A lot of memories, with a bit of Cadillac thrown in.
In December of 1987 my Mom, Brother, and I were to reach the US mainland for the first time, after four days of bus riding through Guatemala and Mexico. The destination for our most unlikely trip was the city of New Orleans, and it was during our brief stay in the Big Easy that I enjoyed my only ride in a Cadillac ever. It was a nicely appointed ’86 Eldorado with a mauvish Quartz Firemist finish and chrome with gold accents. Not too different from this ’88 captured by canadiancatgreen at the Cohort.
If this whole setup sounds convoluted to you, it was. For starters, you’ll notice I’m taking some pains to mention ‘US mainland.’ With us being Puerto Ricans, we always considered ourselves Americans. One could start splitting hairs about how American Puerto Rico really is, but for all effects and purposes, it’s a US territory. Even the pro-independence movement admits it so; if not, why would they be fighting for independence?
But that doesn’t take away that the relationship between the US and Puerto Rico is a peculiar one. Through my time in the US, few Americans knew the island was a US territory. Then, while the island enjoys many of the material goods that come from being part of the US, it’s culturally very different. And with a half-ocean distance between the two places, it’s kind of hard to imagine what life in the ‘real’ USA is like.
Needless to say, the move to the US was a big deal for all of us. After living eleven years in El Salvador, we were not only going back to US land but to the MAINLAND. The equivalent of a Londinium resident reaching Rome back in 50AD.
How said trip came about was part of a cockamamie plan of Mom’s. With El Salvador going through a Civil War, she had long yearned to return to Puerto Rico. But moves aren’t easy, especially from nation to nation. Besides daunting aspects like getting a job, housing, etc. there was one formidable obstacle: her deep-seated dread of flying. A kind of difficult-to-avoid reality when returning to an island.
Instead of the obligatory flight, a far-fetched plot of moving to New Orleans was hatched. A relative of a friend of a Salvadorian friend (try to follow that) was to help us while Mom settled into a new life. Notice, we had never met these Salvadorians who were to accommodate us in New Orleans. It was all done through intermediaries and it all sounded beyond dubious. But who were we to argue with her? Dissent was near treason in her mind. And also, we were Catholics. Pointless penance was part of our existence.
The Guatemala – Mexico border.
So off we went. After 4 days of bus travel through nations not known for their safety, we reached our destination, the good ol’ USA. It was quite an adventure, and at some point, I’ll have to share it. But since there are no Cadillacs on that ride, we’ll skip that part of the ordeal.
I believe this next bit of the plot is the easiest to predict. A tired but undaunted Mom took us to meet the Salvadorian family that was supposed to ‘help us’ in New Orleans. Throughout the meeting, they couldn’t shake the startled look from their faces, even if remaining amiable all the way. They were obviously very hesitant to get involved with us. Whoever Mom talked to back in El Salvador, overestimated the willingness of their New Orleans relatives.
While Mom was disappointed, the Salvadorians made some obvious points: Mom’s English was limited, and she was an older woman with two jobless teens in a city she didn’t know. So, why not just go back to Puerto Rico?
I often read about how charming New Orleans is. Its rich history appears often in some of my hobbies, like my liking for early jazz. The trouble is, I never got to see any of that ‘loveliness’ or history. Instead, after our impromptu meeting the Salvadorian family took us to a basic motel and left us there for good. To this day, the 4 corners around that motel are all I know of the Big Easy. Granted, I got to know those corners very well. But that serves as poor compensation, and the gray images of the 7-Eleven we frequented work rather poorly when reading Anne Rice.
Between the idle hours in our room and going to the gas station to grab sandwiches, there was little to do. From time to time, to spice things up, we would just step out to the hallway and stare at the street. In one of those, a first culture shock. Across the street, a ’70s El Camino stopped in a parking lot. The driver, a tall thin white guy, stepped out of the vehicle and walked away, completely barefoot. This is where I must have thought something like: ‘Gosh, these Americans are crazy!’ But I shouldn’t say much. In time, I realized Puerto Ricans aren’t much normal either.
