1970 Cadillac Coupe de Ville - Have Your Lawyer Call Mine

Model year 1982 is regarded by many a Cadillac cognoscente as the low point for the brand; I know I do. The introduction of the Chevrolet Cavalier based Cimarron and the "HT4100" V-8 engine a devastating one-two punch to the brand's mid-section that had been teetering for years. 

Like many couples who divorce, Cadillac's fall from grace happened over time and then all at once; "1982" didn't just happen. Additionally, to those who didn't know better, all seemed fine on the surface; just like Bob and Deb who all of a sudden split after decades of marriage; "oh, they seemed so happy together." Take this magnificent 1970 Coupe deVille for instance. Based on appearances, all was right at Cadillac. In reality, nothing could have been further from the truth. 

1970 was the last year for General Motors rear-wheel-drive models that dated back to 1965; the last year for the 1966 and 1967-circa, front-wheel-drive Oldsmobile Toronoado and Cadillac Eldorado as well. Many a pundit, and I concur, believe the 1965 GM full-size cars the best engineered vehicles GM had produced in their history to that point. 

Everything being relative, the '65's were structurally sound and rode and handled with a balance and an aplomb like no cars had before them, for years after as well. Problem was, even by 1965, GM "bean counters" were forcing designers and engineers to do more with less. The net-net was there wasn't a lot to distinguish a Cadillac from lesser GM makes and models. Cadillac was coasting on its reputation and had stopped innovating; innovation, as much if not more than styling, helped make "Cadillac" what it had been. That was fine...until it wasn't. 

There may have been "prettier" Cadillac's in the prior twenty-five-years, but the 1970 Coupe deVille  held its own in terms of appearing to be what buyers had come to expect a Cadillac to look like. There's not a bad line on these cars although it does have more testosterone in it than a John Wayne movie. It's as subtle as a pickup truck. My wife hates these things; hence, she's never approved the purchase order for one. Just as well. 

We peak inside and we see fissures in the facade, makes those cracks in the simulated wood trim. Cadillac had been "cheapening" their interiors for years but through 1968, buyers could still get genuine wood trim albeit wafer thin veneers. For 1969, Cadillac introduced this wood free, injection-molded nightmare. 

Our Coupe has the added indignity of this 1970-only steering wheel. To the lower left of it is, I think, is a '70's vintage AM/FM tuner. Better it there than hacking up the "Plastic Wood" dashboard although that can't do anything for leg room. 

Luxury cars should surprise and delight and even the "Dynasty" cloth in medium gold upholstery lacks the sumptuousness you would expect of a $6,000, supposedly premium car. At least it's not what called "Dubonnet" cloth that would look out of a place in a Chevrolet Impala or a taxicab. The leather upholstery Cadillac offered at the time was a soul-less, rock-hard slab of un-exceptional too. 

Save for admiring the storied brand, contemporary road test reviewers damned these cars with faint praise. They gushed at how feature rich they were, they should have been considering what they cost, and their silent, plush rides, but noted they didn't handle well and even its massive and vaunted, 472-cu. in. V-8, aside from being the largest V-8 engine you could buy in a passenger car, wasn't anything special. 

Can only imagine loyal Cadillac buyers' disappointment when they went to trade in their '65 or older for a 1970. Nothing like getting less for more. Well, we all know about that these days. With model-year 1971 came an all but comprehensive "reboot" on GM's full-size line. Along with GM's self-immolation came circumstances only exacerbating their plight. What a time to be a young, coming of age car geek.  

This one's for sale currently on Marketplace about an hour east of the Triple Wide west of Cleveland, Ohio. Asking price is a cool $17,500. She's supposedly all-original except for a forty-year-old respray. 118,000-miles on her 56-year-old ticker. Set aside some Benji's for the front seats that are split pretty bad. They don't sell "Dynasty cloth" at Autozone or O'Reilly's. 

