Today's Facebook Marketplace gem is a 1970 Cadillac Coupe deVille originally hailing from the great state of Utah and now resides in god forsaken Lorain, Ohio roughly thirty miles or so west of Cleveland. Thanks to the ship building industry, Lorain used to be a bustling little city on the shores of Lake Erie but when the plants closed Lorain became a ghost town. Through my goggles, somehow this big old, patina rich Cadillac fits right into the motif of what's left of the town.
Cadillac built a "Coupe deVille" from 1949 through 1993 in various guises and with the exception of the 1985-1988 models, they were all big if not ginormous. At 225 inches long, our 1970 here was replaced in 1971 by a model that was just under an inch longer. That was nothing, though. By 1976, due to federally mandated five-mile per hour "safety bumpers", a Coupe deVille was more than 230 inches long; try backing that sucker up let alone this one in the undersized parking garage at the mall. Well, no one goes to malls anymore so you should be ok. This vintage was originally launched, or were, ha-ha, christened, in 1965 with GM making subtle and not so subtle styling changes every year through 1970.
Biggest visual difference is the headlights on the 1965-1968 models are stacked, on the '69 and '70 models they're side-by-side. Personally, I prefer the side-by-side look but I wouldn't kick a stacked headlight '65-'68 model out of my garage. Under the hood, 1965-1967's have the 1964 vintage Cadillac 429 engine; '68-'70's have the "472".
Cadillac generously claimed the "472" made three hundred seventy-five (gross rated) horsepower. I back about forty-percent off that gross rating to get the net output and, they said there'd be no math when I started this blog, that puts it at about two hundred twenty-five brake horses. These big mills being all about torque, slicing forty-percent off the gross torque rating of five hundred twenty-five foot-pounds gives us roughly three hundred and fifteen. Which seems about right given these handsome 4,700 brutes were clocked zero-to-sixty in around ten seconds. Certainly "slow" by today's standards but more than adequate fifty-years ago. I'd ditch this insane gas hog of an engine for an LS but...that's just me.
1969 and 1970 Cadillac's are hard to decipher from one another. I always go by the front grill with the 1970's having more of an egg grate versus the 1969's more slotted design. The challenge there is remembering which year goes with which grill. Whoops. There I go telling tales out of school as to how us "spotters" tell one model year from another. Wheel covers are different too with the '69's wearing the same discs Cadillac had going back to '65; the handsome chrome on the '70's is unique to that model year. That means good luck finding one if you need one. This one here has all four. Bonus!
The exterior appears to have been a light blue but the interior? A light green, perhaps? If I had my druthers, I wouldn't touch the exterior save for maybe fixing that rust spot on the lower passenger side front fender and leaving the area in primer. Hopefully that's the extent of the rot. Seeing it's a Utah car there's a good chance that's it. If this were a car native to northern, Ohio I'd say run away. Far, far, away. And as quickly as possible before you fall in love with this car's multitude of charms.
The interior I'd reupholster although that would mean giving up what appears to be layers of Autozone seat covers and Aunt Beatrice's best throw rug. Change the carpet and door panels too although finding a passenger side door panel or, "card" as they call them, might be challenging. These aren't exactly "catalog" cars. Hopfully the dash isn't cracked but seeing it's from a sunny climate, well, sunnier than Cleveland, chances are that'll have to be swapped out too.
So, in the end, seeing how expensive good paint jobs cost these days, we'd have a painfully cool looking rat-rod with a luxurious interior that you could drive anywhere. And for not a lot of money either, relatively speaking. What could be better?
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