General Motors let us Cadillac fans down big time in the 1980's. We understand they had to deal with German makes and models appealing to well-heeled younger ones but that's hardly an excuse for the series of engineering and product planning gaffes they dropped on us during the 1980's. Take their mid-'80's deVille pictured above from a 1985 Cadillac brochure for instance. Damn thing is so ugly even the yuppie models don't like it; she can't look at it while he's stupefied he bought it instead of a BMW 5-series.
Seems like only yesterday when a smothering blanket of low-grade depression washed over my Cadillac loving, all of twenty-years old psyche when I first saw one of these. Remarkably, these sold well when first launched but when trade-in time came around Grand Ma and Grand Dad went elsewhere. Fear not. Although Cadillac sales melted consistently as the 1980's marched on interminably for General Motors they had "big" changes in store. Well, they had to do something. Any. Thing.
For 1989 that something was their adding three additional three inches of sheet metal fore and aft (with no change in wheelbase) to the '85 deVille. They even tacked on tail lights cribbed straight from a "Brougham". While it appealed to Cadillac's core buyers somewhat as sales surged, it didn't do anything to dissuade a 40-year-old smitten with a Bimmer or a Benz to change his or her mind and buy a Cadillac instead. While I "got" what it was Cadillac was attempting to do and somewhat appreciated it even, I could tell that the design update was hackneyed and still suffered the ill-proportions the previous models had. Well, I said they had to something.
The everything-old is new-again "bigger is better" axiom also gave rise to a new Cadillac model range they dubbed, "Fleetwood". They dug deep into tried and true Cadillac tradition with this thing; there hadn't been a Cadillac since 1976 with fender-skirts and the "Fleetwood" moniker had been kicked around at Cadillac going back generations to when "Fleetwood" was a custom coach-builder out of "Fleetwood", Pennsylvania. Prior to 1989, "Fleetwood" was a trim level on deVille models.
Interestingly, the new-Fleetwood line also included a, be still my beating heart, two-door version. I found our stunningly mint condition subject here recently during a "cheap-car" search. It was for sale with less than forty-thousand miles on it's ticker for approximately $12,000. Yeah, I know - that's a lot of money for a twenty-eight year old Cadillac. You do get a quasi-modern front-wheel drive sedan with considerable V-8 poke and dual air bags but I hope someone got it for less than 10K. It's gone now and just as well. My wife would think I've really lost my mind if I asked her to go for a Sunday drive to just kick the tires on this thing.
These 1989-1993 Fleetwood Coupes were really nothing more than a Coupe deVille with fender-skirts but if you have a proclivity to appreciate Cadillac design cues of yore you may actually like this. It's as though this a front-wheel drive interpretation of a 1977 rear-wheel-drive Coupe deVille and the design almost works. Almost. Works. Were it really falls apart is in being an adept attempt on GM's behalf to fight off the tony and even more expensive luxury imports.
As I discussed before, these weren't terrible cars per se it's just compared to German makes and models they just came up way short in terms of driving dynamics. Said driving dynamics sowing the ground-work for their rise as prestige-nameplates. In more ways than one these cars were the best 1949 Cadillac's up to that point but the game had changed. The "Standard of the World" now had a standard it was judged against. This may have been a good "Cadillac" but it was not a good BMW or Mercedes-Benz.
1993 Cadillac Fleetwood models were actually called "Sixty-Special" so as not to be confused with Cadillac's redesigned "Fleetwood Brougham".
Searching for a sedan or Coupe 89 through 93 with white interior
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