There was a time I'd be all about a big old geezer like this, but I've come to want more from my "classic" or "weekender" than to have something that a modern Hyundai crossover could suck the doors off of. Do so while swaddling me in the kind of comfort the original buyer of this car thought they'd be getting. Or did they realize that "Cadillac" didn't mean what it once did and they bought it anyway for what it was supposed to be? 

Have your lawyer call mine. 

How do you say "gangster"? The vestigial tailfins help give the illusion that the top of these cars is chopped like a 1930's roadster. The sides are barely rounded, amazing how much automobile design had evolved in the scant twenty-two model years between Cadillac's first post-war models and these cars. Then again, when you're young, twenty-years seems like an eternity. 

The problem with this car is its interior. By 1970, General Motors was heavy into injection molding, even on Cadillacs. 

As much as I appreciate the '49's, I love the "gangster" lines these cars have that Cadillac's after 1970 did not have. In a way, then, in my opinion, these cars are the last "real" Cadillac's although, if we're being honest, the last "real" Cadillac, whatever that means is up for debate, probably left the Hamtramck plant in Detroit years if not decades prior. 

The big problem with these cars is their interiors. GM was heavy into not only injection molding by 1970, but they were also into the shameful use of plastic wood trim going back to 1967. Have to imagine a Cadillac buyer trading in their '63 or '64 took issue with the fake stuff, no matter how good it may have looked. I, for one, don't think it ever looked good. 

We also have opinions as to what was the last year for "real" Cadillac's. I, for one, don't think there was a single year when Cadillac went down the tubes. Much like couples that divorce, the "decay" was over a number of years. That fall from grace going back to the mid-to-late-'50's when General Motors stopped plowing research and development dollars into the brand in the interest of maintaining profit margins. 

In said interest of margins, that meant the technical innovations that helped define the brand "trickled down" to lesser makes and models. That's all well and good but at the same time, Cadillac didn't have the resources it once had to innovate. 

By 1970, there wasn't much tangibly different between a Coupe de Ville and a Buick Electra or Olds 98. A Pontiac Bonneville and Chevrolet Caprice as well. I'd argue that my father's 1970 Buick Electra was much more luxurious than this Cadillac and a was decadently trimmed and finished compared to his '72, 

I'm also a big fan of the 1949 Coupe de Ville, but these cars are far more "modern" than those early post War cars. Although, you take a spin in one of these and seeing how it rides and handles like an old truck, you'd think something was wrong with it.

One way to a 1970 deVille or Calais from a 1969 is by looking at the taillights. On the 1970's, the bottom of the light has a red lens, on the '69's the bumper wraps around under the top lens. 

Another way is to look at the steering wheel. If it's got this putrid, one year only thing, it's a 1970. 

Check the front grill too. If it's finely textured like this, she's a '70. The '69's have more of a slotted grill. 

This is the best shot of upholstery. This is a Cadillac? 

The front seat is so badly worn, someone covered them with these seats covers. Power seat switches just like you'd find on a Chevrolet Impala or Caprice. 

Love the high seat backs on these cars. 

I'm not sure what I once saw in these cars. Perhaps I was blinded by the badass-ness of the design. 1970 was the last year for these cars that debuted in 1965. The side-by-side headlights, which I love, were a change from the stacked lights on 1965 to 1968 models. 

Timeless Detroit Beauty! All original 1970 Cadillac Coupe DeVille (vinyl top) VIN: JO 223774 472 engine (7.7 liter) 375hp, 500 lb-ft. torque Turbo Hydra-Matic 400 (THM400) 3-speed automatic transmission 118,000 miles Exterior color black Interior color light brown Car is all original, no modifications, never been restored I purchased this Caddy in Florida in 2001. At the time the car had just received a brand new paint job. Paint is still in excellent condition. There are minor scratches from usual wear and tear. Interior is light brown with seat covers and is in excellent condition. List of options (everything works): Dual power seats Original wonderbar radio Tilt and telescopic steering Rear and front cigarette lighters Driver side mirror Automatic climate control system 60/40 split bench seat with armrest (front seat) Interior map light Power steering Power brakes Original floor mats Items that have been replaced / repaired: New fuel pump New distributor

 

1974 Pontiac Firebird Esprit - Spirted, Lively and Witty!

"Esprit", pronounced, "es-pree", is a French word meaning spirited, lively and witty. From 1970 through 1981, Pontiac sold a version of the Firebird called they called "Esprit" that was none of those things. This 1974 Pontiac Firebird Esprit popped up on Marketplace recently for sale just north of Atlanta, Georgia. Asking price is $10,000. 

