The only word lacking in its long and florid name is “Brougham”. But in the Cadillac family, that was reserved for the top-dog Fleetwood Brougham d’Elegance. So if you wanted a coupe (but not an Eldorado) with which to make the maximum impression on your wife, girl friend or neighbors (if they’re easily impressed ones) then this is what you went for in 1977. And presumably its powers of attraction and just plain elegance are not diminished in 2020. At least for this owner.
Let’s deal with the names first, as that seems to be the priority here. Who cares how it drives anyway? We’re at the “Special Editions” page of the 1977 brochure, which starts with the Brougham d’Elegance, that features “pillow-style seats trimmed in rich Florentine velour cloth”. No soft Corinthian leather here. Next up is the DeVille d’Elegance, which also features “pillow-style seats…a stunning crushed velour —Medici“. So it seems the seats were mostly the same, but the fabric was different; Medici instead of Florentine; got it? The fact that the Medici were Florentine seems to have possibly slipped past the GM Department of Naming. But what’s accuracy got to do with any of this? Zilch.
And the last special edition is the Cabriolet. The half-vinyl roof was a whole separate special edition in itself. No wonder it cost three times as much as the full vinyl roof. But there’s something that makes that well worth it: “Also featured is a decorative exterior Cadillac crest on the sail panel“. Wow!
That must mean this fine plastic badge that cost Cadillac exactly 14 cents. d’Elegance indeed! But I’m stumped about the fine carriage lamp next to it. I don’t see that as part of the Cabriolet package. Nor in the d’Elegance package.
How much were these packages anyway? Not cheap. Actually, I can’t readily find a price list for the options, but the Cabriolet with sunroof (which our featured car has) was $1278 ($5820 adjusted).
Aha! there it is, in the second column of the options page: “For your added pleasure”: “Opera Lamps-Available on DeVilles, standard on Fleetwood Brougham and Limousines“. The original buyer of this baby was not cutting corners. Does it have the Illuminated Vanity Mirror? Cruise Control? Automatic Door Locks? 50/50 front seats? Power Recliner Seat? Rear Window defogger?…You get the drift. By the time you optioned up a base deVille coupe ($9810; $45k adjusted) you could easily spend another $3-5k ($15 – 25k adjusted) on it. But hey, it’s all in the pursuit of more elegance, and that’s not a cheap commodity.
And no amount of money could have gotten you these back then.
But at least in 1977 it still came with a real motor, standard. 425 cubic inches of Cadillac V8 gold. 180 net hp; 195 if you sprung for the fuel injection, which of course nobody did, because they were blowing their budget on Opera Lamps and Cabriolet Roofs and such. Who cared if it had fuel injection? Especially since it cost an extra $702 ($3200 adjusted). That should cover the Illuminated Entry and Illuminated Vanity mirror. The missus would appreciate those two a whole lot more than…fuel injection. What is that anyway?
I’m not an expert on these (an understatement, obviously), but I’m thinking this might be the Astroroof, not the Sunroof. That jacks the Cabriolet price from $1278 to $ 1474 ($6700). It must be worth more if it costs more (He looks up at the options page). Of course it is! Because it’s translucent, not just plain old steel. Just like modern cars; Cadillac was such a pioneer.
And doesn’t it just stand out compared to all the dull and boring cars on the streets nowadays?
Cadillac was also a pioneer in the use of new space age materials, like the filler panels. Too bad that didn’t work out so well. But it’s nice to know that replacements are available now. And they will undoubtedly outlast the rest of the car.
Sadly, that expensive Cabriolet roof is starting to go too. I’m sure it’s fine under there though.
Whoa! WTF? We’ve all been bamboozled. This is not “pillow-style seats…a stunning crushed velour —Medici“. Far from it. Where’s all the elegance? The upper door panel looks like it might have been something like crushed velour once upon a time (let’s not even speculate on that lower door panel, which has turned a piggish sort of pink). Or for that matter, the “wood” on the top part. Or the whole freaking dashboard. And steering wheel. It all looks like it might have come from a Florentine archeological excavation of a Medici palace.
So we are left to speculate what the stunning crushed velour —Medici seats actually looked like in here, before they were so rudely tossed out. Given the possibilities and the rest of the interior, it doesn’t take a very vivid imagination.
So are these the base deVille seats? Better head back to the brochure…
That’s not very helpful, and I doubt they would have held up any better in the environment this Caddy’s interior was subjected to. I can only imagine how they would have looked by now. I’m speculating that our featured car’s seat implants are the optional 50/50 seats, whose highly inflated price I cannot summon at this moment. And it looks like plain old vinyl to me, not genuine leather. Just as well; it’s the prefect rugged, low maintenance material for this car, even if they do look like they came out of a 1990’s GMC pickup or such.
At least it’s a matched set of seats front and rear. Just forget about matched colors. Or textures.
Let’s get out of there and back into the fresh air. Aah; that’s better. The say don’t judge a book by its cover, but that doesn’t exactly apply here. It’s a lot more elegant, in relative terms. And everything is relative.
