Whoa, nellie. I can't tell you the last time I saw a Cadillac Coupe or Sedan deVille in my favorite color combination of all-white on top of luscious Cadillac red leather. Not to mention a love 'em or hate 'em, '71-'76 decked out this way. And certainly, it's been decades since I've seen one like this '74 in condition this good all for "just" $7,500. This wouldn't look out of place in Elvis Presley's garage let alone mine.
Our Elvis cake-topper here was part of GM's all new for 1971 full-size models that were longer, wider and heavier than ever. Not by much compared to the models they replaced but they continued GM's axiom of "more is more" although many a pundit say the "'71's" were not as good as the storied 1965 vintage models that came before them.
These 1974's nearly four-inches longer than the '71's since they had government mandated 5-mile per hour "safety" bumpers front and rear; the '73's had them only up front. The safety-bumpers had a shock absorber system behind them that made all the sense in the world at the time; the delicate ribbons of chrome that passed for "bumpers" were little more than ornamental before then. Funny how what seemed modern, exiting and the right-thing-to-do in general didn't age well. These days, pre-1973 classic cars, generally speaking, are worth more than those made afterwards.
Model-year 1974 was a a mid-production cycle re-fresh for the class-of-'71's although there were minor changes in appearances from year to year prior. '74's got a new dashboard that featured a panel of warning (idiot) lights at the top of it, windshield wiper controls were now on the left side of the new dash instead of on the driver's door and there was a new steering wheel design. Much to my chagrin, a center-post on the Coupe deVille eliminated the hardtop aesthetic that had been a Cadillac staple back to 1949 - that done, legend has it, in anticipation of the federal government's mandating improved rollover safety. It never came to be and hardtops, if you ask me, died unnecessarily. Oddly enough, the Sedan deVille remained pillar-free. Well, that was until the Great Down-sizng Epoch of 1977.
1974 was also the first year for what would become that oh-so-Seventies styling accoutrement, the padded-vinyl landau roof option on the Coupe that, having lived through it, seemed the epitome of luxurious decadence at the time. Now it seems akin to Liberace toilet seat. It also accentuates the center-post and through my foggy goggles, makes it seem as though the front-end of the car doesn't belong with the rear.
Mercifully, our '74 here doesn't have it. Either someone removed it over the last half-century or so or this was a custom order. If that's the case, three-cheers to the original owner for their impeccable taste. For '74, Cadillac continued to offer an entry-level "Calais" that didn't have the landau top or leather seating areas.
Under the hood, 1974 was the last year the deVille's had Cadillac's exclusive, 472-cubic inch V-8 that was deemed an engineering marvel when it debuted in 1968. Starting in 1975, all Cadillac models got the Cadillac 500-CID brute that had been Eldorado exclusive since 1970. '74 also the last year Cadillac's were catalytic converter free.
That said, I've never driven a 472- or 500-cubic inch powered Cadillac and was enthralled by its performance. Perhaps mortified by it's low-to-mid single-digit gas mileage but as far as being impressed by its muster? Not so much. Legend had it that Cadillac had plans to push the 472\500 out to 600-cubic inches.
Speaking of gas mileage, timing being everything, good or bad, this car debuted into the teeth of the first gas-crisis of October 1973 through March of 1974. Just-like-that, gas-guzzlers were verboten; Cadillac sales were down some 62,000 units but they increased market share in a very down year for the auto industry. Go figure. Then again, rich people are different from you and me.
As part of the negotiation to get OPEC to start exporting oil back to the U.S., the Nixon administration agreed to allow OPEC to keep prices sky-high. The "N-R-G Crisis" drove the price of a gallon of regular from 29- to around 60-cents. Sounds fairly trivial today - we see those kinds of fluctuations in the price of gas regularly today but average household incomes in 1973 hovered around $10,500. Granted, most folks making that weren't driving $8,500 Cadillac's like this, but, again, everything's relative. Even if you had the means to afford one of these, what with the gas-mileage it got, you would at least notice you were spending a lot more on gas.
Although by the time this '74 car was shinier and new it was already usurped on the snob-o-meter by makes and models from Europe costing almost twice as much, on the south shore of Long Island where this impish, car-crazy kid grew up, a big Cadillac was still king. Doctors and lawyers drove Mercedes-Benz', the blue collar, work-a-day stiffs in my neighborhood longed for one of these.
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