Just like the Chevrolet Camaro Type LT and later the Berlinetta, the Firebird Esprit was a softer-sprung, less performance-oriented version of the Firebird for those who wanted to enjoyed the car's design or to "look the part" but didn't want to deal with the harsher ride, noisy exhaust, lower gas-mileage and high insurance premiums of the Firebird Formula or Trans Am. A Firebird for those who enjoy golf, but it's the lifestyle they appreciate more than actually playing. Only us dyed in the wool car nerds would know that an Esprit was about as spirted as Monte Carlo or Grand Prix; and who cares what we think. Go on, enjoy your "sports car" you poser. 

Pontiac, for sure, didn't care; they just wanted to sell more cars and would do what they thought they had to. To that end, a "plushy" Firebird makes some sense. You get most of the Firebird-esthetic in a more manageable, less costly to insure, easier to live with package right down to a column shifter for the transmission. 

                                        

For 1974, the Esprit was part of a four-model Firebird lineup that included the base Firebird below it, that could be ordered with an insurance friendly, Chevrolet built, 250-cu. in., inline six-cylinder engine, and more stiffly sprung, performance-oriented Formula and Trans Am models above it. Save for the bargain basement, Chevy six-cylinder powered base Firebird, a god's green-earth, Pontiac V-8 was all you'd find in any Firebird for '74.  

Even our Facebook Esprit here came from the factory with a V-8, most likely a Pontiac "350" although it could be a 400; they look identical. Either one born with a two-barrel carburetor, the big-boy four-barrels reserved for Formula's and Trans Am's. The two-barrel tossed here for an Edelbrock four-barrel and Performer intake manifold. Poster of the ad claims just 8,000-miles have been put on the car since the engine "build". There are no other details about the engine in the ad. Umm, a carburetor and intake swap counts as a "build"? 

For the $10,000 asking price, you get a Firebird with the divine thicker c-pillars and smaller rear window that would disappear for 1975, a shoot-me-now full vinyl roof, bucket seats with splitting upholstery and enough visible "surface" rust to make the Tin Man run for cover. The paint is shot too. 

Back in my day, this was a $500 car. Maybe $750. What does that convert to today, $1,500 maybe $2,000? Even that seems a lot for something that's probably going to need the asking price if not more in body work alone. I've got another definition for Esprit, "see you later". 

1983 Continental Mark VI - Can't Be Too Careful Out There

 

Given it's been forty-three years since one of these downsized and unloved Continental Mark VI's left Lincoln-Mercury showrooms, and these aren't exactly car show darlings, imagine my surprise when I saw this '83 sinking into the glue-like mud at the Cleveland Pull-A-Part a couple of weeks back. 

Unlike the 1978 Mark V that's less than fifty yards north, this "VI" still has her distinctive trunk lid. The hump-on-the-trunk was then Ford senior executive vice president Lee Iacocca's idea when designers first presented the Ford management team with what would become the 1969 Mark III. Frankly, Lido may get more credit for the idea than he was due considering the 1956 and 1957 Continental Mark II's had a hump, albeit vestigial compared later iterations. 

Give him all the credit for the Rolls Royce inspired front grill that adorned all Mark IIIs to Mark VIII's. These cars were "Continental Marks" through 1985 and not branded as Lincolns, that changed in 1986 when they became known as Lincoln Marks. 

