Poking around the little back streets and alleys of Springfield, Eugene’s sister city, I stumbled into a rather surprising find, which you see here as I first saw it: a 1958 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 Limousine sporting a rather unexpected paint job. But then it was 1958, a time when folks were snapping up pink, green, blue and yellow kitchens and bathrooms. So while it may look a bit odd to our gray and stainless steel trained sensibilities, this was probably very chic in 1958. In some circles, anyway.
To create the proper atmosphere, here’s a few kitchens featuring GE appliances from 1958. One is even two-tone, pink over blue.
That’s not to say that Cadillac was quite showing off green, blue and yellow Fleetwood 75 limos in their brochure. Realistically, back in the day gray or black or possibly white were undoubtedly the most commonly colors selected for these, which were used quite differently than stretch limos are today. Quite.
The only green shown in the ’58 brochure is this low-end Series 62 sedan.
Of course vivid colors alone can’t quite do justice to the excess of the Fleetwood 60 Special that year, which featured not only a longer wheelbase (133″) but the “extended deck”, which was available as an option on the 62, designed especially for hit men who needed to carry multiple corpses, even in rigor mortis.
As it’s quite apparent, the Fleetwood 75 limo did not have the extended deck. No suggestion of it being optional. I wonder if one could get it if one asked very persuasively? Maybe not, since that would have presumably required another huge quarter panel different than the sedan’s. But it would have made for an impressively long limo.
The really distinctive feature about these are the way the doors extend into the roof. A bit like an airplane door. And with their own rain gutters, which somewhat spoils the sleekness of them.
The 1959-up version omitted the gutters, presumably because there was some kind of built in rain diverter. or one hopes so.
The raised roof means that the windshield was unique to these. It was almost certainly the biggest windshield at the time.
Let’s take a look inside. Hmm; the many decades have not been kind to the either beige broadcloth or beige wool cord and broadcloth. From what’s left, I’m guessing the former. Light gray, gray or brown versions of the same two fabric combinations were also available. The folding jump seats are in different positions.
A look through the open glass divider into the front compartment. To the club, James! But swing by Miss Jones’ house first.
The brochure states that the limousine front compartment is upholstered in black leather. This looks like more of the same. I assume that’s what would have been the case in the seven-passenger sedan, which had no division. A special order, likely. But then I doubt they stocked green-over-green limos anyway.
A Caddy limo with genuine patina. How many are there like that?
That headlight bezel needs to be pushed back into place, but other than that, it looks ready to roll.
The 310 hp 365 cubic inch V8 looks like it should start right up. That gas in that filter/separator does look a bit dark. Theoretically the tri-carb 335 hp version was optional for a mere $134, but it’s a bit hard to imagine anyone buying a limo springing for that. Much more likely the air conditioning, which seems to be missing here. The good old days; a limo without air. Maybe it was bought in Seattle.
It does have a trailer hitch. These old Caddies make good two trucks, and this is the Escalade of its day.
A study in patinated elegance.
Or something like that.
The shift to an anti-colour sensibility is very marked. You could get coloured cars in a variety of tints up until the eighties and then there was a collapse in variety. I am not at all sure it is wrong to have a brightly coloured big car. I noticed a mid-green S-class Mercedes in Dublin in February (a late model) and complimented the owner. He said it was a special order. It looked very charming and in no way detracted from the imperial grandeur of the S. It stopped it looking like a fleet car.
The first house I owned was built in 1958 and had original built-in GE appliances. Here’s the one photo I still have, from 2000. My sons and I had just pulled cookies out of the oven, which you can see behind me. It’s a little more toward gold than the yellow in this post, but: heck yeah, the 50s were a more colorful time.
Wow, that oven is the twin to the one in the house where I grew up (built 1959). Only ours (plus the cooktop and dishwasher – yes, dishwasher) was painted a light chocolate-milk brown. Which seemed so boring compared to the other kitchens in the neighborhood, like my friend Tim’s house where everything was glorious turquoise.
Here is one!
Yep, and we had the matching cooktop. The dishwasher was newer but it was probably the matching gold one when the house was built. The cooktop caught fire one day and so we had to replace it. Turns out the hole the old cooktop made in the counter had become nonstandard and it was a major pain in the pratt to fit a new cooktop into the hole.
The GE dishwasher in those kitchens was an oddball – the front panel was actually attached to the dishwasher tub which rolled open in its entirety from the underneath the countertop. When slid open, you could reach into the tub access the lower rack through an opening in the top one (I think some models used a 1/2 size top rack that slid back and forth instead). They even made a 30 inch wide model for big kitchens. The only thing like it made today are the DishDrawers by NZ manufacturer Fisher & Paykel, but those use a separate drawer for each rack, likely a better design.
GE made cabinets as well as appliances back in those days too, plus an awesome wall-mounted refrigerator that fit between regular upper wall cabinets.
That extended deck Series 62 looks quite cartoony in the brochure rendering. Like a lot of period drawings, the features are somewhat exaggerated.
