Cream puff: A classic French dessert consisting of a light, crisp and airy hollow shell filled with whipped cream or ice cream. Hardly the way to describe a car. Yet these tacky words were uttered to my dad by the salesman as we looked at a demo 1976 Cadillac Sedan DeVille.
As a teenager, I found another sales tactic very tacky; they had this car in the detail shop away from the brand new downsized 1977 Cadillacs. Maybe they really wanted to rid themselves of this dinosaur?
As I’ve told in earlier posts, Mom didn’t drive. So Dad generally figured he could drive one top shelf model since he didn’t have to buy her a car. But Mom was a simple lady and didn’t like his choice in cars. Although she had other reasons. This time, he was trading his 1974 Mark IV after the passenger door knocked Mom down, flat on her back. In my dad’s normal way, instead of going around to help her, he simply asked, “Tody, what the hell are you doing down there?” Mom was no amused and told him he had one week to be rid of that car.
As usual, even though Mom talked to him about a Chevy or a Ford, Dad went for the high end. It came back to bite him!
Back at the dealer, Dad and I took the dark blue sedan for a drive. He liked it; I wasn’t impressed. After all, his last Cadillac (a 1970 Calais I’ve written about) had been just horrible.
He went home and I told Mom what he was buying; oh boy, there was some yelling! I went outside to mow the lawn!
Regardless, Monday he arrived home with the DeVille. After the first week, issues cropped up; first, a dead battery. The first time, it died in our driveway. He had it towed to the dealer, where they found no problem.
The second time, he was showing a home (he was a builder and realtor). They came out, quite interested in buying the home he’d shown them, when the car wouldn’t start. He called a cab service for the client and called the dealer; he talked loudly and demanded that a car be sent out. They brought him a year older Fleetwood, and towed his for a second time. And once again, no issues were found.
The third time it failed to start, I told him that I had gone to school with the kids of the dealership owner. So he asked to speak to Daryl Sanders personally. This time, they put him in a brand new 1978 Cutlass Supreme Brougham! And Mr. Sanders said he wouldn’t call until they made the car fail. Mom was secretly laughing!
After two weeks, they found the issue. The positive post inside the battery was cracked through and would swing away from the bottom piece and not start. So, Mr. Sanders had a new battery, alternator and starter put on the car.
Two months later, we were on our way to Dad’s office when the DeVille lost engine power. He had his foot to the floor, but 35 was all it would do.
This time, the dealer found debris in the gas tank (they said potentially from the assembly line), and the carburetor needed a rebuild.
Dad kept that car for just one year; he was done with Cadillac. However, in a total 180, Dad asked me to pick out his next car. I knew what was acceptable to Mom, so we narrowed it down to a Bonneville, Caprice or Electra. He briefly talked about an Olds 98 diesel, but I talked him out of that by telling him that there was no track record. Bullet dodged!
He brought home sales brochures and I picked a standard Electra 225. To the standard equipment, he added tilt wheel, cruise, a/c, delay wipers and a cassette stereo. It was black over red and just beautiful. Best part, Mom was over the moon happy. She confided in me that to her, “Riding in those luxury cars up to church embarrassed her. She was raised on a farm and they were broke. She couldn’t support my dad’s call out for attention.”
The Electra 225 was a great car; I don’t recall a single issue with that car at all. The only time Dad showed any disappointment was when my uncle told him about GM now using different make engines in different cars. He found out our Buick had a Chevy 350.
After three years, the Buick that was supposed to be offered to me went back to the leasing company, and that’s when my dad changed. He looked at a Chevy Citation and asked me, “This is the best GM can do? It’s terrible!”
He came home with a really nice Toyota Corolla SR5, and from that point on, he never drove any other brand.
I know that there are people who really dislike the big, wasteful cars of yesterday, especially Cadillac and Lincoln. I took a lot of grief from friends at school about “being chauffeured to school.” I always thought my dad’s reason for wanting those cars was two fold:
First, his dad told him over and over that he’d never amount to anything. In fact, Dad put himself through OSU and graduated as an engineer and my horrible grandfather wouldn’t attend his graduation.
Secondly, I think he had a desire to reward himself for successfully coming home from the war.
I miss my dad. I got only 29 years with him.