While Mom mulled her non-options for a few days, our pointless wandering in the hallways caught the attention of a retired American. Yes, the friendly retired American. An unavoidable character in stories such as these. We were actually familiar with him, as we had often seen him seated in the motel’s lobby while reading the daily newspaper. I remember rather clearly the light beige beret over his scalp, the pair of square silver glasses over his nose, and his thin gray-haired mustache.
Either we looked like lost puppies, or boredom played a factor at that point. Whatever the reason, one morning, the retired gentleman struck a short amicable chat with us. Coming from Central America, Americans came across as nonsensical and direct in their speech. That said, his words may have been brief, but they were nonetheless friendly and welcoming. Having little to do himself, he offered to take us to lunch at a nearby Popeyes.
After being in El Salvador for a whole decade, let’s just say that I wasn’t quite up to date with automotive news. As the retired gent drove towards the lobby to pick us up, I had no idea, whatsoever, of what kind of make his cute little car was. It looked pretty neat, low to the ground, and sort of fancy with its mauvish metallic color accented with chrome and gold detailing. A new auto experience? By all means!
I boarded the passenger seat while Mom and Brother rode in the back. Up front, the Cadillac logo solved the mystery for me. The car was a Cadillac?
The interior was pretty sharp, with nice appointments and a comfortable seat; although the dashboard had a curious mix of dated and futuristic themes. As we drove toward Popeyes, the retired American pointed to the car’s console (which was kind of large and a bit intrusive), where a gold-plated plaque resided near the radio. The Caddy was a gift to his wife, with her name lovingly emblazoned on the plaque.
- She never leaves the hotel room. We always come to these vacations, but she always stays in the room.
He shrugged his shoulders as he finished the sentence. Meanwhile, I kept studying the little details of the interior, which I found rather fascinating and somewhat perplexing. The cabin was airy, but a bit snug; one felt as if traveling in some kind of space pod over the road. The ride was nice, however, with the little car gliding over the streets, and with none of the boat-like feel I would later associate with earlier ’80s GM cars. In all, it was a nice environment to be in; and in retrospect, the cute little Eldo had only one fatal flaw.
My Mom’s questionable plans were certainly the result of unwanted circumstances, which was more or less also true with GM’s shrunken E-Bodies of 1986. You sort of know what they were trying to do, but can’t make heads or tails of how they reached their decisions. Later interviews confirm such feelings. At least in the case of the Eldo’s sibling, the Riviera, Buick’s head of design Bill Porter resumed “We had a terrible time coming up with a theme for that car… There was some psychological vacuum that foiled us in some strange way… We never did hit it, and there was nothing we could do about it.”
If my Mom had an unfounded fear of flying, I can only guess that GM’s stylists had a deeply ingrained panic about small cars. Or the government. But small they were going to be, as Bill Porter reminisced;
“During development, GM President Jim McDonald came into my studio and looked at the car… He wasn’t a car guy, so he didn’t see how wrong it was from a size perspective. Irv Rybicki came in and said ‘You know, there’s nothing wrong with this car that another twelve inches couldn’t cure.’ And McDonald turned to me and said ‘I just came from Washington. Do not add one millimeter of length to this car.'”
If one sticks by that testimony, sounds like there was panic of all sorts around the E-Bodies.
Cohort image by William Rubano.
We rode to Popeyes a few more times in the next few days with our newfound host, and I got fairly acquainted with the little Eldorado. My liking for it didn’t diminish, even if I found it a little odd. As I said, there was only one fatal flaw with the model, and it regards its intended mission; the car never struck me as a luxury vehicle.
The little Caddy just lacked the presence of a luxury ride, and it didn’t offer the right attributes to redefine the segment. Talking about which, the Acura Legend was released in ’86, and the Japanese newcomer was outselling the E-Bodies by ’87 (by model, not total). With awfully similar dimensions, the Legend looked like the future and it spoke to a new generation. Lexus was just around the corner, and buyers would shift largely to these new players and the established Germans.
