Deer Hunter Cadillac - 1959 Cadillac Series 62



I saw "The Deer Hunter" so many times when I was a kid growing up on Long Island I experienced a cinematic "Stockholm Syndrome" of sorts. At that time, HBO had only a cadre of films they repeated over and over "The Deer Hunter" was one of them. Whether it was the thrill of watching an "R-rated" movie at home alone or that Robert DeNiro and the entire cast was so magnetic, most likely a combination of both, I grew so fond of "The Deer Hunter" it became a personal guide of all things machismo. I saw it again recently through what I construe are adult eyes and laughed to myself at what an absurd and pretentious mess the whole thing was.  

  

"The Deer Hunter" tells the "story" of three steel mill workers and how their service in the United States Army during the Vietnam War affects each of them and their group dynamic. Along the way we're treated to the broiling working conditions of a steel mill, after work male bonding, a wedding, eventually a funeral, deer getting shot to death (with one shot), incinerated Viet Cong and the guys, amazingly altogether, incarcerated as POW's and forced to play Russian Roulette. All this in a meandering, incoherent, seemingly ad-libbed, near four-hour melee. While it has many of the necessary elements to be a good film, it's assembled such that there's no way it can be truly compelling. Spoiler alert - there really is no plot to "The Deer Hunter" and any point it may attempt to make one lost because it, try as some may say it does, ultimately lacks a cohesive narrative. It's as if the director and producers of the film, not to mention it's very talented cast, made parts of it up as they went along. For the record, there were no accounts of the Viet Cong forcing POW's to "play" Russian Roulette. 

What the The "Deer Hunter" dealt with, successfully or not is debatable, was a very, very uncomfortable subject matter at the time -  that eight-letter word that to this day still makes many of us. In the late 1970's, "We The People" did our darndest to stuff it in our collective emotional closets and get on with our lives; we did our best to pretend it never happened. As painful as it was, thanks to Hollywood, films like "The Deer Hunter", which was the first "Vietnam movie", forced us to stare down our demons in a mass group therapy session. And a seemingly never ending one that had us shaking our heads mumbling, "what the hell was that?" 

 

If "The Deer Hunter" had anything going for it, in addition to Vilmos Zsigmond's wonderful  cinematography, it had a cast of up and coming film legends and a 1959 Cadillac Series 62 that Robert DeNiro's character, Michael, drives. I'm fairly ambivalent towards '59 Cadillac's but cast as one was in "The Deer Hunter", no other car could have fit the role more perfectly. Assuming the film's director, Michael Cimino, was attempting to symbolize with it what I think he was. Again, with "The Deer Hunter", Cimino may have needed a car for the guys to go hunting in and the '59 Cadillac was available on the studio lot. "The Deer Hunter" is supposed to be an "art-house" movie so everything in it must mean something, right? 

Symbolism in film is used to subtly and sometimes not so subtly reinforce a film's underlying theme and in "The Deer Hunter", while what there is of "story" centers around steel mill workers, the film's theme, we have to assume, is about the state of the United States after the end of the Vietnam War; although the film appears to be set in the late 1960's and the war didn't end until January 1973. "Michael's car" a none too subtle symbol of America's very recent but long lost confident, boisterous past. Ah, such the dystopian America I spent my "Wonder Year's" growing up in. 

Judging by the overall condition of the car, we see that America has seen better days. Indeed, the post Vietnam War, Gas Crisis I, Watergate and Nixon resigning, double-dip recession bogged America, just like Mike's big old Cadillac, it  appears to be pretty banged up. As for the ramshackle way "Michael" lives his life, your guess as good as mine as to why a man of such intelligence and emotional depth would live in squalor. Had Robert DeNiro portrayed Michael as the second coming of Travis Bickle his lifestyle may have been somewhat understandable. Then again, he couldn't have been the cornerstone of the film the way that "Michael" was. Again, "The Deer Hunter" is a mess.



Furthermore, while it's certainly not out of the question for someone of the means of a steel mill worker to drive such an elaborate and expensive car, if it not for symbolism and cinematographic effect, would  a serious hunter, like Michael, drive such an impractical automobile? No. Of course not. Still, as a symbol or metaphor, it's actually quite effective.

Derided like few other Cadillac's had up until that time, it's ironic that an automobile so polarizing of design like the 1959 Cadillac would come to symbolize so much about America. Good, bad and indifferent. Cadillac's were all new for model year 1957 and their styling was a continuation of the aeronautic design themes that were all new for 1948. However, when Chrysler debuted their 1957 models resplendent in sky scraping tail fins, General Motors scraped their planned 1959 models and instead hurriedly designed a series of automobiles that are without question the most outlandish American cars ever made. The 1959 Cadillac's, subjectively, being the most outrageous of them all although the Buicks and Oldsmobile's are not far behind. 

