced sedans.
God bless Bill Mitchell and GM, for bringing this Cadillac and other polarizing designs to market. Obviously, designs like the Boat tail Riviera, Bustle Back Seville and the final Aquatic Riviera were never going to be big sellers, but GM just didn’t care! They knew that they had the money to keep the machinery running regardless of the popularity of these designs, at least for the time being! Chalk it up to corporate narcissism or hubris but cars like these can never be described as boring.
Wow. I hadn’t even thought that maybe the original Seville’s design language, having been spread among so many of GM’s lesser products, wouldn’t have been as effective to continue on the second-generation cars. That’s a valid point and something I hadn’t even considered.
I also didn’t think about the 1974 – ’76 Buick Riviera’s revised rear as having been a kind of trial balloon for the upcoming ’80 Seville’s rear deck. I totally see this, and thanks for pointing that out.
The 1986 Seville was to some extent a return to the original’s design language, and that’s part of the reason it bombed. By ’86, a whole slew of cheaper GM cars like the A and N body sedans had the same look (as did several Iacocca-era Mopars, and in some cases had it for several years by that time.
A strange car, in a strange colour.
I grew up on the fringes of a very cosmopolitan, very European part of Melbourne. We lived in the low-rent adjoining suburb, and we’d do our shopping at one end of Acland Street, but further down the block were all these cake shops with such rich-looking and unfamiliar offerings – Justy knows – not at all like what Auntie Merle brought home from the country bakery where she worked.
Identifiable as cakes, but unfamilar.
And way out of our price range.
Your opening photo seems to accentuate the odd proportions of this Cadillac – that long classic-American front end, the normally-proportioned interior with those really neat unframed windows, like a four-door coupe thirty years early – then it gets chopped off like a Gremlin.
Do I hear screams?
Okay, not ‘quite’ like a Gremlin. There has been some attempt to integrate the shape with the down-curving banana-esque beltline, ending in the sweep pressed into the rear fender, but just considering the silhouette, it looks odd.
Rich, but odd.
A car, but not as we know it.
“Rich, but odd” – Is it the “Auntie Mame” of cars? LOL I think I like it more now.
Yes, four-door coupe works, as Kyree had also opined above. Frameless door glass can make or break the cohesiveness of a design. I can only imagine if the Fox Mustang had frameless door glass like on the prototypes versus what we actually got. That really made a difference, but I do like the Fox, for the record.
It’s the one clear advantage our Buick and Olds Aerobacks coupes of the late ’70s had over four-door versions of those same cars – the frameless door glass made a huge difference.
Probably was “shiny when new”. Still, it’s just not an inviting looking car.
Think the only “Seville” I ever rode in was the “body style”, prior to this “odd back” one.
I remember being surprised at loud the fan for the “a/c” was.