My father's 1972 Cadillac Sedan deVille was an all out horror. It broke down all the time, got comically bad gas mileage, had no pickup, squeaked, shimmied and shook like nothing else and with it's dark blue exterior, black vinyl top and black leather interior was as foreboding as a hearse. A girl I dated in high school called it "The Bat Mobile" and it wasn't meant to be complimentary. However, and for reasons that I've long given up attempting to understand, I'm drawn to the coupe versions of those vintage of deVilles in, of all things, brown and beige; two of the worst colors for a car ever but for, again, some reason, I find utterly delightful on these cars. Our Coupe deVille subject, resplendent in brown and beige is, and somewhat disappointingly so, a 1973 model.
I say disappointingly because starting in 1973, GM, Ford, Chrysler and AMC were mandated by the government to festoon their wares with "safety bumpers" that allegedly could withstand impact up to five miles per hour. Sure sounded like a great idea at the time.
TV ads for these things did a great job selling the benefits of these monsters that stuck out like an over sized stoop on a house. Not only where they over-sized, they protruded out further still because of the shock absorbers behind them. Again, sounded (and looked) like a great idea at the time and they were nothing short of a revelation since back then many a driver, my old man included, complained that the thin strips of chrome on their cars offered little protection in the event of a oh-so-minor accident. Problem was, this safety innovation came at the expense of styling. Quibbling about it may have sounded trivial at the time but in the collector car world today, the difference in the value between a 1973 and 1972 "classic car" is seismic.
GM, in my opinion, did a better job than Ford, Chrysler or AMC of bolting the "safties" on, but there's not a car out there that was in existence already that benefited design wise from them. The big chrome logs that added weight and even more length to existing designs would be required out back on all models starting in 1974. Go ahead, bash your car into a tree. It can take it!
In many ways this 1973 Coupe deVille, much like technology today that's seemingly always in flux, was a transitional automobile bridging old and the new; it had the new age front bumper but was still a hard top. And these are the changes that are sheet metal deep; under the hood of these things there were even more "modern" changes like primitive emissions equipment that bogged down engine performance wholesale.
Still, to the unwashed masses, a Cadillac was still a Cadillac regardless of the bumpers or whether or not it was a hard top. In fairness, only the geekiest of their fans, like me, could actually tell the difference between a '71 and '76 not to mention the finer details of knowing a '72 from a '73. I love them all, actually, although, knowing myself, if I had one I'd grow tired of it pretty quickly. They are, after all, not exactly driver's cars and even as pure transportation conveyances, they weren't that luxurious.
I say disappointingly because starting in 1973, GM, Ford, Chrysler and AMC were mandated by the government to festoon their wares with "safety bumpers" that allegedly could withstand impact up to five miles per hour. Sure sounded like a great idea at the time.
GM, in my opinion, did a better job than Ford, Chrysler or AMC of bolting the "safties" on, but there's not a car out there that was in existence already that benefited design wise from them. The big chrome logs that added weight and even more length to existing designs would be required out back on all models starting in 1974. Go ahead, bash your car into a tree. It can take it!
At least for 1973, Coupe deVille was still a real hard top. GM put a pillar behind the doors on the Coupe starting in 1974 and it may have looked fresh and modern but in hindsight, like the safety bumpers, it ruined the look of the car. Subjective? Perhaps but one need only to look at the values of a even a 1974 "classic" versus a 1973 to illustrate my point. That pillar, if anything, did give some much needed solidity to a car that, even in showroom condition, was pretty loosey-goosey but these these cars needed a lot more than an aesthetic killing pillar to shore them up. Oddly enough, through 1976, Sedan deVille remained a hard top.
That extra pillar, referred to by many as a "B-pillar", created somewhat of a cocoon for the rear passenger compartment and helped launch one of the more elicit '70's car design cues, "the Opera Window". Our '73 here has the airiness that I never thought much about until I drove a hard top Coupe and then a "pillared" one shortly there after. With the windows down, the pillared 1974-1976 Coupe isolates the driver from the rear passengers much in the same way the front of a limo feels boxed off from the rest of the car. To each his own but between the styling faux pas and the different driving dynamic, rigidity be damned, I'll take one of these, please. Battering ram front bumper and all.
In many ways this 1973 Coupe deVille, much like technology today that's seemingly always in flux, was a transitional automobile bridging old and the new; it had the new age front bumper but was still a hard top. And these are the changes that are sheet metal deep; under the hood of these things there were even more "modern" changes like primitive emissions equipment that bogged down engine performance wholesale.
Still, to the unwashed masses, a Cadillac was still a Cadillac regardless of the bumpers or whether or not it was a hard top. In fairness, only the geekiest of their fans, like me, could actually tell the difference between a '71 and '76 not to mention the finer details of knowing a '72 from a '73. I love them all, actually, although, knowing myself, if I had one I'd grow tired of it pretty quickly. They are, after all, not exactly driver's cars and even as pure transportation conveyances, they weren't that luxurious.
Beautiful
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