And I’ve had all the elegance I can take for one day. Is there an old Corolla somewhere nearby?
Postscript: its license plates are registered to a 1997 Pontiac Grand Prix
Even though I’ve never wanted one of these, I’ve always admired how they kept the “Cadillac look” after shrinking it down from the earlier models.
Who came up with the “glass sunroof” first, GM (Astroroof) or Ford (Moonroof)…?
And I’m pretty sure that this was also the first electronically-tuned digital display stereo available as factory equipment…(?)
Anyway, if you were buying a Cadillac DeVille or Fleetwood in the 1970s or 80s, the d”Elegance packages were the way to go. Well, except for the ’74-’76 Fleetwood Talisman option.
Cadillac not only managed to keep the “Cadillac look” but also good proportions, on this car as well as the ’79 Eldorado. GM was so much better at retaining the essence of the previous larger car after downsizing than Ford was. The 1980 Mark VI and Thunderbird retained all the visual cues of the larger ’79 models but the proportions were all off and sales tanked.
I vote Moonroof! 🙂
The seats looks genuine. Compared to the cloth bench version the back rest seems similar made. Looking at the crease my guess would be leather.
Those low ratio tires make it look even more stupid. As if it has flats, or equipped with temporary wheels.
I see there was a Remote Control Trunk Lock Release option that also “Includes power pulldown feature”. How did that work then?
It is pretty easy to have a power trunk opener, some springs help opening the lid, but how to electrically close it? What mechanism is there to do that?
Curious to know.
My 16 year old X-type estate has a power opening rear hatch, which is nice, but I would rather have a power closing hatch as that thing is quite heavy to close.
Instead of a full slam to latch the lid, you move the lid into position like you you close a refrigerator door. The pull down grabs it and latches.
My mother’s deVille had the power latch. You closed it gently or got yelled at for slamming it. It would pull the trunk down and lock it in about five seconds. When it stopped working, I found another latching assembly in a junkyard and pulled all the bits out of it and put them in the original one…because of course the other one didn’t fit.
That wheel-and-tyre package belongs on a lowrider. If this was lowered a few inches they’d kinda fit. As it stands, it does look weird.
Personally, I’d have put the money into doing up the interior.
Paul, aren’t those the gold rims from your 300E? 😀
The base interior of the 1977 DeVille was that nasty Aberdeen plaid cloth that had vinyl trim (the part between the two front and rear passengers) Not sure if the center armrests were vinyl or leather.
I think Caddy downgraded the base interior due to the fact that the Calais series was eliminated for 1977. The Aberdeen cloth/vinyl combination would have been something that was standard in the former Calais series, since the standard DeVille interior was cloth with leather trim.
I recall a neighbor that purchased one of these new, downsized 1977 Cadillacs. His was a the Sedan DeVille, in that beautiful rusty orange color (Saffron) with matching Saffron interior and a white vinyl top. His interior wasn’t done in Aberdeen plaid…. rather it was Dynasty, a lovely ribbed velour.
So I guess for 1977, Cadillacs cloth interiors were ranked as:
“Scottish” for the base
“Asian” for the mid line
“Italian” for the high line
Cadillac downgraded the base interiors many years earlier. Base Cadillacs in the late 60s through the 70s were sparse, equal to a mid grade Chevy. I looked at a base model 71 Coupe de Ville. Nylon cloth and vinyl seats, and power windows standard. That’s it. No A/C, no radio. By comparison the base 77 Caddy was quite the improvement.
What surprised me in that brochure shot of the base interior, beyond upholstery that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Nova, was that it was a true, un-split bench seat. Nothing exudes luxury like having to scrunch up your legs because the driver is shorter than you.
I think that would exude me right out of the car.
The mid-70’s Deville and Eldo also had plaid (with vinyl, IIRC) as a no-cost option when the Calais was still around. Not to my taste, but it would hide spots better than a solid color cloth. I suspect that d’Elegance pillows are not terribly sturdy.
Looking at the girth of this car it’s hard to believe this was the new “precision size” Cadillac in GM speak. Shows just how humongous the ‘76 was. Still had a decent engine with the 425 and the “presence” of a Cadillac. In many ways this was the last real Cadillac, the 1985 FWD’s being total disasters.
UAW Worker “Boss, we’re out of Cadillac Crests for the sail panel!”
Boss “Just put a d’elegance badge and opera light on it and call it good.”
UAW Worker “Will do.”
The complicated brochure is a common marketing trick. You give the buyer something to do, get them involved in the purchase process by designing the car to a certain extent. It produces more enthusiasm about the car than just buying off the lot or checking boxes on an option sheet. You may make fun of the results but it works, and the Cadillac marketing folks did it very well.
I’m sure this process gave the factory fits as there’s so many complicated processes and options to gum up the works.