Cohort image by William Rubano.
We spent about a week in that little gray motel, with the retired American giving us essential guidance during our brief mainland escapade. After a couple of days of being acquainted, he took us to meet his wife, who indeed existed and never left the room. I guess buying a few souvenirs in a hotel’s lobby makes for the whole experience to some.
Eventually, Mom came to the only obvious conclusion and bought tickets to Puerto Rico. I don’t exactly recall how we reached the airport, but I believe the motel’s management arranged for a shuttle to take us. And if you wonder how Mom found the will to board that flight, I do remember she was quite drugged by the time the plane took off (No alcohol, no illegal drugs. Just lots of over-the-counter tranquilizers).
We got a nice personal business card as a souvenir from our American hosts, but we never got back in touch with them ever after. They did leave the right kind of impression though, and I remember them fondly to this day. Such was not the case for the ’86 E-Bodies, which left a different kind of impression; but as my Mom’s experience proved, confused planning makes for unsatisfying endings.
Further reading:
Curbside Classic: 1986 Buick Riviera – GM’s Deadly Sin #1
Curbside Classic: 1986-1991 Cadillac Seville, GM’s Deadly Sin #21 – And To Think I Briefly Had One
No one’s likely to write a song about a puny purple Cadillac.
Great story as always, Rich. As for the car, not so much. Truly one of GM’s deadly sins.
Honestly, if this had been the Cimmaron (or called anything other than Eldorado) it may have done better. But the Eldorado name carried too many expectations that were unmet by this car.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-cohort/cohort-pick-of-the-day-1986-cadillac-eldorado-gm-deadly-sin-38-fools-gold/
This is an outstanding story on so many different levels.
First – aside from much different geographies and nationalities – your journey from El Salvador bears a lot of resemblance to many of my relatives who left eastern Europe for the US decades earlier. Just a faint hint of a relative or acquaintance in a faraway city, and off they went. Sometimes it worked out; sometimes it didn’t. But an unabating faith that would eventually be better than before got them through.
Then your experience with the Cadillac. It’s interesting how your first experience with one of Curbside Classic’s most reviled cars was a generally positive one – of course much of it owed to youth and the lack of preconceived notions about what a Cadillac ought to be… things that weighted heavily on the minds of actual prospective buyers.
At around the same time – and at a similar age – I had my first ride in a Cadillac as well. My sister’s boyfriend’s parents owned a bustleback Seville, and one day he offered to take me for a ride in it. Oddly, the owners sound similar to your retired friends – his reclusive mom had developed a fear of leaving the house, so his kindhearted dad bought a Cadillac to entice her to go places. It didn’t work, and the Cadillac was hardly ever driven, but I loved my ride in it, and remain a bustleback fan to this day. Critics be damned; I still like them.
One final observation: I like your photo of the Guatemala-Mexico border, especially with the Pepsi sign on the left and the Coke sign on the right. I guess the Cola Wars knew no boundaries.
I know it’s not the same car but a real nice cousin:
My grandmother had one of these when I was a kid. She and my grandfather (and I assume the American in the story) were members of the Greatest Generation, and they had lived through the Depression, which colored their youth and led to a lot of pragmatism and frugality. Every nook in the bathroom was stuffed with toilet paper, which was a strange quirk that I wouldn’t see again until the pandemic. But despite those Depression-era characteristics, they both drove Caddies (and later Lexuses) because those were outward status symbols that conveyed that one had made it and was living the American Dream.
I can remember my grandmother lightly chiding my brother and I for restlessly playing with the passenger power seat. It’s a 27-way power seat? Let’s see all the positions! I was too young to have known all of the land yacht Caddies that preceded these shrunken-head ones, so, to me, the car looked luxurious. It looked kind of old-fashioned, Baroque, and it smelled like new leather.
I don’t really remember what car Grandpa had at this time, though it was certainly a Caddy as well, as they were loyal to the brand at that time. The next (and final Caddy) I recall was a ’97 Eldorado in cream with a cream interior. It was beautiful, and he didn’t keep it long enough to be plagued by the notorious Northstar engine.