In many ways, the 1959 Cadillac was exactly like "The Deer Hunter" - visually compelling without anything really tangible to make it worthy of the praise heaped upon it; not unlike attractive people who are actually vapid. Contemporary road tests of the 1959 Cadillac found it under powered, the handling ponderous, the styling cartoonish. While Roger Ebert may have loved "The Deer Hunter" there were many critics who found the film wantonly heavy handed, predictable and shallow. Praise be damned.

The Deer Hunter won five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director for Michael Cimino, and Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Walken. The Deer Hunter was named by the American Film Institute as the 53rd greatest American film of all time. On many lists of the greatest automobiles of all time you'll also find 1959 Cadillacs.

1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Classic - The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
                                            -Franklin Delano Roosevelt. First Inaugural Address.
 

 

Oldsmobile had some left over 1987 Cutlass' when model year 1988 began so they continued to sell the old car as the Cutlass "Classic".
 

 

I stumbled upon one of these back then at Celebrity Oldsmobile, now  a Lexus dealership, on Sunrise Highway in Massapequa. Seemed odd to me seeing both the all new for 1988 Cutlass next to one of the old ones but I figured it was GM once again hedging their bets that the new model wouldn't appeal to everyone. Similar to what they did with keeping a rear wheel drive Cadillac sedan in the fleet when the front wheel drive models rolled out in 1985. While I liked the notion of keeping the old car around, I scoffed at Oldsmobile for not completely embracing change. After all, when you're 24 years old, all change is good.  What could go wrong?

Seeing how things turned out for Oldsmobile and GM, you have to wonder what it would have been like for them had they kept this car around for another three, five or ten years. At least in "Classic" guise. As archaic as this car was by 1988, the new car, which honestly I was a big fan of, was a seismic change for the better. However,  compared to  the super slick gee whiz '80's cars from Japan it was judged against - not to mention Ford's sensational Taurus, as good as the new Cutlass was (compared to what it replaced), it just couldn't compete. While change in and of itself is inert, with regards to Oldsmobile, in this instant, change was not good. Or at least not good enough.

The older we get the more anxiety inducing change can be since we know that change brings risk. Change can force us from our comfort zone. Fail once, twice or ten times and just the notion of change can induce panic and can be crippling. Change doesn't always mean things are not going to be for the better, though. Go through change enough and see that it can be good can buoy anxiety; but you never forget the times when things didn't work out. Most importantly, the anxiety that comes with change has nothing to do with reality. In times of flux it's best to attempt to keep the eloquent words of President Roosevelt from his first inaugural in mind, "The Only Thing We Have to Fear, is Fear Itself". By the by, by late January 1988, most of the "Classics" were gone. Oldsmobile was gone after 2004.
 

1981 Chrysler New Yorker - I Could Have Done This

  

I'm better at drawing than most people but not nearly as good anyone who could remotely be construed as an artist; my skill level stuck at a third grade level. Speaking of which, when I was a kid, more often than not my drawings were of cars. Not having a clue as to what I was doing and being a fan of ostentatious domestic luxury cars,  my "designs" most often came out like our 1981 Chrysler New Yorker here.

 When Chrysler "downsized" their full size line for 1979, it wasn't so much a downsizing as much as they just moved their mid sized "B-body" cars "up", the best they could do was blocky, awkward, derivative designs like this. Shoot, I could have come up with this.

I always found it odd, unfortunate and sad that Chrysler came out with these cars that bore no semblance to the magnificent dreadnoughts that came before them. Would it have saved the company? Of course not but still. GM did a great job of making a downsized Cadillac still be a Cadillac, they stubbed their bumper on just about everything else they shrunk, but Chrysler either didn't have the designers on staff anymore who had the ability to pull off better designs or...I honestly don't know. Surely the same staff that came out with this car could not have been the same staff that crafted some of the most memorable designs of the twenty five or so years prior to this car. Lincoln's downsized for 1980 "Panther" based line up suffered from much of the same proportion and balance issues our New Yorker does but for some odd reason those designs "worked". At least through my eyes.

No surprise that these cars sold terribly - didn't help that Chrysler priced them against Cadillac and Lincoln rather than say Oldsmobile or Mercury. Oh, who's kidding who. Even at a discount these cars would have sold like ice tea to Eskimos. Chrysler pulled the plug on them half way through the 1981 model year making our subject here, ironically from New York (like me), quite rare.



