Sorry; this is not going to by my opus on this generation Seville; that will have to await another day (will it be a Deadly Sin to make it four for four?) You’ll have to wait a bit longer. But this particular example did catch my eye, and not just because of the aftermarket “padded” vinyl roof. Something has been attacking this car; I guess whatever it is, it really doesn’t like it.
Deep scratches on the hood, right above where the Northstar V8 sits. Is it an animal, or did someone vent their anger at an expensive repair bill when a head gasket let loose?
And it’s not limited to the hood. These don’t all look like normal wear damage to me. Well, if there’s something to hate on with this car, the engine and vinyl top are certainly the best places to start.
Did the driver get tired of looking at that piece of tacked-on padding, and give the covering a yank one day?
Or is it racoons, or cats, a bear, or…just me?
Looks like a box cutter was employed here. Maybe a big flap of fabric was trailing in the slip stream.
Strange little round pock marks…this Seville is a crime scene mystery on wheels. Love those “gold” snaps, or whatever they’re supposed to be. More mystery.
Yes, this generation Seville was a pretty good looking car; finally a worthy successor to the gen1 Seville, which was also a pretty good looking car, in the American idiom. Chuck Jordan finally acknowledged that the influence of the Mercedes W126 and W124 could no longer be ignored, but didn’t ape them either. But something’s clearly eating (or hating) on this one.
Related Deadly Sin reading: Seville Gen1 Seville Gen2 Seville Gen 3
Fake gold boot snaps, for your fake boot, when you put your fake top down on your fake convertible.
Reminds me of when I sold cars, we had a 1995 or so Bonneville on the lot with a fake convertible top, and we told a new salesman who knew nothing about cars to put the top down on it, he was looking around the car for a switch for an hour.
HA…. I always thought that may have occurred somewhere. I’m glad to see it confirmed.
Thank you.
Saw a new XTS with the fake top yesturday. Not a pretty scene.
My Grandmother used to buy a new Grand Marquis Park Lane Editions every year in the 80’s (86, 87, 88). Had 3 of them, all steel gray with a black or white fake convertible top….I still can’t get the nasty taste out of my mouth.
Whats funny about some of these dealer installed “pervertible” tops is the names from the past that are attached to them, I’ve seen Park Lane Grand Marquis, Talisman, Calais and Biarritz top packages on Cadillacs.
Around here the generic one they toss on everything, even the last Lexus ES I saw with a fake top, is the “Bostonian Edition”… da da da
Ohhh ahhh look at that honey, its the stuffy old liberal driving their beige Lexus with that hot brown convertible top, I wonder if their a Kennedy?
I make no assumptions about the political leanings of a driver based on his or her car. Bumper stickers, on the other hand, are a dead giveaway.
David, you have to live in New England to understand I guess.
Whats funny about those names is how they were chosen because they still resonated well with the clientele, I remember parking next to a Cadillac with a Biarritz badged glop top and gold trim when I drove my grandmother to the mall once and she got out and comment on how nice that Cadillac was, and that it was a Biarritz too, wow. This was years and years after Cadillac stopped offering a factory Biarritz package on the Eldorado too.
after joking around a chinese student about cars, he acknowledged the existence of vinyl roof but he somehow pointed at a Chrysler LeBaron coupe saying that car got one vinyl roof too….
The Barber, of course.
For bringing a little culture to today’s posting, you’ve earned a Limburger Award, for a cheesy operatic reference.
Cat scratch fever?
I’d be willing to bet $10 (Canadian, of course) that it’s crows/birds…When I was selling Saturns back in the day, from the showroom windows we would watch the crows land on the cars, scratching them with their claws and pecking/pulling at the rubber front windshield seal, especially along the top of the windshield…We put up some fake owls on posts and that seemed to help…changed a lot of windshield seals though…
Maybe nesting material? Anyhow, research suggests corvids are probably the smartest birds. They’re supposed to have “problem-solving” intelligence; there’s footage of Japanese ones which use cars to crack nuts & pick them up when traffic lights turn red, and others which can form tools to extract food from test tubes.