They were still ill-proportioned, and as a result quite rare. I don’t recall ever seeing one in person.
Forgot to attach picture.
Looks like it is parked near a trailer park. Fitting place for a green limo.
If you study the kitchen photo on the upper left, it has the rare GE wall mount refrigerator. My parents somehow got duped into buying one in 1959. It never worked too well on a hot humid day and need defrosting frequently.
Now that I look at it and see what you’re talking about, I want it! Only if it works well, though.
The interiors of these cars were wild; I don´t believe any concept cars have exceeded the ingenuity of the 1960s American car interior. I´ve seen some quite brave interiors in recent years but they seem so plausible – and then the actual interiors of cars now are deadly dull. They do last a long time though – I imagine it must have been upsetting in the past to watch your nice interior sag and fray after a few years. That said, I´ve seen 50 year old Cadillac interiors that are in very good shape.
A nice write up about a cool car, let’s hope it is saved and hopefully put back on the road for limited use. This car represents when a limo was for transporting important people, older limos are (in my opinion) so much more elegant than the over the top stretched party machines that are so common today.
This car was sold to a hotel or resort that ferried people to town, to the airport, or to the beach. It was common for luxury resorts to have a hotel limousine. Some resorts had customized limousines like The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, which had a limousine that permitted passengers to see upwards towards Pike’s Peak.
By this era, there were many resorts where people summered. They arrived by train and depended upon the resort limousine when they needed to go off the resort.
My cousin’s cousin was a student at Alfred University in 1968. He bought one of these 1958 Caddy limousines for not much money. Yes, it sucked fuel. However, he made a business out of it. Several other students attending Alfred lived in central Massachusetts. So, he succeeded in offering car service to them from which he made a profit. It was a clever idea.
Methinks it looks better on the outside than the inside. It would take some doing to clean the interior of this car. I would suppose moisture got in and has left its mark.
This car might be ready to roll, but I’d wear a hazmat suit to get inside .
Great find, your area is a haven for classics!
That would look fabulous restored, I think we’re well past patina into decay 🙁
Too bad about the gutters above the doors, would be good to find a way to accomplish that internal to the aperture.
As cool as this is, it certainly wasn’t my family that ordered it. My grandfather was driving a 48 Olds in 1958 and building his own house. No extra cash for Cadillac limos.
“I think we’re well past patina into decay”.
Perhaps you just stated out loud what my mind has thought for some time. Patina as a fad has gone past appreciating honest wear and tear to something more akin to decay porn. And when honest patina is sprayed with clearcoat to stop any further decay or wear, is it now really still patina or just a decorative surface treatment? Is patina situational, only acceptable in certain conditions but not others? And at what point does it become decay, not patina?
I guess it is just another form of artistic expression to some, a natural occurrence to others, and a smart and savvy way of dealing with rot for others.
What does this look like?
A gasoline filler door?
Bender from Futurama?
Always reminds me of the Scream movie mask!
Welcome to your nightmare!
This ’58 was being worked on by my mechanic back in the day. Gorgeous car, but would be a bear to have to restore to original.
Front view.
Interior
Thanks for these. Am I to assume that’s an HVAC duct running through the lower portion of the driver’s door, venting through the B pillar? That’s an interesting approach to rear seat heating if so.
I think the windshield was not unique to the 75, as it was also used in the Commercial Chassis – the basis for hearses, ambulances, etc.
With the fitting in the RH valve cover, the engine appears to be sporting a PCV retrofit.
The air cleaner housing is probably 1/3 turn from where it belongs to connect the breather hose.
Does that mean California?
Green over green.
The color of money.
I have a house built in 1958 that came with a Turquoise GE cook top and wall oven. Interestingly the oven was a fancier model than in the picture with a window and push buttons for some of the controls. Meanwhile the cook top was not as nice as it didn’t have the divorced control panel. I took them out in the 90’s not too long after buying the house, but couldn’t part with them so I’ve still got them tucked away.
A couple of years ago when looking for a house with a client I came across a development built the year following mine by the same builder with the same floor plans and it had those appliances in the Pink color.
Tucson’s population went from about 55,000 in 1950 to about 213,000 in 1960. A lot of houses were built here in that time, and a whole lot of those houses were solidly middle class. I’ve seen quite a few houses from that time that still have their GE electric cooktops and built-in wall ovens. Our first house didn’t have built-ins, but it did have turquoise tile kitchen countertops. When we did some kitchen remodeling in the mid ’90s and added countertop space, we lucked out and found some tile that was a perfect color match for the counter. In the process, we put in a GE gas cooktop and a GE double wall oven. I wonder if they’re still there….
Of the 1,532 1958 Cadillac 75’s sold, 802 were nine passenger sedans, the remainder limousines. This was typical throughout those years when approximately half the 75’s were utilized in various livery jobs: hotel, airport and station courtesy cars, the funeral business and a small percentage by families requiring the additional passenger capacity..
