It's the rare automobile that actually improved as their original design was updated. GM famous for updating great looking cars and turning them into plastic surgery nightmares. The all new for 1971 Cadillac Eldorado a prime example of a car that actually did get better looking as it passed through its design life cycles.
Introduced to much fanfare in 1967, the front wheel drive Cadillac Eldorado was arguably the most beautiful Cadillac of the decade and one of their all time greatest designs. What got lost in the drop dead gorgeous sheet metal was that marvelous front wheel drive engineering. Did people even care that this car was front wheel drive?
The 1971 reboot trashed most if not all of that 1967 styling mojo. The '67 Eldorado was the car of the Rat Pack; the 1971 looked like the car of the Fat Pack. It may have been nothing more than the fender skirts and the six inch longer wheelbase but the '71 looks like put on a thousand pounds. Truth be known the convertible was marginally heavier than a '67 hardtop and the car's overall length was but .6 of a inch larger than the car it replaced.
Something happened, though on the way to the funeral parlor. Granny lost her fender skirts, her pointless, non functioning rear brake cooling vents and she gained some girth with the huge safety bumpers but somehow the old lady suddenly had some real charm. This 1976 was the same car underneath as the 1971, save for some soul robbing emissions plumbing, but think about which one you'd rather have?
1971
1976
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