It’s one thing to read about the sheer size of one of these classic American land yachts. It’s a whole other thing to encounter one in person. Simply put, this thing is huge.
So huge, that armed only with my iPhone camera, I really had no good way to capture the whole car in the parking lot.
I contend that the magnificence of this vehicle can’t be adequately conveyed through photos. No, you need to be standing physically next to it. For example, it’s only in person where you realize that the trunk lid is about the size of one of those portable dance floors that you might find at a wedding.
From my up close perspective, it seemed to me that there would be room for the bride, groom, and at least several members of the wedding party to take up residence in the trunk whether or not they’re dancing.
While this 1963 Cadillac may not be the longest, widest or lowest American production car, it’s pretty close. The convertible top makes the car an inch taller than its coupe equivalent (although the data seems unclear as to whether this is true, or if they are actually the same height). But at 18.5′ (223″) long and 79.7″ wide, it is considerably bigger – longer at least by around 2′ – than just about anything else passing as a car on today’s roads.
I say “car” because actually, the Caddy is almost the same length and width as the Nissan Frontier truck it was parked next to in this picture. The Nissan is 17.5′ (a foot shorter than the Cadillac) and 74.7″ wide (only 5″ narrower than the Cadillac). But this is where height makes all the difference. The Nissan truck is at least 73″ tall. The Cadillac is 56.4″ high if stock, and this one looked to me to be riding at stock height. That’s about a foot and a half lower than the truck. The end result is something in my opinion much more resplendent. Something more evocative of adult transportation and sensibilities than a real life Tonka truck. So says the guy who’s had much more experience playing with Tonka trucks than driving 1960s Cadillacs. Maybe that’s just one of those the-grass-is-always-greener situations.
For what it’s worth, the Cadillac is also also probably kinder than the Nissan to pedestrians or other vehicles if it were to end up plowing into them. Something of course no one would wish upon this whale of a car or its driver.
Likewise, the Nissan weighs about 4700 pounds (depending on configuration). The curb weight of the Cadillac is 4720. So it is roughly the same as the truck. I don’t imagine that this 1963 Cadillac is actually going to crash into man, beast, or fellow vehicle; but if it were to, it would be sort of like the difference between getting hit by a fat guy on a skateboard versus being run down by a locomotive. Neither would be a happy proposition, but as a pedestrian, I’ll take being tossed into the air by the skateboard versus winding up plastered like a bug on the bumper of the truck. Research seems to agree with me.
I’d never really noticed before in my previous encounters with Cadillacs of this vintage that the front is actually less imposing than the rear deck.
Moving to less morbid topics, I’m sure that the owner of this car has heard their fair share of Moby Dick jokes. After all, this particular car sort of defines white whale and that is in keeping with the whole nautical theme that comes to mind upon seeing it.
Nevertheless, I found this subject Cadillac in front of a food establishment that absolutely had nothing to do with nautical themes or whales.
Pardon the fuzzy image. This was from back in the flip-phone days, back before both the Moby Dick restaurant and my phone were upgraded.
Which is quite unlike this other establishment that comes to (my) mind; a restaurant which one would suppose to be all about leviathans of the white variety. This place is likely familiar to many (most?) DC-area residents; and/or apparently residents of Tehran in pre-revolution days…of which there were many, many, such folk in DC in the late 1970s. Never daring to eat at House of Kabob back in the day, I used to suppose that the idea behind the Moby Dick restaurant was that they served whale kabobs. That thought alone kept me from passing through their doors.
As usual, I was wrong. The kabob restaurant really had nothing to do with actual whales. Go figure. It just turns out that the founder (back in Tehran) liked the book, so he named his restaurant after it. If he’d been an Alcott fan, we might have had the Little Women House of Kabob right there at 31st and M NW.
I live a short distance from the actual Little Women house in Concord, MA. Sadly that place is lacking both kabobs and 1963 Cadillacs. Clearly, for those keeping score, Melville wins again.
People to this day apparently love Moby Dick House of Kebob. As one might note in reference to me, ignorance is the parent of fear. And let’s just say that fear doesn’t get you tasty kabobs for dinner.