Years later, he joked about that salesman. He said, “Chipper, if a salesman ever tells you a car is a cream puff, run away!”
This is a great story on multiple levels. Your father reminds me a lot of my own, who also had a thing for big expensive cars. My father liked them not so much for the cars themselves, but as a way to put forward an image of success in his business. And I have told the story of my own father’s 1970 Continental Mark III that had all kinds of problems in the 2 years he had it, even though it had been brand new when he got it.
This also reminds me that the dealer experience has not changed that much in a couple of generations. It can still be maddening when they cannot find an intermittent problem, and getting satisfaction is helped a lot when you have a contact with someone more important than the service writer.
Thank you sir. I let Rich know that while my blood clot episode is over, a heart blockage has occurred. I want to get some articles out here before they decide what they need to do!
It was actually pretty funny when mom got knocked down by that huge door, but I knew better than to laugh!
And mom, though she never drove, just couldn’t get behind spending so much for a car!
The dealer was really nice about the whole thing. Maybe my being friends with the owner’s son helped!!
Wishing you an excellent resolution and speedy recovery. Take care, Chip.
Thank you.
Chip, on April 1st my graft surgery (3 bypasses, all 3 major coronary arteries were 80 to 95% obstructed) will be one year old, and I’m as good as new. The very day the doctors decided on the surgery my last COAL run, though Rich wasn’t aware of my health issue because it was an emergency. Best of luck and keep up the spirits!
Oh my. You are a miracle.
Well my update came yesterday.
I had a bunch of blood drawn Thursday and the doctors are saying I have anemia pretty severe. They also said that they are concerned about kidney functions.
But you know, I’m like that old car that you want to get rid of but it just keeps running! And my attitude is very positive. So we shall see what’s next
Again, best of luck! Kidney issues run along with anemia sometimes, and usually close watching of the blood tests along with good treatment will keep you running very well. All you’ll need is a good mechanic to take care of the old carburettor. I think that, like me at 60, you are not of the age of EFI!!!! I’ll follow your health updates if you comment on them. Again, all my best wishes.
My grandfather only drove Ford compacts when growing up. A ‘64 Falcon 4 dr sedan, followed by a ‘71 Maverick 4 dr sedan; then after his youngest daughter left home (he gave her the Maverick), he got a ‘75 Granada coupe, and his last car was ‘79 Fairmont Futura coupe.
All the cars were mid-trim levels with straight sixes and automatics. Nothing flashy, but not too stodgy. Somehow he brought home the Maverick with a checkered vinyl roof. Granny, who didn’t drive and was conservative in style, accepted it as the car was beige. The Granada really tested her, being a 2 door, but Pop was the boss. He did however compromise. The car was silver with a maroon vinyl roof. At her request, he had it repainted to black; granny said that silver was too “sporty” looking fo people their age, about 60. Hahaha.
Mmmm, my aunt (dad’s sister) used to make big batches of cream puffs for the entire extended family on holiday get-togethers. With a chocolate fudge icing and vanilla custard filling. Soooooo good!!!
Enjoyed your article!
My grandma made cream puffs; grandpa drove them. (She also didn’t drive.). He had a business, so he leased a series of cars- Ford LTD; Mercury Grand Marquis in that dark green; then a lot of Lincoln Town Cars, at least four that I remember. His brother drove Cadillacs so maybe that’s why he went for Lincoln.
Bummer that beautiful Land Barge was flawed .
Dealers are so often not very good and fail to care once the car is sold .
-Nate
I agree, nice article and remembrance of your dad.
Here’s a thing about Cadillacs of the past (not sure if it still applies) they had the most amazing horns! I have a Honda CRV and it sounds like a clown car when I have to use the horn – the Cadillacs always sounded like the Queen Elizabeth coming in to port!
Don’t remind me. My recently purchased Toyota Corolla’s horn sounds like a fart cushion from the 1970s. I’m embarrassed to use the dang thing; it needs a set of air horns hidden under the bonnet. My hero horn was the one fitted to my ex military landrover that ran on 24volts. My goodness, people jumped in fright when that sounded.
One of my Dad’s Cadillacs had a long, straight horn mounted crosswise behind the grill. That was what made the difference over the standard Chevrolet horns in the normal places.