Today, in the small, coastal northern CA town I live in, there’s a vintage clothes shop downtown, and the owner drives one of these Caddies (I assume just locally). You see the Caddy parked near the shop, and it’s a perfect marriage, as these are just so uncommon today, and they connote the long-gone past of 35 years ago.
When I was a kid, a local business man had a black 58 Sixty Special which he frequently parked at his business. TO THIS DAY I still think of that as the best looking Cadillac of all time. Was difficult to tell if there was more black paint or chrome! Those were the days of OTT excessive luxury! 🏆💖 👍
I can totally understand a kid wanting to see all the positions on that power seat!
Great story! Terrible car! Although downsizing was the big deal at that time, the 86 Eldorado was just one HUGE mistake for Cadillac in the 80s. The biggest issue was engines. A V864, Diesel, a V6, and the infamous 4100 🤔 all helped knock Cadillac off its lofty pedestal as Standard of the WORLD. Even Deville and Fleetwood lost loyal customers with those engines. In later 80s Full size RWD FLEETWOODS were given better engines. Then Fleetwood name was given to further downsized FWD vehicles and RWD became BROUGHAM. Clearly folks at Cadillac were struggling. Personally have had a 1989 BROUGHAM deElegance and 93 BROUGHAM. Loved the 89. The 93 was trouble prone in quality and interior luxury. Then I turned to Lincoln Town Cars which gave much more traditional American luxury! Now even Lincoln no longer makes a luxury sedan. My current Town Car Signature Limited will NEVER get away! 🏆 Fortunate enough to have lived in the era of fabulous Luxury cars, what is now considered a luxury vehicle is a JOKE! SUVS? Just glorified trucks! 🤮 🤮 🤮.
Cadillac had been knocked off that SOTW pedestal at least 15 years before the awful 8-6-4, diesel, and 4100. But at least it had a modicum of credibility up to about 1979.
“McDonald turned to me and said ‘I just came from Washington. Do not add one millimeter of length to this car.’”
One thing strikes me as odd about this story. It’s more likely an American would say, “Do not add one inch”, rather than, “Do not add one millimeter”.
Well, a millimeter is a lot shorter than an inch, so it rather makes the point. Plus, McDonald was an engineer, and this was during the height of the (failed) metrification effort in the US, so it doesn’t seem odd to me.
What’s odd is his remark about having just come from Washington. It’s not like the government was going to mandate vehicle length. The ironic thing is that longer vehicles inherently have better aerodynamics (other factors being roughly equal). And of course Rybicki was right, and within a couple of years those inches were added on to the front and back ends, and they did not hurt its mileage; more likely helped.
There is a forgotten bit of cultural fluff from around 1970 or so – after several cigarette manufacturers started selling “100s”, which were 100 millimeters and longer than the old “King Size”, Chesterfield started selling (and heavily advertising) its “101s”. They were “A silly millimeter longer”, according to the jingle. All America knew that “one more millimeter” was a really small amount.
Here is a link to one of the commercials: https://youtu.be/3QJnGUglTRw?si=pYdYSIKVfAA_LVY1
Assuming GM’s dire predictions of what the price of gasoline was expected to do by 1985 had actually come true – it’s not as though this styling motif was truly going to save their bacon. Oh sure, the diehards who bought them back in the day would still have bought them for the most part, but there was an aesthetic gap widening plus a preference for something firmer and sportier.
Not exactly thinking Acura was aimed at that same $4 a gallon gas target, but considering how the Legend (and Integra) looked, performed and sipped fuel – they’d have been even more on the bulls-eye.
I’ll be the one to defend these cars (E bodies). But I’m going to do it from a totally different perspective: from the cars of today.
First, as some may have seen from my posts, I work in the auto business and have been in this work for 25 years now (1988 to 1995 and 2007 till present). I currently work in the fleet department with Volvo and Mazda. In my garage sits a new 2023 Bolt, a 1986 Seville (E body) and 1988 Cimarron (J body). So yes, I do love my older Caddies from the 70’s through the early 90’s and yes I do defend them. But here’s what I want others to take from this comment.