Unless you have your sights set on whale kabobs, there aren’t many impediments at the the deutsche metzgerei to finding all manner of grillables. Just before Independence Day this year, the Smokehouse of the Catskills was jam-packed with customers grooving on all manner of German sausage. This includes me. I in fact know nothing about the intricacies of German sausage (is it permissible to use the words “intricacies” and “sausage” in the same sentence?), but I do know that this is the only place along my frequently-traveled routes to acquire unique things such as fresh Weisswurst and Nürnberger Rostbratwurst as well as proper soft pretzels and Bavarian mustard. (“Mustard Museum”??? Who would have thought?)
Being a fan of authentic foods (except obviously for whale) from all corners of the world, I welcome the opportunity to purchase something like this sausage and have a meal representative of a very different part of the world than Massachusetts. In the case of German sausage, this is rather attainable since the preparation skills are not appreciably different from fixing up a batch of all-American hot dogs (which of course are also sold at the Smokehouse, and are equally unfathomable by those who disdain eating dead animals). All of which makes me feel like I ought to go sit in my car to eat it in order to get the total Munich experience.
I know.
Over my way, we too generally don’t believe that sausage is something that should be eaten often. But still it is “good”, and I read that “Nürenberger sausage is an essential addition to every family Barbecue in Germany”. OK, well that’s cool. Let’s just chalk this up to being a special occasion. Furthermore, no one who’s not there should ever get to question what constitutes a good family barbecue. It is what it is. Just like this 1963 Cadillac. There is nothing else really like this on the road today. It’s definitely an exotic from some bygone corner of time. While I wouldn’t want to have to live with it every day – just as I couldn’t/shouldn’t/wouldn’t eat sausage every day – it brings pleasure to anyone fascinated with that which is unusual (to them).
That pretty much sums me up.
Holy cow, that’s a lot of red (leather). I love it. Even if I’m sure I couldn’t sit in something like that every day.
I suspect that this 1963 Series 62 is owned by someone who works at the metzgerei. I wonder if this may be the car that weisswurst wrought. If that’s true, then it’s possible that on some days they tuck into the wurst in the Cadillac’s interior…along with the 6 or 7 friends who would clearly fit in the car. Plus the wedding party in the trunk.
And Jonah.
And Geppetto.
And Starbuck.
Well, maybe not that guy…he’s no fun at all.
Hopefully, someone will remember to bring extra mustard.
Related Posts:
Curbside Classic: 1963 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible – What’s a Caddy Like You Doing In a Place Like This – by Tom Klockau
CC Outtake: 1963 Cadillac Convertible – How to Turn Heads at Age 50 – by Robert Kim
General Motors Greatest Hit #13: Were The 1963-64 Cadillacs the Greatest Postwar Cadillacs? – by Laurence Jones
A doctor neighbor who lived across the street from my parents had one of these. He must have had a successful practice as he was only in his mid-30s at the time. It was also a white convertible but, as I remember, it had a white leather interior, not red. Even though the 1963 Cadillac still sported fins they were much subdued from earlier models. IMO, it was a very handsome car. Ironically, the good doctor’s other car (the one he or his wife drove most often) was a dusky blue Volkswagen Beetle of around the same vintage.
The doctor’s next-door neighbor was a chiropractor who bought a new Thunderbird each year and wrote it off as a business expense since he made house calls! At one point he bought a Shelby 350 convertible for his much younger wife to drive. He also had an Excalibur later on; talk about a late-life crisis!
Three doors down from the chiropractor lived the service manager for the local Chrysler-Plymouth dealer. He was always bringing home the latest and greatest from Mopar. The first time I encountered a swivel bucket seat was in his driveway.
Talk about living large in the 60s! I’m jealous of them and jealous of you that you got to grow up around such iron. I like the maximalist and minimalist approach in the same garage. VW for commuting, Caddy convertible for recreating. Nice.
One of the things I didn’t look into during the research that I did on this car was the original price. Turns out that was roughly $6000 in 1963. So indeed anyone having one of these would likely either have been in a successful occupation (e.g., a doctor) or would at least have wanted his neighbors to believe that he was in a successful occupation.