Since this 75 was upholstered throughout with the cord and broadcloth, it wasn’t a limousine as those had black leather for the driver compartment as was traditional. The sliding window partition looks to be an aftermarket addition since the factory installed partition was a single piece of glass that electrically retracted into the tonneau divider, the jump seat folding up against it.
Once Chrysler quit the medium-priced eight passenger sedan segment after 1954, the Cadillac 75 was the only game in town, became the default go-to for those requiring more passenger capacity. Whatever prestige value came with the Cadillac was a plus.
The Series 75 limo wasn’t the only game in town. Chrysler’s Imperial limousines were a rather expensive alternative (especially the 1957-1965 Ghias). Here’s a 1958 that retailed for double the price of the Cadillac limo.
I just would like to say how astonished I am that I regularly find articles here that are that I find interesting and compelling — as interesting an compelling as anywhere in “car-dom.” I started coming here because of the “parked car show” aspects of CC, and gradually noticed the insight the authors bring to usually obscure but quite interesting points. The idea of examining a little bit closely how one car’s color is a microcosm of an era… is the exact kind of conversation I’d have with my buds at a Cars and Coffee. Or the history of car stereo systems. Or the evolution of GM B Bodies.
PS, I live in Italy now, on assignment, and the country of La Dolce Vita has fallen pray to the same somber parade of monochromatic colors as in the US, and now France too. I’m assuming the same is true in Japan. But maybe not Germany — I say that because you can still buy a VW Golf in about forty colors.
At any rate, BRAVO and carry on.
We will! And welcome to the curbside.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suite would feel at home in this limo.
About 15 years ago I was hired to “feed the cats and look after” an old Maine colonial house built in 1790. It was a fascinating old place. Large, charming and rambling it had a huge central chimney with 4 or 5 fireplaces that originally heated it. There was a summer kitchen that still retained a colonial feel, but to get to it you passed through the modern kitchen. Manufactured white metal cabinets like the ones shown above were installed in the 50’s. As weird as it sounds, it added to the place even though it truly did not belong there. It was like a George Jetson room in Benjamin Franklins house.
If we’re sharing kitchen pics… this is me at our friends’ house. It was a Tudor-style cottage in West Vancouver which had apparently received a major renovation, including an all-turquoise kitchen with a skylight.
Loved the pic of the Fleetwood 60 Special. God, is that thing looooong!
I’ve never noticed the 60 Special and how long it was in the tail. I can’t ever recall seeing this long an overhang. It must have been a real problem on steep driveways.
I’m curious if the ’58 has “bandage wrapped” exhaust system, or the double wall head pipes; which were flex tubes slipped over the exhaust pipes.
I’m not sure if it was primarily to combat noise or heat, but it did both well.
Paul, if there’s ever a chance to walk the dog passed this one again and take a quick look underneath?
There was a local corporate limo, a pampered survivor, ’58, all green, probably the same color as the roof of the featured car. By chance I caught it a gas station once, at least 30 years ago, maybe longer? The ‘chauffeur’ was in a hurry, but we did chat Cadillac for a minute and he let me give the car a quick look over. It was absolutely like new. From that point it must’ve survived and is probably someone’s baby now. There can’t be many green ones left, maybe we’ll hear from her?
So if you run into this in the next town and start to take pictures then how did you get the engine shot? I would assume the owner came out to open it up since I know you wouldn’t take that liberty.
You assume correctly.
Does that mean you may have an inkling on what will happen to this find?
No. Actually, I found this a few years back, and for some reason never wrote it up. It was long overdue. But at the time the owner did not offer up his plans for it and I didn’t ask.
I actually rarely ever ask that; I just accept things as they are. Even if you ask, it’s often not going to unfold like that anyway. Everyone with a tired old car is going to tell you that they’re going to restore it someday, right? How many actually ever do?
Ol’ steel nerves Paul, he doesn’t even flinch anymore to the sound of a shotgun being racked. lol
I would buy a green limo like that, though I was only four years old in ’58. My folks could never have afforded or needed one, but my Dad did get a two door hardtop ’59 Impala coupe. This was a 75 nine passenger sedan, which had that divider put in at a later time. I have the complete Cadillac of the Fifties book, which has reprints of the salesmen’s catalogs instead of the showroom brochures. The nine passenger was aimed at large families that needed the extra room to accommodate them all in comfort. They may have had a driver,who doubles as their houseman, but the cars were not aimed at the commercial market. These beautiful, well proportioned, Cadillac built limos are a far “stretch” from those horrible cobbled up jobs of Today. Back then those limos were used by the people that could afford them, not people bar hopping or going to the prom.
I will admit to having an irrational love of limos like these. I guess because they were the “ultimate” Cadillac. I’ve a ’56 and ’57 hardtop sedans.The 60 Special was described as the “finest owner driven Cadillac”, and I know I’d look mighty silly driving around in an old limo all by myself. An old neglected limo would be incredibly expensive to restore properly, unless you are a professional trimmer doing a labor of love. Thanks for the great photos Paul. These are going in my permanent Cadillac photo file.