I’m around many very modern vehicles. I drive many very modern vehicles. I own a very modern/advanced vehicle. And yes when I do get into either of my older 80’s Cadillac’s, I never feel like I’m in an old car. Yes, they have no screens like the new ones and they have old fashion radios with actual knobs to turn. But they both feel very modern and the Seville is the most advanced of the two. When I get in that car, I’m amazed at how comfortable the seats are, how quiet it is, how well it rides and yet the handling is very good for even today’s standards. To be honest, if I installed a touch screen radio and a remote fob with remote start, that Seville would be even closer to the fancy cars of today. It’s really that nice of a car. And compare it to other cars back in 1986, it was way nicer and well made. Remember, there were a lot of vehicles back then with bad quality and questionable reliability. And yes, I’m including the import brands from Japan and Europe.
Your point is well taken. These were ambitious and modern cars in their time; objectively they were impressive in their space efficiency and fuel efficiency, and their ability to offer comfort and convenience in a substantially downsized format. I don’t think anyone who knows or understands these cars would disagree with that.
The issue was that they lacked genuine inspiration, stylistically. They were shorter than they needed to be, and looked too boxy and unimpressive. They were too cerebral. And while some aspects were modern, other aspects of their design, especially the interior, had too much heritage, in a way that was not attractive. They simply failed to ignite the emotional side of its potential buyers.
The failure of these cars is in their abysmal sales, not in their engineering and comfort features.
I was both impressed and repelled by them at the time. I’m afraid too many potential buyers fell into the second category, as they didn’t appreciate many of the technical challenges that they did succeed with.
Paul: You are correct. This was even more true (IMO) of the Eldo vs. the Seville. When they made the very subtle but still significant changes to the 1988 model, it really helped. Sadly, the damage was already done. But the Seville (to me) was better and looked like a 7/8th version of the original 76-79 models.
I know the engine offerings left a lot to be desired, but I have to say that the 4100 in my 1986 is so quiet, smooth and can get great MPG’s. It sure won’t win any races, but I love the relaxed feel and drive.
Many people may not know this, but when Cadillac went from the 4.1 to the 4.5 in 1988, they gave the engine more “growl” and it’s not nearly as quiet at my 4100. Then in 1991 when they upped it to 4.9 Liter, it got even more noisy. The power was much better, but I never liked the sound they made. Personally I feel Cadillac did this to create the feeling of more power as a way to compensate for the years of lacking power.
Nice job weaving these two elements together. A very evocative story of human failings.
Buick’s head of design Bill Porter resumed “We had a terrible time coming up with a theme for that car… There was some psychological vacuum that foiled us in some strange way… We never did hit it, and there was nothing we could do about it.”
This is it, the essence of what was rotting out GM at the time. Porter and his cohort had grown up with big flashy American cars, and there was nothing in their psychological makeup and history to make them capable of dealing with the challenges of the times. They simply lacked the imagination, resources and experience. The result shows it perfectly: these are very cerebral, sterile, and forced, lacking any stylistic inspiration whatsoever.
I feel bad for these guys; it wasn’t really their fault. They just ran into their human limitations.
The Europeans and Japanese never had to confront a similar problem; they had always dealt with the limitations of high fuel prices and taxes. Their challenge was different: how to expand their area of competence to increasingly appeal to Americans. They did that quite admirably, with some notable exceptions, such as no power seats in the Mercedes W116 and air conditioning that was not up to US standards.
It was a period of time when the world was shrinking, and global standards for cars were developing. But the American car simply didn’t fit that new standard, especially the luxury cars. The efforts to try to do so, like these shrunken E-Body cars, were miserable failures as a consequence.
Cadillac and the Americans eventually found their success with trucks, the last great bastion of the true American vehicle. And trucks are growing in popularity globally. So in a way, Americans are having something of the last laugh, having mostly given up competing with sedans and such against the Europeans and Japanese.