Something that fascinates me is that $6000 in 1963 money is $57,000 in 2023 money…and I see dozens of cars every day on my daily drives that exceed $57,000. In fact, some of the most common cars around me (meaning, I am bound to see 2 or 3 of these any time I am out driving for just a few miles or under a half-hour) are new Tesla Model S’s ($94,000), Range Rovers ($105,000), Suburbans ($57,000) and BMW X3M’s ($72,000). This is not to say that there aren’t also lots of less valuable and less expensive cars (Subaru Crosstreks are incredibly popular around here and go for a paltry $27000), but things over $50000 are very very common…much more common I suspect than new Cadillacs were in 1963.
Times have changed.
Jeff, Try this website (https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/) and see what $6,000.00 in ’63 money really represents in 2022, and not simply inflation (current data only available until 2022). It’s an eye opener: 6.000.00 in ’63 equates to $136,000.00 using the nominal GDP per capita.
Thank you! That calculator offers a much richer and more satisfying look at relative values…something I’m fascinated by.
I need to spend more time with the info on that site, but if I’m reading it correctly in my haste, it’s saying that $6000 car (i.e., a commodity) has an “income value” of $136K today. What does that income value mean? I guess that’s the part that I don’t entirely understand.
(Hey, wait…I thought this was going to be about literature, not economics! 😉 )
Jeff, Not to be pedantic, but it’s the six thousand dollars in 1963 which today has a value (using the nominal GDP per capita value) of $136,000.
I think even calculated for inflation, cars are generally more expensive today. This is easy to understand when you factor in all the much more advanced technology and additional features found in modern automobiles. Just the electronics alone on a modern car dwarf that found on a 60s car. Higher levels of standard equipment, additional safety features, government mandated features for safety, emissions, fuel mileage. The list could go on.
Cars are also generally more mechanically robust and last longer, so in addition to better function, the car will function longer. You do get a lot for your extra money. But you don’t get the presence of a 63 Cadillac!
cars are generally more expensive today Clearly that’s not the case historically, prior to the past two years, which are something of an anomaly. I’ve repeatedly pointed out that the cost of driving has become cheaper over time. And that’s just using a crude CPI adjuster; if one adjusts for actual purchasing power, or percentage of income spent on cars, the drop is much more dramatic.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/operating-costs/the-cost-to-own-and-operate-a-car-has-fallen-25-since-1968/
That calculator pointed out that $6000 in 1963 is worth $136,000, in terms of nominal GDP per capita.
Beautiful!
” the magnificence of this vehicle can’t be adequately conveyed through photos. ”
I’ve observed the same thing. I did an article here on a 1970 Sedan DeVille with the theme that old Caddys have a presence about them that can only be experienced in person. Other cars have it, too, but Caddys tend to have it to the greatest degree.
I can’t say white sausage looks very appealing to me. I guess I’m not German enough, but I’m sure it’s better than it looks. I’d try it!
Maybe once browned and cooked that sausage would look more appealing. I do like German, Italian and American sausage, but this stuff looks like a bunch of phallic symbols……lol
There are indeed many not-white German sausages, but the white ones are best purchased and eaten fresh. They don’t really brown up…particularly if you just heat them versus grill them.
And anyway, the white ones seemed to go best with that white whale of a Cadillac 🙂
They’ll brown up nicely if grilled or fried, then top them with some grilled onions and serve in a slightly crispy outside, soft inside roll with good mustard on top (not a hot dog bun).
As a former owner of a 1963 Cadillac, I heartily approve this message. And yes, these things were BIG. These have a presence like few other cars. This one in white looks almost svelte, though.
I laughed out loud at your title. My mother named my white 59 Plymouth “Moby Dick”, and just “Moby” for short. My early COALS are all connected in this one piece. 🙂
Old family friends had a ‘63 or ‘64 Cadillac, though not white and not even a convertible. But it was huge, and I got to drive it once as a teenager. I was a die hard small imported car fan, but driving the Caddy was an experience. They paid me a few bucks, or maybe I just helped them out, and used it to haul junk to the dump when they were moving out of their huge family home. By then the Cadillac was in pretty sad shape and I remember stuffing it to gills with trash; they didn’t mind. No one had tricks in those days. But it handled that job with grace and even pace.