1979 Cadillac Coupe DeVille - Eye of the Hurricane

  

Things were looking up for America in the first couple of years of the Carter administration. Gas prices had stabilized, the economy was finally beginning to recover and adhering to the adage of what's good for General Motors is good for the nation, the first wave of GM's great downsizing was generally regarded as a success; critically and commercially. That first wave of downsizing included our black on red, 1979 Cadillac Coupe deVille. However, like the eye of a hurricane, the break in the bad weather for the country, the auto industry and Cadillac in particular would be short lived.

At first downsized for model year 1977, the new Cadillac's were more than a foot shooter and nearly a thousand pounds lighter than the elephantine 1971 vintage models they replaced. Despite being smaller, the "'77's" were marvels of packaging efficiency as they had more interior room than the "'71's" did. 

The new "small" Cadillacs also had a new "small" engine. Based on the Cadillac engine the previous models had, which was based on the legendary Cadillac V-8 that debuted in 1967, the new Cadillac engine still displaced a substantial 425 cubic inches. While certainly no economy car, the down sized Cadillac's got approximately 20 percent better mileage than the cars they replaced.

A more manageable package that got better fuel economy that still oozed "Cadillac"? No surprise that these cars sold as well as they did. Happy Days were here again. Albeit, for a brief time.

The 1979 Iranian revolution exposed the United States' reliance on foreign oil just like the 1973 Yom Kippur War did. Not only doubled the cost of a barrel of crude oil, which was already historically high post first  oil crisis, it pushed the cost of a gallon of gas past the mythological breaking point of more than $1 a gallon. The subsequent second dip recession the second oil crisis caused put the Carter administration in a tailspin which it never recovered from.

 

Suddenly it was 1974 all over again but for Cadillac, times were even worse. Sales of 1980 Cadillacs, which received a (opinion) handsome restyling, were down almost thirty percent - far more than the decline in sales during the first energy crisis of 1973-74. What's more, another reduction in bore and stroke to the famed Cadillac V-8, done so to improve tail pipe emissions and adhere to CAFE requirements, did nothing for performance. That new for 1980, 368 cubic inch V-8 was not in and of itself a "bad" engine but it was the basis for the infamously problematic model year 1981 only, "V-8-6-4". The V-8-6-4 the first in a series of almost comically bad roll outs at Cadillac in the 1980's that ruined the brand's once seemingly invulnerable image.

1969 Oldsmobile Delta 88 - Planned Obsolescence

 

"Car spotters" are able tell what model year a car is by knowing what minute and somewhat disparate styling detail distinguish one model year of an automobile from another. They have a lot easier time doing so on older domestic cars since back then, all manufacturers made significant enough changes to their cars each model year to make it fairly simple to distinguish, for instance, a 1969 Oldsmobile Delta 88, which our brown on black subject is, from a 1968 Oldsmobile 88. These days, if not for a new generation or a mid-cycle "freshening", it's all but impossible to tell what a year a car is by simply looking at it.

Reason for the year to year changes back then being due to what was referred to as "planned obsolescence". Planned obsolescence, according to the economist.com, is a business strategy in which the obsolescence (the process of becoming obsolete—that is, unfashionable or no longer usable) of a product is planned and built into it from its conception. This is done so that in future the consumer feels a need to purchase new products and services that the manufacturer brings out as replacements for the old ones.

An example of planned obsolescence today is cell phones; don't be caught with an iPhone 6 these days - people will think you're poverty stricken. I just got a "6" and while the upgrade from my ding, pinged, dented, cracked and sluggish iPhone 4 is seismic, the only difference buyers got when they upgraded their 1968 "'88" to a 1969 were slight changes in sheet metal.

That year to year massaging of sheet metal rarely was to the benefit of a car's original design. This 1969 Delta 88 was part of General Motors 1968 update of their 1965 full size model lineup. While I think Oldsmobile did a great job updating the '65's in 1968, save for the gruesome "cow catcher' front end that all Oldsmobiles had from 1965-1970, "planned obsolescence" reared it's ugly head on the 1969 models. 

What had been a graceful, semi fastback profile in 1968 became as fussy, clumsy and cluttered as the front end of the car. Seeing that GM changed their cars so much year to year back then, it's fair to say that this design element was approved before any perceptual research was done to gauge the public's reaction to it.

Seeing that sales of the Oldsmobile 88 were slowly dissolving in the late '60's, you could point to styling gaffs like this 1969 "88" as the reason. Maybe we're not alone in thinking this car ugly as sin but that's more than likely not the case.  