I do believe that was what the J.C. Whitney catalog was for. $20 and any car could sound like the QE 🙂
Robert, are you ever right about the CR-V horn. We have a 2023 and even if faced with an emergency, I’d be hesitant to honk. We really enjoy the CR_V. So great in so many ways, but that horn eeegads!
My friend still has his 1968 Coupe DeVille which we drove around lots when young. He was much more apt to honk its horn and we did. I can still hear it today.
Ah the things country kids get up to! My son grabbed a set of horns off a loco that was being scrapped at his work, and put them on a friend’s Nissan Patrol. I think said friend almost caused accidents due to people panicking at the loco somehow on the road behind them, and the police made him take them off.
Terrific story, I enjoyed it. We lived in an area where you could drive the nicest Ninety Eight or Electra and that was fine, but Cadillacs and Lincolns were a sign of getting too big for your britches and frowned upon. The wealthiest man I knew ordered big Oldsmobiles with as little exterior trim as possible, slick top, no body side mouldings and basic wheelcovers…with the nicest interior trim and every option inside, so he looked humble, from a distance. He also drove a green Studebaker pickup truck so he looked like a working man, but he had a barn full of them, all dark green with red wheels.
A lot has changed since the 80s though, conspicuous consumption is OK on the west side of Cincinnati now, even though there is still not a luxury car dealership within a 30 minute drive.
We stay at the Radisson in Covington facing the beautiful Cincinnati skyline!
My dad would have been better going back with a Caprice. He owned one in 1973 that he really liked and had no issues with it!
Cadillac Cadillac… You’ve arrived in STYLE, in your new CADILLAC. My dad bought his first new Cadillac in 1973. A Calais 2 door, from Parkway Motors in Montréal. The fuel crisis of 1973 was looming, but living in Canada, everything was already more expensive. The car proved a ‘lemon’, and he traded it for another 2 door, in 1975. I was surprised to recently discover that 2 doors far outsold 4 door Cadillacs. Playboy’s liked them I guess. Us 3 kids got used to folding the front seat forward. This dark blue Calais proved to be such a good Caddy, that when he bought a new 1980 Coupe de Ville, he kept the ’75 parked beside his office for a couple of years. I have four Cadillacs now. Two with the superior 5.7 (Olds) diesel! Here’ attached are a few of his Cadillacs. The Eldorado was stolen exactly 1 year after purchase. Montréal was the car theft capital of North America for decades. He replaced it with a blue ’85 Eldorado. The cam went flat in the 4.1 at 80k, he bought another in 1990, his last… miss ya Dad
The best part of this is that you own two diesels! I would enjoy having one!
There was an original 78 Oldsmobile 98 Regency listed locally here about a month ago. It had sat outside so it was rough but loaded. And it was a runner. Before I could make an offer, it was gone!
Here’s to the memories of our dads
As I have heard and said many times. No car is going to be better than the dealer servicing it.
I wasn’t aware that any Electra came with a Chevy 350, I’d suspect that it had Buick’s 350, as my ’78 Electra 225 and Dad’s ’77 Limited had. My later ’79 Electra had an Olds 403. Anyone aware of a Chevy V8 in an Electra, possibly due to the GM strike very early in the production year?
It was apparently rare, as the dealer told him. My uncle had bought a 77 LeSabre that was loaded with everything including the 403. GM sent him a letter about the Oldsmobile engine and gave him some small amount of money. I can say we had zero issues with that car. But I was glad dad decided against a stupid Citation!
None of that was the fault of Cadillac, just some bad luck, bad battery, maybe those service techs kept missing stuff. Anyway the Cadillac would be a far better car than the Buick with it’s terrible lubrication system
Well having lived with it i can only tell you that this particular car was a lemon. There were so many other issues- headlights that refused to come on, radio that was intermittent, things that made it very unreliable. I’m sure it was a rarity but so know that when it was traded the dealer sent it to auction.
The sad, all-too-common moral of the story is that when GM finally got on board with efficient FWD configuration, they did the initial X-body engineering in such a half-assed manner, The Pacific Rim was there waiting with open arms to fill the void. GM somewhat made amends with the improved A-body version, but the damage was done.
To this day, Toyota’s reputation endures to the extent that it’s enough to overcome a conservative, GM-like approach in failing to keep up with the latest tech. Still, from that perspective, I find little fault with someone choosing a base Corolla hybrid sedan as a very solid choice for a trouble-free ‘appliance’ car that will last for years.