As for Moby Dick, I couldn’t make it more than a few pages into the book but highly recommend the song Moby-Book by Steve Goodman.
https://genius.com/Steve-goodman-moby-book-lyrics
Thanks for the link to the Moby Book song! I really like Steve Goodman, but hadn’t heard that one.
I’d imagine you could haul quite a bit of trash in one of these cars. Even more if it were a convertible.
During my early college years (1962-1964) I worked at a carpet retailer and warehouse. The boss had a gold colored 1963 Coupe de Ville and he often asked me to drive the Cadillac to his home when his wife wanted the car. She would then drive me back to the warehouse.
I recall that when his rather tiny wife got into the Cadillac she ran the front bench seat all the way forward and up in order to reach the pedals and see over the dashboard.
I would then sit in the passenger seat with my knees in my nose on the way back.
I often wondered why the boss didn’t get a second car that was properly sized for his wife’s use.
The boss’s son had the same deal, one car, two drivers, and I did the same transfer duty for him as well. But his car was a 1964 Tempest and his wife was almost as tall as I was, so the ride back on that bench seat was comfortable.
Many of these ’50s and ’60s large cars did not fully fit into the early 20th century Long Island suburban home’s garages. My father built a back wall bump-out on one bay of the two car garage so he could fully close the garage door on his 1953 Packard. That asymmetrical one-bay-bump-out is still visible to this day on Google-Earth.
True about their not fitting into the garage. But really, how would anyone know you had a magnificent car like this (indicative of your occupational success) if you kept it in a garage? Better to park it right out front on the curb, or at least in the driveway in front of the garage.
The front end of the 63-64 Cadillacs is quite imposing. The 61-62 models, with their headlights inline with the grille, looked more modern, but they looked a bit too much like Chevrolets as well.
The 63-64 Cadillac brought back the classic “headlights over the grille” look to give the front end a more massive look.
This is the same trick currently used on most pickup trucks and SUVs to give them a more imposing front end, BTW.
As a former owner of my Grandpa’s 67 Imperial, I can relate to the extreme length of that beautiful 63 Caddy! To stand behind that huge trunk and look through to the hood ornament was really an amazing distance to behold! I really enjoyed your prose, and having grown up in Milwaukee I’ve downed plenty of sausage! That car will need the occasional sausage(lead) to keep the engine humming!
Thank you! That Imperial was even longer than this 1963 Cadillac. Impressive indeed.
Anyone who has read my previous comments will not be surprised at my thanks for highlighting this spectacular Cadillac from a time when Cadillac was The Standard of the WORLD! In a world now overrun with trucks, SUVS, and crossovers it’s a treat to see ! Even car shows rarely have a beauty like this. Have had multiple LAND YACHTS. Biggest was 1978 Lincoln Town Coupe. Almost 5,000 lbs. 126 wheel base. 235 🤔 length and 460 motor. Never should have let it go. Don’t believe any others quite matched that!
And as I mentioned in a comment above, you could in fact own one of these cars today (they seem to go in quite decent – restored – condition for betwee $40,000 – $50,000) for less than what it would cost to purchase many of the trucks and SUVs that are commonly seen today.
Of course, an 18.5′ long 60 year old car (that gets about 8mpg) is not for everyone I suppose.
Your mention of the ’78 Town Coupe reminds me of my dad…who grew quite fond of renting Lincoln Town Cars in the late 70s and through much of the 80s. I didn’t get it at the time, but whenever he and my mom would show up at my college or later on road trips to my house he’d show up in one of those enormous cars. Thing is my mom was under 5′ tall, and my dad on a good day was about 5’3″. Seeing these two rather diminutive folks climb out of a car that size was always (I mean this in the nicest way possible) rather entertaining.
I had a ’75 Lincoln bought used with 19k miles, literally new, and yes it was the ultimate land yacht. In some ways too big for current traffic and parking spaces, but so comfortable to ride in. A lot of ’70s Lincolns have survived in really excellent condition as the often elderly owners cherished them and kept them up well, and are still available at quite reasonable prices, I see them regularly. For those who miss them and would like another one… why not?
I wouldn’t be quite so confident about being injured less as a pedestrian by the Cad than the Frontier. Your link is of course about modern vehicles, and modern sedans have vastly safer (smoother, softer) front ends than this Cadillac, which is bristling with hard knife edges and protrusions.