It probably had more to due with the fact the Oldsmobile's loyal customer base was dying off and the customers they did have buying Oldsmobile's somewhat smaller and far more manageable to handle Cutlass.

Planned obsolescence, in addition to it making it easy for car spotters to tell what model year a car is also crushed resale values of automobiles. With a bevy of "one year only" models out there, it also makes for a scarcity of parts these days which, heaven forbid your old and unique classic car got into a fender bender, what would be a routine repair on a more mainstream "oldies" might mean a trip to the crusher.  



1983 Buick Electra - That DOES Look Like a Buick

Sales of Buicks have increased recently and some pundits site their "That's Not a Buick" ad campaigns for the uptick. Sorry, not only is this (old) Buick loving early fifty something not buying a new Buick, I'm not buying that that insular ad campaign has anything to do with increasing sales. What has increased sales? Let's start with a fairly robust economy giving people the confidence they need to spend the boatload it costs these days to purchase a new car, solid, contemporary automobiles and a significant decrease in choices domestically post GM bankruptcy.

So, back to granny; if the new Buick Regal doesn't "look like a Buick" then, what does look like a Buick?

 

How about a 1983 Buick Electra Limited coupe? Seems about right. If the Granny in those "That Doesn't Look Like a Buick" ads is approximately 80 years old, then thirty some odd years ago this car would have been the car of her and her husband's aspirational dreams. Way to go, Buick; making  fun of old people. Nice. And let me tell you something, sonny, there's a big difference between making fun and poking fun. I'm all about poking fun but when you start making fun of anyone and anything is when I get up from the Early Bird Special and walk out of the restaurant.  Check, please.
 

Seriously, though, Buick's wrestled with a "old person's car" image problem for decades now and those god forsaken "Granny ads" do nothing to help define them as a brand for hipsters. Or anyone under the age of 60.
 

So, what is Buick attempting to be? It would appear they're trying to be what Lexus is to Toyota, Chevrolet being Toyota in this instance. Now, while Lexus is an "old brand", young people aspire to it. Can't say that young people aspire to own a "Buick". They may like the new Regal or one of their inexplicably popular little cross overs, for instance, but they appreciate the vehicle as opposed to the brand. That's the big difference between Buick and Lexus and one that I question can ever be completely changed. The Lexus brand is so strong right now that they could market just about anything and it would sell.

Let's get back to our luscious Electra. Isn't it awesome? Wish it had more than that puny Olds 307 to motivate it but, I digress. Anyway, back in 1983, despite it's updated for 1980 aero styling and snazzy aluminum road wheels and white walls (oye), this Electra was an oldster's car back then as it is now. An old person's car from a brand that at the time also offered the Regal T-Type. While that T-Type had all of 180 horsepower from it's blower fed V-6, the image of the T-Type ran counter to what this car was all about. It seemed Buick was confused about what their image was back then and one thing's for sure; if they were confused, so were buyers. And you know that if Buick offered the turbo V-6 on the Electra, they'd do a silly paint and stripe job on it to make it look sporty. Please see Buick Rivera T-Type here. Imagine, turbochargers underhood for no other reason than to increase the car's performance and with minimal badging. What a concept.



Buick's on again, off again attempts to cultivate a hip, dashing, sporting, youthful image is nothing new. In 1975 and 1976, a Buick Century was the pace car at the Indianapolis 500. Several years prior to that, Buick offered the Skylark GS with tire shredding, 455 V-8's. Talk about duality - have you ever seen what pre downsizing Buick Electra's looked like? The only times, arguably, that Buick has been able to merge youth, sporting pretensions and affluence was with the original Buick Riviera. Then again, even with that car, it's price point was out of reach for many. If it's expensive, it's for older people with money. Hence, "Buick" is for old people.

Can you be all things to people young and old? Today's booming cute-ute craze not with standing, the answer is no, you can't. And the post GM bankruptcy Buick of today highlighting their past image of being an "old brand" by using Granny in their ads only reinforces their old image as opposed to "hippening" it up. Buick needs to be less concerned about what they or perceptual studies perceive their brand image to be and let their vehicles speak for themselves. They're actually excellent.
 

 

Can you tell that I loathe everything about these granny ads? Everything about them except the snappy dark red Regal GS this hipster doofus is using to take Granny back to the nursing home. It's not his fault, he's just an actor in some ill conceived commercial who's trying scrape together a living let alone make enough to make a (hefty) monthly payment on one of these things. As if this kid has the where-with-all to not only afford a new Regal GS but to live in this tony neighborhood and afford to keep Granny holed up in assisted living. Oh, this commercial is just all so wrong.