“…And presumably its powers of attraction and just plain elegance are not diminished in 2020…”
Yes, they are. The pull strap on the driver’s door has pulled off. Couldn’t take the stress of the driver pulling on that “downsized for 1977” door to close it. But was that standard on lesser Cadillacs, or did it only come with some package or other?
To me, that whole “d’Elegance” thing was a pitiful, phony, committee-driven exercise by Marketing poseurs who had lost their way. Or maybe not; they may have known that they were only building “Big Chevies” by this time.
Pull straps of some sort were standard on the Cadillac as well as all other GM C bodies of this generation. That allowed for the huge full-length armrests that didn’t need door pull cutouts. The slightly shorter B bodies didn’t all have pull straps, so (Riviera excepted) they got smaller armrests with a pocket cut into them to use as a door pull – not as convenient. And since B bodies unlike the C’s didn’t have standard power windows, the armrests were also shorter to leave room for a crank.
For some reason I zoomed into the first brochure page to read about the radios (no “sound systems” yet in those days). What the heck are “four diagonally opposed speakers”? Almost any topology of four speakers would have some diagonal? Or were the stereo channels diagonal rather than left-right? And could this be the only car ever available with both factory EFI and 8 track? I bought my first car cassette deck in 1977, an underdash unit I put in my Vega, so cassettes weren’t exactly leading edge by then, not even for Cadillac.
GM offered 8 track players through 1982 at least.
I once did run across stereo speakers where the rears were channel-reversed relative to the fronts. It was in a rental car, the make, middle and year lost to the ages, other than its being a USA domestic car. This could have been the “diagonally opposed” stereo speakers.
And a CB Radio?!
“Breaker breaker, this is Brougham Buddy on the front door. We got a Kojak with a Kodak at Exit 9. That’s a big Ten Four!”
I know batteries can be expensive, but compared to the hassle of carrying around and using jumper cables it’s probably worth the effort. Get one of those “lifetime guaranteed” batteries and you will never have to buy another one.
. . .unless there is a short. Good chance of that in one of these old boats.
13 fricken colors of vinyl roofs available. when the Mrs. was shopping Lexus ESs there are 10 exterior colors total and 5 are black or grey.
Looks like who ever owns this car is trying to get it back into shape.The body and even the paint looks pretty good and original. Yes those rear bumper fillers need to painted, I suppose that it would be great to match it to the current paint. I’m guessing that the original interior must have been in pretty bad shape, the seats and it looks like part of the door panels have been switched out. Who doesn’t put some kind of custom wheel onto their vintage car? It’s a matter of individual choice and taste. The tone of this post is pretty uncharitable, I don’t know about you, but my car projects take awhile when you don’t have unlimited funds. “D’Elegance” sure, nothing but gingerbread, but lot’s of folks like gingerbread.
“..it’s all in the pursuit of more elegance.”
Just so – without ever catching up.
My first time to drive a Cadillac was the same car but a 1979 model during 1992 Christmas. My experience Was eventful. It was my uncle car, He and his family were away to Canada. I was given a key during my Christmas break from school, I decided to take out for some Christmas shoppings at the Christmas Eve. The car started without any issue, but I noticed the parking brake was ON, so I looked for switch to deactivate, and no luck — my car was a 1983 Caprice which parking release was foot paddle under the left dash like a lot of American cars then. This Cadillac did not have any release handle anywhere I could identify. I could not drive the car with parking brake ON. That was time with no cell phone and Google, no ready information is at your fingertips. I decided to call a Cadillac dealer listed in Yellow Page, the receptionist tried to put me to the service department, I insisted my problem could be solved by any salesman. I explained my problem to a salesman, he laughed and said proudly that all Cadillac cars had been with automatic parking release since 1950s — just kept driving the car, the brake would release! Car got moving, it drove like any large American car in that vintage with very comfortable ride I was surprised how large it was in comparison with my Caprice, especially its hood — I always question if the engine bay needs to be that big then or just a style element. After close 30 years later, I had a chance to drive a new Cadillac as a rental, it was a 2017 ATS rear drive with V6. To be honest it was very nice and drive like a modern European sport sedan but it is not a Cadillac!
No matter how stylish or fashionable one may find them, I would never put these wheels on a soft-riding car. This car was designed with 78-series tire in mind.
How hard would it have been to paint the filler panels? I’m heartened to see these are back in production though; it seems they’re cracked or outright missing on 2/3 of ’70s Cadillacs.
Coupe de Poop. Much more elegant than Shitebox.
Black eye, no extra charge.
The 425 wasn’t great, but at least it wasn’t a V8-6-4.
We had a 1977 Coupe Deville very similar to this at our 1990’s used dealership but in yellow with the 425 and it drove really well for a 70’s lux barge. We also had a Town Car coupe of 1978 vintage with the 400 2BBL engine and it was a revelation how much more modern and better the Caddy drove. The 400 was a wheezer whereas the 425 always felt responsive and would light up the tires on command. It also rode, handled, braked and steered better. As far as I’m concerned these were the last real Cadillac’s made all the way up until 1996 with more slippery bodies.
This is how they looked. Original OEM