Actually, part of the safety crusade of the 70s was to get rid of front ends like this, precisely because they were so lethal. The Frontier may be taller, and potentially more dangerous to a pedestrian than a Nissan Sentra, but its front end also includes flat and soft materials to some extent, and none of those knife-edge guillotines of the Cadillac.
Yeah, that makes sense. There is a lot of sharp metal on the grill of that Caddy and most cars of that age. And I’ve read a lot about how the fronts of modern cars (particularly in recent years) have been designed to be kinder to pedestrians. Those explosive devices that raise the back end of the hood in the even of a pedestrian collision (I believe these are on Teslas, and also a number of more recent Volvos and BMWs) are also evidence of an attempt to make cars kinder and gentler to pedestrians.
On the other hand, I’d be surprised to find much soft on the front end of something like the Frontier. And I definitely don’t want to find out the hard way. 🙂
I’m pretty sure that a lot of this has to do with EU pedestrian safety vehicle rules they’ve had for a while. I think being more pedestrian-centric they were ahead of the US on this.
The truck spreads the impact over a larger part of your body. That is likely beneficial at low speeds. At higher, you might have a better than zero chance having your legs banged to hell by a low car and your torso thrown into the sky.
I saw a graph of annual US pedestrian deaths since 1980 recently. It dropped enormously in the 80s, 90s, and 00s (even more impressive considering the much higher vehicle miles driven), but has since risen back close to the 1980 level, perhaps due to crossovers and pickups.
Low cars tend to hit at the knees, buckle the pedestrian over onto the hood where their head hits and then pitches them into the air and the subsequent uncontrolled landing is often the (final) issue. Modern cars have thinner hoods that are more flexible and also are designed with more space between the hood and the engine below it as “crush” space that is softer for a human head to impact. The “pop-up” hoods you mention are a further aspect to provide a cushion. Teslas as you mentioned (and rear-engined cars such as a Porsche 911) don’t have an engine or highly placed motor under the hood. Hood ornaments, especially the fixed/rigid kind, mostly went away for very good reasons.
Trucks are flatter in front nowadays as it is considered better to be impacted and then thrown forward (assuming the car or truck is attempting to stop and doesn’t manage to do so before hitting the pedestrian.) rather than bowled over the vehicle. Most of the front of that Frontier is very soft (deformable may be a better word), at least when compared to any part of that completely unyielding Cadillac.
The crumple zone of the Nissan will also cause less human damage to both its occupants as well as the occupants of another vehicle that it may hit as compared to the Cadillac. If the Nissan and the Cadillac hit each other the Nissan will likely look worse but its occupants will be more likely to walk away with fewer injuries as they will absorb less of the impact, much of it having been dissipated into the Nissan’s chassis. The car can be replaced quite easily, the person not so much.
You don’t want to get hit by either but if it’s unavoidable, the Nissan would be far preferable either as a pedestrian or if in another car or as the vehicle to be in for that matter.
Speaking of Cadillacs and presence, there is a brand new shiny black Cadillac LYRIQ (all caps I guess) in our parking lot and it is striking. There is nothing unusual about the size but it’s design and small details are certainly striking.
I was spoiled. In my youth, among the “family cars” was a 1963 Cadillac, a four-window, four door hardtop. It was followed by some more Cadillacs until, years after I had left the nest to seek my own fortune, my Dad abandoned the marque when its output became shrunken caricatures, clones of whatever else GM was churning out to the mass market. The minivan he then bought served him until he quit driving.
The 1963 Cadillac was the finest of all. The decline toward “Big Chevy” status was perceptible with every successor.
First things First: The Mustard Museum. I was just there last week. And I highly recommend it for folks who enjoy visiting unique places. The museum itself is very interesting (who knew that learning about a common condiment could be so interesting?), and there’s also a store selling unusual mustard varieties. We bought a few different kinds, including examples from the Netherlands and Ireland. Neat place.
Also, as a fellow fan of authentic foods, I took advantage of being in Wisconsin to engorge on some German “specialty meats” myself. I may have exceeded my lifetime quota for headcheese, braunschweiger and liverwurst.