In a heart beat, I would take the 1976 Cadillac Sedan DeVille over all the cars mentioned. A far superior car in every respect and GMs last four door pillarless hardtop. The downsize 1977 and later model Cadillacs had nothing on the pre 1976 full size genuine pillarless models.
Great piece, Chip. Your second reason as to why your dad wanted to drive Cadillacs is interesting to me, and I suspect that for his very specific generation, there were probably a lot of guys who felt the same way. Often though, those were the same guys who refused ever to buy Toyotas. Good for him for coming around eventually.
Interestingly when he bought his SR5, he told me,
” you know, I fought these SOB’s but they make a superior car. How can I fight that?”
That car went to 300k with minimal work. Then he had an 84 Corolla with a stupid add on package called St Croix.
It added a half vinyl top, Kmart wire wheel covers and little else. The conversion was done at the docks and they drilled through the body for the top.
It rusted through three times but Toyota fixed it. He kept that car only about one and half years before buying his final car, a Camry. When he passed away that car had 150,000 miles and we sold it to a neighbor in need. At 299,000 miles, the transmission went out and she traded it.
The thing about his 76 Cadillac is that he had owned a 1970 Calias that was bad as well. (I’ve written about it but the frame was slightly off causing ring and pinion bearings to fail.) Why buy another? Anyway, I do miss him
The picture third from the top in the article shows a Chevy tow truck with the name Lincoln on it. Based on the streetlights in the background, the building architecture and the name on the tow truck, it makes me think the picture was taken within the corporate limits of Chicago.
If my assumption is correct, a whole Curbside Classic article could be written about the infamous Lincoln Towing Service. Lincoln Towing is a legend unto itself. Very few, if any, Chicagoans have not heard about Lincoln Towing. While the Cadillac in the picture is by no means my favorite Cadillac, a car being towed by Lincoln did not necessarily mean there was a problem with the car. It also doesn’t mean the car was necessarily illegally parked. Lincoln Towing was legendary when I lived in Chicago.
Wow, you got me interested. Lincoln even has its own wiki;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Towing_Service
Might I suggest you write something up and submit. I can’t speak to whether it would be accepted and the editors would need to sift through it for legals if they did, but this is just the sort of story CC’ers would love.
Regarding your grandad’s deplorable behavior, you have to wonder what personal burdens/monsters he was dealing with to be such a jackass to his son. It certainly doesn’t excuse one iota of his deplorability of course.
An old flame and I visited a few weeks ago after not seeing each other for a number of years. She wasn’t having a pity-party, she was just discussing how her 20-year marriage soured (I can relate). What bothered her the most is the maniac her ex-husband turned into towards their tween daughter. He got remarried to his favorite bartender and had zero time for his kid.
Tween years are hard enough; rejection by a parent is a multiplier in the psychosis department. My friend was struggling with helping her daughter out of her spiral.
Sad to see or hear about, even from long ago.
Dave, you bring up a great point. My grandfather had the unfortunate habit of being a monster after his wife passed away (she was only 29 and my dad was 9). And, from what I was told as I never met him, he drank, subjected my dad to beatings, verbal abuse, bringing “ladies of the evening” into the house (with my dad present) and even forbidding my dad the opportunity to go and live with my grandmothers parents, who would have given him a much better environment to live in.
In all my life, I’ve never looked at someone who seems to be mean or angry without realizing that I don’t know what they’ve been through.
Great article that puts some real-life context to these cars.
I could see how a bad battery might slip through, but debris in the gas tank is pretty bad. Cadillac quality control was not what it used to be! I have thought that Caddy had some of the better quality in the 70’s among american brands, but that is probably damning with faint praise.
I wonder if that was some of my father’s motivation for his car choices. After the Marines and law school (which my grandparents supported) he bought one frugal car followed by several European near luxury cars. I suppose the Mercedes 250S and Volvo 164E were like Buicks compared to Cadillacs, although both drove better.
As for Cadillacs, in the 80s my wealthy great uncle replaced a Cadillac Sedan De Ville with a loaded Chevrolet Caprice. I,m not sure if it was because he figured out how similar the underlying car was or he was disgusted with new FWD De Ville.