It was a lovely, sun splashed spring afternoon around easter time day on Long Island in 1984 when I first saw one of Cadillac's all-new-for 1985, front-wheel-drive deVille's. I don't remember if it was a coupe like this '85 decorated like the easter bunny but I do recall a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach realizing that my beloved General Motors had made another hideous mistake.
Was there another time in the annals of automobile history when a manufacturer immolated themselves to the degree that Cadillac did in the early-to-mid-1980's? GM in general but what happened to Cadillac was particularly harrowing. Whether it was the hump-back 1980 Seville, V-8-6-4, HT4100 (engine) or the creme-de-la-creme, the Chevrolet Cavalier based Cimarron, you didn't have to be an automobile connoisseur to appreciate that GM's luxury brand had run aground. And the hits just kept on coming.
These cars were actually the second wave of shrinking to GM's full size line, the first of course occurring in 1977 when they began their great downsizing epoch. The front-wheel-drive deVille's were actually supposed to launch in 1982, but development issues tapped the brakes on their debut into 1984. In the old way of GM doing things, they launched them in early '84 and called them 1985's. No harm, no foul. Well, at least in terms of when they introduced them. Can't say that about the cars themselves.
Irony of ironies, the one thing that was ready to go by 1982 was their engines. Well, supposedly ready to go. The 249-cubic inch, aluminum block, iron head V-8 developed exclusively for these front-wheel-drivers was dropped into Cadillac's existing models after the V8-6-4 debacle of 1981. That it made all of 135-horsepower and (good grief) 190-foot pounds of torque and was tasked with moving some cars weighing north of two-tons wasn't the biggest issue facing the "HT4100", catastrophic engine failure was.
The HT or "High Tech" had such maladies as head gaskets blowing, cam bearings going kaput, oil pumps giving up the ghost and on and on. For a company that had such a stellar reputation up to that point with V-8 engine development, it was particularly vexing. They'd fix most if not all of the issues with the HT by the end of the decade but Cadillac took a serious kick in the giblets to their reputation at a time when failure was not an option.
The styling, or lack thereof, is what depressed me the most. I could have cared less if these were front-wheel-drive with transverse mounted V-8's or not and handled better than any Cadillac before them. This college sophomore thought there were ugly. Apparently, I was fairly alone in that sentiment as these flew out of dealerships. At first. Not unlike the first MY for Chevrolet Citations and their various spinoffs.
This pink-on-white CDV is for sale on Facebook Marketplace with an asking price of $990. A scant 67,000-miles on it's analog ticker. Why so cheap? Blown engine. Won't even crank. Sounds to me like its aluminum oil pump croaked and the engine is totally locked up. Sort of a shame but not really. I mean, seriously. And this came from the factory looking like this.
General Motors famed design honcho Bill Mitchell retired in 1977 and the last designs he was directly responsible for where GM's class-of-'77 full-sized models and what would become the 1979 downsized E-body Cadillac Eldorado, Oldsmobile Toronado and Buick Riviera. You can see a familial resemblance in those designs harkening back to his glory days of the 1960's. He had nothing to do with the 1978 shrink-rayed intermediates and anything else that came after. Including, of course, these cars.
The "heather-firemist" hue and padded landau top do the blocky, bolt-upright styling no favors. At least the interior is handsome and is as cavernous as the insides of the deVille these replaced. Perhaps more so given the lack of a driveshaft hump. To that degree, these were engineering watersheds.
Even if this car was a different color and it didn't have the silly padded top, I can't do the mental gymnastics to make the more than fair asking price seem worthwhile. As far as the engine goes, there's no shortage of zesty options available but something tells me someone will scoop this up and gut the insides and throw out the rest.
Not unlike what we do to easter eggs.
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