Your Cadillac here reminds me of a ’73 convertible I wrote about a few years ago (below). Seeing these in the wild, among more contemporary-proportioned vehicles, puts the whole land yacht thing into a better perspective. I also caught up with that Cadillac when it was parked at a restaurant – so I’m thinking that huge whale-like convertibles and food just naturally go together.
Excellent! I hadn’t even fully checked to see where the Mustard Museum was located. But “2 1/2 hours from Chicago”?! I absolutely am going to get out there the next time I’m in Chicago and have a rental car. It seems like after visiting the Jello Museum last month, I’m due for a Mustard Museum tour.
While we’re on the subject, I highly recommend the Tabasco Museum (and factory tour) on Avery Island in Louisiana. There aren’t that many condiment museums in the US, so seeing them all is likely an attainable goal.
The ketchup museum of course is in Pittsburgh, but it also seems like it may be more of a general Pittsburgh museum than one truly devoted to ketchup and relish. I’m just saying.
Wow – I’ll definitely add the Tabasco Museum to my list of places to visit!
Oh baby…
Cadillac horns have the same pitch as a locomotive horn, now that’s pedestrian safety!
I’m not a Cadillac man but I do have a thing for their convertibles. Big stylish convertibles are the only way that bodystyle makes logical sense to me, illogical as it sounds
Personally, when it comes to the gigantic full-sized cars of the 60s – 70s, I have to separate the convertibles from the closed top cars. I actually find closed top Cadillacs less pleasing than the Lincolns and Imperials of the time; but in convertible form, it’s the Cadillac hands down. No logic there, just taste.
Yep, those match my sentiments exactly.
Thats a nice car! I find it funny that the trunk in the Caddy is probably bigger than the box on the Nissan truck. Full size V8 four door trucks with an extra short box and a tonneau cover seem so popular when really they are just a modernized full sized car of yesteryear without a factory trunk lid
“As usual, I was wrong. The kabob restaurant really had nothing to do with actual whales. Go figure. It just turns out that the founder (back in Tehran) liked the book, so he named his restaurant after it. If he’d been an Alcott fan, we might have had the Little Women House of Kabob right there at 31st and M NW.”
What a great paragraph, Jeff.
I actually only read Moby Dick for the first time a few years ago. Even though it is about 45 percent story and 55 percent whaling stuff, you can immediately tell why it’s special; it just sticks with you. The car’s a great find, too. I think I prefer the ’62 convertible to any of the later ones, but that’s hairsplitting.
I’ve had Moby Dick on my shelf for a while meaning to read it.
I recently watched In The Heart Of The Sea. Really good movie, and if it’s to be believed, Melville was inspired for his book by an actual case of a giant whale aggressively attacking a whaling ship.
Thank you Aaron!
I do believe that Moby Dick is a special novel that in some ways might kind of resonate with CC readers. Yes, it’s a compelling human drama, but it’s also as you note about 55% (arguably, more) technical treatise on what amounted to one of the most significant industries of Melville’s day…whaling. The long sections on how to render whales into products for 1850’s life are kind of fascinating to someone who has an interest in “how it’s made”.
My memory of my grandmother’s ’64 is the turn signal far ahead at the end of the chrome fender spear going clunk-clunk. Of course, the sound was coming from inside.
Great treatise, Jeff! In 1964, one of my father’s customers, who was also a neighbor of ours in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, bought a one-year old Caddy, this color exterior and this color interior. Henry, who was a Swede, loved the car as did his wife who he met in The States. So, good memories for me, too. As for the Smokehouse of the Catskills, I am going to put this on my list of restaurants for a day trip. We live in the lower Hudson River Valley near Nyack, NY. The northern Catskill Mountains has a viable population of people of German descent. I love their food. As for sausage, Oscar’s in Warrensburg, NY has excellent sausage which you can order on line. It is hardly just another form of a hotdog. Alter Deutschen Wursten. All of you should try Oscar’s. No, I have no relationship to this emporium. If you are in Lake George Village, it is a short ride north on U.S. Route 9, but on line ordering is what I do. Hurray for the days of the Cadillac tanks and the competitors, too!
One mistake from Tom. This place is as it says, “Metzgerei.” No restaurant. Good German smoked meats for sale in their retail establishment. For us, a drive of one-and-a-half hours that we will enjoy along with other restaurants and the beautiful scenery.
