1987 Cadillac Brougham D'Elegance - Who Buys A 1980's Cadillac For the Engine?

I came across this dark red beauty during one of my myriad cheap car searches the other night. You know the type of searches - the, "how much car can I buy for under $4,000" searches that usually unearth boring, soulless drecht but sometimes, like the other night, something like this 1987 Cadillac Brougham D'Elegance comes up in my net and I automotively salivate. And not for the reasons you might think of either. Yes, I'm a big fan of American luxury land yachts from yesteryear and in particular Cadillac's but I'm not usually smitten with anything with four doors - this time is no exception either. 

Y'see, I'm intrigued by this car because of what resides under it's bonnet. We see here that some sick bastard swapped out the puny Oldsmobile engine it was born with and replaced it not only with a more desirable Oldsmobile mill of the past, but one from 1971 - arguably the last year when Oldsmobile engines were still "Oldsmobile Rockets". Yeah, Oldsmobile continued to splay their OLDSMOBILE ROCKET decal on a myriad of engines through 1990 but if you're looking for real stump pulling power, 1971 was the last year the Rocket, in 350 or 455 cubic inch flavors, still "had it". And this one has been gone over and breathed on too so it's got to be a screamer launching from red lights. 

An "Oldsmobile in a Cadillac" is far from a "new" concept. Back in the mid '70's, GM fitted an Oldsmobile 350 in the Chevrolet Nova based Seville and in 1979 the Eldorado.  While owners of these cars car suffered all the ills and indignities of early fuel injection, a qualified mechanic who new how to skirt the emissions regulations of the day, could swap out the F.I. for a carburetor. Oh, ahem, let's not forget that the diesels offered in both back then was built by Oldsmobile. 

In 1986, GM finally threw in the towel on the rear wheel drive applications for its "HT4100" V-8 and replaced it with an Oldsmobile 307; above is an Olds 307 in a 1987 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. Based on the bane of any Oldsmobile Rocket V-8 fan, the Olds 260 of mid '70's infamy, the 307, which had nothing in common with the Chevrolet 307, at least had a flatter and broader torque curve than the 4100 did but it certainly was no powerhouse. It's been rumored that Cadillac used the high output 307 from the Hurst Olds and 4-4-2 in those cars but that makes no sense considering the time period. I've also yet to find any evidence of that being true either. 

However, since Oldsmobile essentially used the same block for all their engines, the swap of the Olds 307 for a 455 in this Caddy must have been a pretty clean and straight forward proposition. As if an engine swap is ever a that simple. What's more, to handle the extra oomph of the 455, no doubt our subject here had a transmission swap too. And after I had my fun stabbing the gas on it, with an asking price of a mere $3,800, this car and it's engine could make for a most interesting power train donor for my 1977 Chevrolet Corvette. P.S. - I have no idea what's going on in this picture from the ad. Bracket racing perhaps? 

Oh, she'd (The Wife) kill me if I did something like that and dreaming about it is probably way more fun that actually going through with. Something tells me too there'd be a ton of fabrication to get the big Olds motor to not only fit but to stay fastened down inside the small confines of the engine bay on "Old Unreliable" here. Certainly, though, would make my car about as unique a "C3" as there is out there and done so rather cost efficiently too. Who buys a 1980's Cadillac for the engine? I would.