Ever since my ‘88 Cadillac post, I couldn’t help but wonder what an ’85-’88 de Ville would have looked like with more Cadillac-like proportions. Most commenters felt that the space between the back of the front wheelwell and the front edge of the door was too short. With that in mind, I went to work. The final result of cutting and pasting Paul’s photo of the Tercel and Coupe de Ville is shown above.
Here’s the original photo for comparison’s sake.
Did I make it better or worse? I think it does improve the looks, and the pseudo-hardtop look on the modified version makes it look more like a luxury car.
Still too small for a Caddy? How about this Sedan de Ville with an even longer nose?
I decided to give it a try after posting this altered Seville with fender skirts on Mr. Tactful’s Seville article.
And just for fun, how about a long wheelbase hardtop Fifth Avenue? Yes, I like fender skirts on luxury cars.
Fender skirts help the Seville. The DeVille needs a hood strech actually between the wheel and the front door but then it would look like an actual RWD coupe not a FWD one.
I like the skirt on the 5th Ave but instead of streching the trunk I would have streched the rear passenger compartment about 6 in for more leg room… which brings me back to the argument of how I would have sold more Panthers during the models long run.
Crown Victorias stay on the standard 114 in wheelbase, Grand Marquis would ride on the wheelbase the Town Cars used here in the real world (117.3 in) for greater leg room and the Town Car would have used the Town Car L wheelbase (122 in) as standard. This would have provided differrentiation that would have justified purchasing one over the other. Imagine an alternate universe where that would have been the case from 1979 to 2011.
I redid the Fifth Avenue pic – see above. The one I did of the maroon car looked a little cartoony.
Hardtops never did anything for me… and now the padded landau roof looks like a roll bar 😛
“The DeVille needs a hood strech actually between the wheel and the front door but then it would look like an actual RWD coupe not a FWD one.”
Here’s your hood stretch:
Longer yet, please. Make room for a V16!
You both read my mind. Check out the Sedan de Ville I just added!
The world’s first (and doubtlessly only) FWD V-16?
Sorry, but the front-drive C-body coupes just look ridiculous no matter what you do to them, because they’re simply the sedans with two fewer doors. The FWD Eighty Eight/LeSabre coupes weren’t too bad since they had their own greenhouse.
The sensible move would have been to ditch the coupes with the ’85 downsizing and redirect customers to the sedans and the E-body Toronado/Riviera/Eldorado. That would have saved a few bucks, if nothing else.
I still think the Seville’s main character line needed to start plunging around the a-pillar or rear view mirror, and then clip the wheel well. Not that it would have been gorgeous, just better.
And the 5th Ave couldn’t lose its taxi-Volaspen roots without a lot more wheelbase. Really shoulda produced Burt Reynolds’s 4-door ’81 Imperial. 🙂
Agreed.
You should be stylist for Caddy. That’s a good looking Edloville.
The front wheel arch looks much much better The fender skirts work well on the Seville rear. My old eyes have trouble with detail, but it looks like you took the chrome trim all the way to the bumper. The bumper is blended into the car much better. The trim on the bottom edge of the skirts is still a little high at the front of the rear wheel arch. Disc type wheel covers (or ’50s Caddy “Sombraros”) would look better than those wheels. This is the Sevilledorado that Caddy should have built.
The Seville looks better with skirts indeed. Now it just needs them on the front too.
Here you go. The 1984 Nash Airflyte!
Bitchin’. I’d drive that!
Actually thats not bad
Next, you take the wheels off entirely and it becomes a Spacely Sprockets company car.
lol
AHAHAHAHA
Wish I still had a pc. There is a free shareware program called gimp. You can do this stuff with it all day long. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on macs, rendering me rather sol.
Paul, perhaps a contest is in the offing to see who can come up with the best car redesign of all time? The worst? Like, fixing any number of misshapen cars from GMs past.
First, its not free shareware, its . Secondly, it does run on Mac OS X! See: http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/. Third, you do realise an Intel Mac is just a PC in drag…
I bought my first mac 2 years ago. I like how it is an all in one design, and the backlit led screen is beautiful. Other than that, though, meh. So yes, I do realize that. However, I do love the iPad.
Huh? No GIMP for Macs? News to me…
I use GIMP on my Mac at home. Occasionally. I have Photoshop, so I don’t use it frequently.
GIMP on Mac runs on top of the X-11 shell.* It’s a little weird, as you have the Mac menu options and then within GIMP you have the Linux style menus and keyboard shortcuts. It’s a little odd, but manageable.
But GIMP runs fine that way. And with a few exceptions is an excellent substitute for Photoshop.
* I don’t know how the X-11 shell got it’s name, I’ve wondered if there was a X-car fan in the Linux community. I doubt it, as most of the hard core coders don’t seem to like cars. Just a thought.
I always figured the guy who drove it had a citation too (or maybe, if he was lucky, a citation II).
I coulda never figure out how to run it in x-11, gave up on it a long time ago. I do miss that program tho.
Citroen by Cadillac?
And the 5th has a certain Pontiac Parisienne air to it.
The problem with the 85 Cad isnt in the middle. Its the stubby rear more than anything else. Second to that is the scrunched in placement of the front wheels, an affliction of almost all fwd cars.
I’m sorry I missed this ‘chop fest. Dang…
How to add ‘Cadillacness’ to an 85-88 DeVille? Get an 89-93 body shell.
Mmmm… Rum… Photoshop… & Cadillacs…
I’m loving it! I’ve got the Photoshop skills, wish I had time to fool around with these too.