The Continental Mark VI had literally and figuratively big brake shoes to fill when they went on sale in the fall of 1979. The Continental Mark V was the best-selling Mark of all time with Lincoln moving more than 70,000 of them each year from 1977 to 1979. More than 228,000 in all V's sold with big, fat, sweet profit margins. Not bad for what was little more than a freshened up 1972 to 1976 Continental Mark IV, itself little more than a '72 to '76 Ford Thunderbird in a tuxedo. Or, depending on your point of view, dressed up as a hooker. 

To the degree that semantics or facts actually matter these days, Lincoln actually sold more Continental IV's than they did V's. However, the IV was sold over four-years as opposed to the V's three and never had a single sales year as good as any of the V's.

I hypothesize that sales of the Mark V were as good as they were due to General Motors downsizing all their full-size cars, except for the front-wheel-drive "E-body" Cadillac Eldorado and Oldsmobile Toronado, in 1977; the Cadillac Eldorado, which was, technically the Mark's arch-rival, got the shrink-ray in 1979. The Mark IV and V, though, always outsold the big and funky, front-wheel-drive Caddy. That would all change once Lincoln put these smaller boats in the water. Not that the Ford Motor Company wanted to, but with government mandated fuel-economy standards getting increasingly stringent, they had no choice. 

Seeing the success of the Continental Mark V, you can't blame the Ford Motor Company for recycling every styling cue from the V onto the new-for-1980 VI's, albeit on a somewhat smaller scale. Problem was, and this is where things get milky, said smaller styling cues that made the V what it was became cheesy, tacky and even more contrived on the VI. 

Meanwhile Cadillac's clean-sheet, new-for-1979 smaller Eldorado had nothing in common with the barge it replaced yet, arguably, oozed more "Cadillac". Through 1985, the Eldorado clobbered the Continental Mark at the box office. 

From 1980 through 1983, Lincoln sold less than half the number of Mark VI's than they did V's; and that was over a four-year run not three. Those VI sales figures included the four-door versions.  

I would have gotten more pictures, even popped one of her doors open and shot around inside her, but this mud out here was so thick I thought it would suck me in down to my waist like a quicksand scene out of some horror movie. Can't be too careful out there. 

1987 Pontiac 6000 - As Good As it Got

 

Couple of weeks back when I visited Cleveland Pull-A-Part for parts for my wife's car, my thought was that after I got what I needed, I'd spend some time perusing the sea of cars I found interesting on the sprawling, ankle spraining gravel yard. Ha. As if. Had I known they'd be as a scarce as they were, I would have taken more pictures of this 1987 Pontiac 6000. Yeah, that's how bad it was that something like this would be one of the more compelling old wrecks out there. As it was, I paid little attention to it. 

In an attempt to bulk up my photos, I found this snowy shot of it on Pull-A-Part's inventory page. Pretty neat they do this sort of thing although they don't update these pictures nor keep tabs on what may or may not still be on a car. You could try calling and ask if someone could run out and check if this or that is still on a car, but they have a skeleton crew running the joint so unless it's a really slow day for them, that's not likely to happen. Best bet is to find something on their website and take your chances when you get there that what you need is still available. Keep in mind, though, nothing like getting all the way there and finding what you need is gone. Trust me on that one. Good times. 

Pontiac introduced these cars in 1982, and I wanted nothing to do with them. I saw them as another wave of relentless General Motors downsizing that resulted in boring, soulless cars. Forget the fact all of them were infinitely better transportation conveyances than what they replaced; I can't think of one downsized GM make and model downsized between 1977 and 1986 that was an aesthetic improvement over what it replaced. 

Critics loved the V-6 powered 6000 "STE" or "Special Touring Edition" of these cars that Pontiac rolled out in 1983. David E. Davis, the famous "Car and Driver" editor and founder of "Automobile" magazine claimed it was the best car built in America at the time. High praise from Mr. Davis who, in my opinion, could be unfairly harsh towards The Big Three and a Half at times. As luck would have it, our '87 here is not in "STE" trim. What's more, it's saddled with a "Tech 4", inline, 4-cylinder engine. This is as gutless a mill as there ever was, most it ever made was 110-horsepower. It's not all bad, though, despite sounding oh-so-agricultural and shaking like a paint shaker, it's a damn near bulletproof little engine. No doubt one of the reasons this 6000 lived as long as it did. Pontiac built these 151-cu. in. or 2.5-lier engines from 1977 through 1993. Colloquially known as "Iron Dukes", from 1982 to 1993, "Dukes" with throttle-body-fuel injection were labeled as "Tech 4's". 