Yet the next generation of Seville was one of Cadillac’s best efforts, inside and out (too bad about the head gaskets and FWD). Guess they needed the shock of failure to change direction.
Essential CC reading. I loved getting lost in this. Another terrific entry and insight I to your life’s story. You’re a great storyteller.
This was a great read, on many levels. When we are small, we think our parents know everything. At some point that faith starts to crack, but even then we believe that they have things figured out and their plan will make sense. Now I look back and know that we all sometimes fly by the seat of our pants. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I kind of admire your mother for taking that leap. She tried.
I also enjoy the impressions of someone who saw one of these and came to it with a completely blank slate. I had a deep understanding and expectations of what a Cadillac is/should be, and these cars were absolutely not those things. That they underwhelmed you too is something that helps to understand the cars better.
That Jim McDonald you refer to is the guy who took over as head of Pontiac when DeLorean left to assume the top spot at Chevrolet in 1969. For anyone who wondered how they lost the plot at Pontiac in the early 1970s, this is pretty much all we need to know. McDonald was a manufacturing guy, a management guy, a GM corporate guy, but he was not a car guy.
Here’s a salient quote from McDonald’s Wikipedia page:
He stepped down from his post in 1987, having reached GM’s mandatory retirement age of 65.[1] Asked for any regrets during his tenure at the automaker, he said he “would make the Eldorado seven inches longer”, as his 1985 redesign of the vehicle led to lower sales for the car.[1]
In my eyes the ’79-’85 E body cars were the design sweet spot. They were smaller and lighter enough to gain some efficiency, combined with better space utilization. They also looked the part. Trying to make them smaller, and preserve their heritage derived styling was not successful, they ended up looking like a parody of their earlier models.
I had a downsized ’77 Coupe de Ville, and while the interior was just okay, the decreased size, along with it’s more contemporary styling, made it easy to overlook any of it’s failings.
Cadillac hit a high note with the ’92 Seville, the interior and exterior looked exactly like what a high end American car should look like.
I found the discussion of Bill Porter and his admission that they had trouble finding a theme for the new Eldo very enlightening. Cadillac design later moved forward with a modernized mix of aero and traditional; “Art and Science.”
Since I got my ’97 Riviera I’ve been doing a lot of research, reading old road tests, and watching Buick’s sales training videos, which reflect their aspirations for sales and expanding their market. Porter and his team designed a car that had no heritage Riviera styling cues, instead it reflects the Motorama Dream Car period of the 1963 to 1973 styling. The intent was to establish a new design direction for the Buick line, which it did. I think that Bill Porter was proud of this design, and Buick was hoping that the attention would bring a new relevance to the marque.
Unfortunately for them, the market had moved on and the car was not that successful.
Interestingly enough, the stylists did not compromise on size with the Riviera, as it’s slightly longer than the Aurora, El Dorado, and the last Coupe de Villes. In many ways I think of it as the last Coupe de Ville. Even 26 years later, I find the car is smooth riding, quiet, comfortable, spacious, easy handling, and powerful. Fuel efficient too. Seeing it, you might not be able to identify it, but you can never confuse it for anything else!
Sort of a Cadillac Cad-ette.
It’s rather telling that you didn’t recognize it as a Cadillac until you saw the logo. Previous Eldorados would leave you in no doubt. What a shame it didn’t look more like that concept sketch. It would have been distinctive, and would still have looked unusual, but in a much more pleasing manner. As produced, there was too much compromise, too much looking back rather than having a vision and having the courage to push it through to production.
It’s also telling that you say “the car never struck you as a luxury vehicle”. Okay, you were a teen, but still – ouch!
I love ‘coming to America’ stories .
My people came to America by steerage on the boat via Ellis Island, one unmarried woman with two boys .
I became aware of Cadillacs in the late 50’s or early 60’s when the “Dagmar” Caddies were five years old and in New England then five years was a long time, they were all beat up and rusty yet they were wonderful to ride in .
-Nate