Indeed. It’s in Saugerties, which we pass through on the way to property further up around the Ashokan.
Bring a cooler. 🙂
In reality, lots of early-mid 1970’s Cadillacs, and other cars, are longer than this ’63. However, the fins and the huge deck create the visual impression of immense size. Despite the length, they are surprisingly easy to handle and park. About 20-25 years ago I had a ’63 six-window Sedan deVille. The thin roof pillars give close to 360 degree visibility. To parallel park, just aim with the fins. Easy peasy.
That has been my experience with my ’65 Chrysler. It has decent visibility with the top up, and amazing visibility with it down and you can see exactly where all 4 corners are.
I don’t remember the height, but length and width are within an inch or so if the Cadillac. To put it in perspective, it is also basically the same length and width as a 15 passenger Dodge van.
yep they big cars on the outside but my friends 59 4 door hardtop has less room inside than my Citroen, he uses it and a 66 Cheviac Laurention as wedding hire cars other than WOF inspections and weddings they rarely leave the garage, he has a4x4 Hilux turbo diesel flat deck and a Caddy CTS for daily use
A gold ’64 Cadillac convertible was my first Cadillac back in 1976. I bought it as a daily driver and it was great, I never found it hard to drive. I guess that driving my Dad’s ’63 Lincoln acclimated me to big cars. It was in pretty good shape and it was only 12 years old at the time, but it was more worn than the 15+ year old cars that I’ve bought lately. My ’06 Mustang and ’05 Navigator are both in very good condition in and out, much better than my ’64 Caddy was.
The ’63 Cadillac cost 6,000 dollars when new, I agree that you can’t translate Today’s price simply by multiplying it by a given value. Back then median family incomes were lower, most were single wage earner, and salaries and hourly pay rates were much lower. The price of a new Cadillac was something that was only easily handled by an affluent buyer. I suppose that this is true, but new ’60’s Cadillacs were everywhere in Oakland as I was growing up, and I know that many of the buyers weren’t really affluent. That was based on the neighborhoods where the cars were located. Some of my Dad’s coworkers at the GM assembly plant bought new Cadillacs, and two and three year old models were extremely popular. The finest new car makes the finest used car! That line came straight from Cadillac itself!
The best thing about these cars, in my opinion, is the truly innovative tail lights. This article details what I mean: https://autouniversum.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/clear-tail-lamps-the-height-of-automotive-fashion-fifty-years-ago/
Thanks for linking that article. That’s something that I would never have known about but for the commentary here. Excellent.
’63/’64s were the last of the truly great Cadillacs imo, ’65-’68s a bit less so, and in ’71 Cadillac quality and prestige just fell off a cliff. Our neighbor in Towson bought a new ’64 Sedan De Ville, what a jewel of an automobile that was. When I last saw it in ’73 and they were moving to FL it still looked new, I should have bought it from him.
Interesting the similar dimensions to the “Nissan”. See the “Nissan p/u’s” on the road all the time. Guess, because of the height, they don;t seem to sprawl out like the “Caddy’s” did.
Give me a plate of weisswurst and spaetzle please. Has JK pointed out, pedestrians are given greater consideration with that nice truck. However, weisswurst would give me the power to leap straight up and somersault, tucking myself in cannonball style, just clearing the windshield, Then, I’d stick the landing into the backseat.
Has the vehicles come at you; the Cadillac looks much more doable.
https://youtu.be/hhEaL_SExJA?list=PL7VSI73mTDioQijJQ_KFZK4Ozb2o2tF0F&t=104
Just in case anyone’s interested, there’s still time to get to New Bedford for the Moby Dick-athon. It takes 3 days, but every year, the entire novel is read aloud by a variety of celebrities and just regular folks who want to stand up and read (particularly in the middle of the night).
It’s like the Jerry Lewis telethon, except with whaling.
https://www.whalingmuseum.org/program/moby-dick-marathon-2024/
I was blessed to have owned a 63 Cadillac sedan. White with a gold roof. It was great car. Putting the pedal down on the highway. Very few could keep up. The biggest kick of this vehicle was seat belts was an option from the factory. I wish I had been able to keep it. Missing it