How should we treat our automotive soulmates? Nag them about how they’re aging? Tell them to get cosmetic surgery, go to the gym, get Botox and dyed hair? Or embrace the natural aging process and patina of a life lived fully?
Mike, the owner of this 1950 hot-rod Cadillac Series 61 — otherwise known as the CC logo-mobile, as it once graced our logo — is solidly in the second camp. Back in 2009 when I first ran into them and wrote up his car and the unforgettable drive he gave me, the last and most memorable thing he told me was: “If I restored my friends, I wouldn’t want to hang out with them anymore.”
Amen to that. And that’s why I go visit Mike and his Caddy every once in a while, like this past winter, just to hang out and talk cars, bikes and life. Fourteen years later, they’re both showing the inevitable signs of further aging. Aren’t we all?
Mike had broken his foot and it was still healing, so he wasn’t getting out and about much. He has some other health issues. The Corolla takes him to the store and such. The Caddy, which spends its time outside here, had not been started or driven in some time. Given the heavy clutch, that’s more than understandable. Will Mike drive it again? That’s a good question, as are other existential questions.
Why are some of us driven to restore cars? There’s undoubtedly several reasons, but I suspect the drive to inject some of the immortality into them that is denied us is a likely one. And perfectly understandable. We can essentially reverse the aging process in cars, something utterly denied us, at least for the foreseeable future.
But will the world really miss one more 1950 Cadillac? Is there some obligation to save this car’s life? Not really, but it is a way to intensely remember a person by. There’s no doubt in my mind that if this car ends up in the hands of a friend of Mike’s, that person will remember him every time it’s driven. Well, as long as it’s not restored, but then obviously that person wouldn’t have been a friend of Mike’s.
Here’s how it looked when I first shot it in 2009. Yes, it would have been nice to have the Caddy and Mike still look like they did back then. I could say the same for myself too.
Here’s its story:
Curbside Classic: 1950 Cadillac Series 61 Coupe – The Ultimate Curbside Classic
+1, I wouldn’t mind turning the clock back on myself by 15 years.
Despite marching on of time and corrosion the Caddy still looks pretty solid. I hope Mike’s foot heals up well and Caddy can get rolling again.
Does the world really need one more immaculate 1950 Cadillac? Mike’s car, Mike’s rules. After him, someone smart will keep it as is. Superb
Yep, we’re all getting older, but I have been getting fitter recently by doing a lot more cycling and running, so, despite looking older, I’m performing better. Bit like my old Ghia – the recent top end rebuild has definitely made it perform better and dual Webers and electronic ignition are waiting to go on, so that will help. It lives outside, so patina is happening, but its bones are still good – just like that old Caddy. I wish Mike all the best and that he gets driving it again – it’s pretty special to all of us CCers!
I really wish this excellent automobile was in a garage. It certainly deserves to be preserved as-is, what a special automobile!
Rare too, with the mentioned heavy clutch. Can’t have been many ’50 Coupe de Villes (Coupes de Ville?) built without Hydra-Matic which became standard across the board on Caddys a year or two later.
As cool as Mike’s 1950 Caddy is, I’d love to have that Corolla wagon. I sorely miss my dearly departed 1993.
“But will the world really miss one more 1950 Cadillac? Is there some obligation to save this car’s life? Not really, but it is a way to intensely remember a person by.”
And there, in a sentence by the site’s owner, is CC itself summed up. We fall apart, we don’t want to, but we insist on finding any way to some mortality. And hereabouts, it’s this.
Cars are just dreadful things, devouring the world, killing, ruining cities, and causing war. We’d reinvent the concept tomorrow, if we knew, and it was 1900 again. We can’t, because it isn’t.
So we preserve our clinging-on to rememberance, to what we imagine to be the once-was (it wasn’t) by a site like this, ignoring the poisoned part of our collective addiction (and how strange to most that addiction is!)
Anyway, my mirror is unblemished. In my squinty eyes. I look much as I did yesterday, and we’ll overlook the days before that, and in my mind, why, I’m no older than 20, for sure.
Mike just needs a better mirror. It’ll fix his foot tomorrow.
With something that has been used a log time the stories are as important as the artifact. While a shiny new paint job (restoration) would serve no purpose neither would disintegration into a pile of rust. Old cars with genuine patina deserve conservation to preserve them although I suppose a case could be made that as the owner ages the car also ages. I hope Mike and the Caddy have plenty driving left in them
Did he ever put that bigger engine in the Caddy?
No.
I thought that Cadillac was something special the first time I saw it. Still do. But I don’t think a new paint job would be an awful thing. It doesn’t need to be a high dollar example, just something that will protect the sheet metal from further rusting and spruce up the looks a bit. The respray will help preserve it, just like changing the oil, and lubing the chassis, or whatever work it needs. I prefer preservation over entropy, but of course it’s his car and his decision.
I have to agree with you Jose, I don’t understand the enthusiasm for excessive patina, and that looks excessive to me, they just look like unloved wrecks.
They don’t have to be restored to as new, but when I see rust on the surface, what horrors exist underneath? surface rusty cars look like they might be structurally unsafe.
Perhaps this is more likely in Europe where the vast majority of old cars are Unit Construction so rust is potentially deadly.
We have legal obligations to keep cars used on the road in a safe condition and I fully agree with that.
I would never trust even a 25 year old car unless the structure and brakes were fully examined and overhauled as necessary
In the UK, a car as shabby as that would be stopped by the police on a regular basis to check up on its condition, along with a produce documents instruction at the police station, a real pain in the arse. I am sure that would happen in the rest of Europe as well.
I’m a “1960” model. I’d love a “respray” and “overhaul”! Maybe pass for “54-5” again? (but that’s over now)
My dad’s first cousin owned a 1950 Cadillac Series 62 sedan that he bought in 1953. He kept this cars for years before itvwas traded. I thought it was the most beautiful car I had ever seen. That led me to buy first Cadillac in 1966 when I was 19. A 1959 Coupe deVille, star light silver, dover white top and black and white interior.
I hope Mike heals up well .
I like this car, it has a _manual_box_ and that alone makes it special IMO .
I’d love to have it but couldn’t really properly maintain it .
I used to restore cars for others, I’ve done a few for me and wasn’t happy when all was said and done .
I prefer survivors but my current old VW has far too many dents and rust, that’s how it managed to survive : it was left in a back yard near the beach and considered worthless until the guy I bought it from found it he left it another twenty years in his garage in Whittier, Ca., now everyone wants to buy it because “!! PATINA IS SO COOL!” .
I’d be happy of it looked as good as this Caddy .
I hope Mike gets to enjoy this Caddy for decades to come .
Maybe you could take him out to eat in it and do a driver’s report ? . I’m keen to learn how these chicken’s teeth manual box Caddies drove having never been in one in the flesh .
-Nate
I am well pleased to see how many here like this for what it is and don’t think it needs restoring .
Fighting entropy as Jose said, is a full time job when one has an oldie .
-Nate
Somebody races a Caddy like this at Goodwood its amazingly capable for a big tank of a car, that one should just be kept or preserved just like it is, great car.