Pontiac replaced the 6000 with the 1988-circa Pontiac Grand Prix although through 1990, both models were on showroom floors at the same time. 

1991 Oldsmobile Toronado - Sleep Well My Friend

Although I never owned one, I felt like I ran into an old friend when I saw this penultimate 1991 Oldsmobile Toronado at the Pull-A-Part in Cleveland, Ohio a couple of weeks ago. I half wanted to buy the whole thing and tow it home. Probably more than half wanted to. I've always been a fan of these 1990-1992 "Toro's". 

I was not, however, a fan of the 1986 to 1989 Toronado that preceded my old chum; above is a 1986. Too squat, too stubby and too small, it lacked the charm, character or "presence", whatever that means, any of its predecessors had going back to 1966.  

                 

Its predecessors include the O.G., class-of-1966 Toro, above left, that I think homely as hell. I much prefer the cleaner lines of the 1972 green giant on the right, vinyl roof and all. Bonus! Oldsmobile sold the '72's with a complimentary airplane. With regards to the 1986-1989's, though, in fairness, it's not like Oldsmobile designers, engineers and product planners came to the office one day and decided to screw up a staple of their portfolio. 

Facing five-dollar-a-gallon gas prices and wanting to remain in the high-end, personal luxury car space, General Motors felt they had no choice but to starve their "E-body" Cadillac Eldorado, Buick Riviera and Olds Toronado to near death. The new shrink-rayed Toronado for instance was a whopping 18.2-inches shorter, over half-an-inch less wide, 6.1-inches narrower wide and 545-pounds less heavy than 1985 models like this one. 

Thing is, $5-a-gallon-gas never happened, at least not back then. Even by the time work began on these cars in earnest in 1982, gas prices had dropped and stabilized. Therefore, when these debuted, it was like a pharmaceutical company today debuting a new, state-of-the-art Covid-era mask. 

That these cars were so much smaller than what they replaced not necessarily what cratered sales by more than 60-percent; they just weren't good looking cars. I'd say they were ugly. 

Aside from how the cars looked, another massive gaffe was that that they resembled General Motors new-for-1985 "GM-20" or "N-body" cars like the Oldsmobile Calais, above is an '86, that cost thousands less. Adding insult to injury, GM charged upwards of 16-percent more for the shrunken Toro and other E-bodies. I guess GM figured they could charge more for less just like they did with the smaller-bodied 1976-1979 Cadillac Seville. 

Back to the drawing board, boys. For 1990, Olds designers shoveled more than a foot of bondo on the Toronado and injected a healthy dose of Botox into every body panel to plump up proportions. The 1990 reboot did not include an increase in wheelbase or much of anything underneath. Not a bad thing as the 1986 Toro's were fairly modern; rack-and-pinion steering, four-wheel-disc brakes, independent rear suspension with a transverse mounted fiberglass leaf spring, unibody construction, a V-6 with port fuel-injection and a ton of gimmicks and gizmos. 

While I'm not a fan of "plastic surgery" per se, actually, on paper, I abhor the idea, if the ends outweigh the means, I'm all about it. I, for one, was a big fan of the reboot. Sadly, it seemed, few others felt the same way. Shame too since all of these cars were vastly superior transportation conveyances compared to what they replaced. 

Back in the day, I couldn't touch one of these when new. These ran about twice what I paid for my 1990 Chevrolet Lumina Euro. 

Begs the question though, did the market shift away from personal luxury cars or did the market respond to cars they simply didn't appreciate any longer by not buying them?  

Oldsmobile replaced the Toronado, well, technically anyway, with the four-door only Aurora in 1994. Sleep well, my friend.