The Old '76er - The Last Cadillac

GM's 1971 vintage B bodies went out with bang. With the federally mandated 5 mph crash resistant bumpers fore and aft these were the largest passenger cars GM would ever build.

In the fall of 1976 my dad, apparently flush with money from cashing in stock options, went Cadillac shopping. He took a look at the all-new-for-1977 Cadillac Deville and said, "THAT, is NOT a CADILLAC! This (pointing to a 1976 model also in the showroom) IS"!

That cow catcher front bumper spoiled what I always thought was a beautiful design

To my parents generation, that raised during the Great Depression, Cadillac was the ultimate status symbol and with that status symbol purchase came a stupefyingly gigantic automobile. The '76 Deville, the last of it's ilk, the most gigantic of them all. The bigger the car the bigger the bank account? I think that's what they thought. Or they wanted to give off the illusion of that. We were not well off by any means and certainly that money stuffed away in a coffee can under the bed should've gone towards something more pragmatic but I digress. Daddy wanted a Caddy and that was that. And he wanted a BIG one. The "little" '77's weren't going to cut it. He wanted that '76er. For the record, in 1977 General Motors began their mostly successful downsizing program on their full size cars. The '77's were still very big but not as big, shorter by up to a foot in the case of the Cadillacs, as their predecessors were.

Those gourgeous tail lamps evoke Cadillacs of the tail fin age. Even Cadillacs today pay hommage to that design.

On the long, air conditioned test drive (AC was a big deal in the '70s'. Only rich people had that in their cars) dad took the big boy home and found it wouldn't fit in the garage. Doh. When he was backing T-Rex out of our garage he hit the McChesney's tree and took a chunk out of the bark. Doh-DOH! My brother and I chewing our cheeks with tears running down our faces trying to stifle our laughter. Good thing the Frank Sinatra 8 track was muffling our chuckling too.

Hood ornaments were big in the '70s. This thing is spring loaded so it's able to bend back and forth without snapping off

While I LOVED the car, I never understood the snob appeal of it. I knew enough about cars even then to tell my parents that a comparable Chevrolet Caprice was essentially the same car and it cost THOUSANDS less but my mother, in particular, would have none of it. "A Chevrolet is not a Cadillac", she scolded. Well, it was their money and perhaps overly practical 12 year old me was trying to get some college fundage stashed away for myself. Parents 1, Kids 0.

Coupe is a french word for less. Less in this case being two doors less than a sedan.

They settled on a dark blue on black sedan. I thought the color scheme drearier than a Tim Burton film but mom and dad loved it. They finally got their Cadillac. When they were happy, which was far too infrequent, I was happy.

They got a good deal on it because it was the last year of that body style. "The Last Cadillac" as dad liked to say.