Of course I never see local ravens do anything that tricky. Maybe they need a White Smock guy to impress.
This would be one of those cars where if the owner walked up how in the heck could you explain what you are doing with the pics??? Somehow I don’t think “I really like these cars” or “art cars” is going to work 😉
This Seville probably spent a lot of time over the years parked under a tree with messy berries, buds, flowers, etc. They fall on the car and then get sunbaked onto the paint. Someone probably used a little to much muscle trying to clean it off. That’s my guess for the paint at least. The vinyl roof is probably just wear and tear from a cheaply installed after-factory conversion.
It’s been parked in the war zone I live in.Damage caused by a scrote and 7 pints of wifebeater
Aha! Proof of the truth of the old urban legend where the guy and his girlfriend are out at night on a deserted country road. He gets out of the car to investigate the scratching sound and . . . . .
and he doesn’t come back. She hears nothing but a steady ‘blutt’ ‘blutt’ ‘blutt’ all night that she can’t figure out. It’s not the engine and not like any animal sound she’s ever heard. The girlfriend spends 8 terrified hours in the car until the police came.
A policeman gently helps her get out of the car and tells her to walk towards the ambulance and not look back. Like Lot’s wife, her curiosity overcomes her and she turns around. What she sees will cause nightmares for the rest of her life as she spies his eviscerated corpse hanging from a tree over the car. The dripping sound she heard all night was his exsanguinating gutted body. And she screamed and screamed and screamed…
That’s how we heard it at camp.
Curbside Campfire!
“We traced the water leak……and its coming from the head gasket!!!!” Sell the car now!!
Or . . . . . “That call is coming from the OnStar in your vehicle . . . Run!” 🙂
gotta be the owner himself mauling his own car…
My father had two of this gen Seville. He even said they were the worst cars he’d ever owned (except for the Eldorado & DTS that followed these two Sevilles. The last four cars he bought were just total crap!). I kept trying to get him to go ‘German’ or even Japanese… but he stayed with his beloved Crapillac brand “the standard of the world for awful cars”.
Why he would buy them and trade them in every two or three years – was always mind boggling to me.
These were the pinnacle of ‘pretty’ awful cars, for some reason, the people of my dad’s generation never lost their admiration for these disasters of rolling horror!
When not saddled with a terrible (and mangled) fake top, these are *great* looking cars for the early 90’s. And the Northstar seemed like a revelation when it was new; great power, nice driveability. Seemed like Cadillac finally had a winner on their hands (and a car that greatly impressed 14 year old me).
Took a few years to realize that they got everything right *except* reliability.
I still think they’re very appealing, and one might be fun to have in my garage someday (if any survive in decent shape years from now) but they really did turn off even more people to the brand. Key in that they finally made a car that could (in some respects) compete with the imported brands, but it probably alienated all those new customers as soon as things started going wrong.
Cadillac made sooooo many missteps drivetrain wise—-the diesel, the 8-6-4, the 4.1…..Northstar. No wonder the best Caddies were the Sevilles with the SBC! Gawd….the only thing that kept them alive was GM’s arrogance–they were too timid to kill one of their own.
Besides probably a Lexus LS400, name me one luxury car built past about 1990 that is the paragon of reliability and low service costs?
I was just recently looking at some wholesale cars, and I was amazed at how big a piece of shit a 2003 745il with only 111,000 miles on was, all the electronics were fried, it was overheating, multiple faults and warning lights, amazing, by comparison, there was a rough 1989 S-class next to it that ran like a champ and almost everything worked on it.
Northstars weren’t the most durable, but there are still plenty of them out there, so someone must have figured that out, again, there are currently more than 50 Northstar engined Cadillacs on ebay between 1992 and 2000, the highest mileage one is a 1997 Eldorado with 297,000 miles on it, again, I’m not saying that at Northstar is the rock of Gibraltar, but there are ways to make one last, yes it costs money, sorry.
297K Eldo http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cadillac-Eldorado-ETC-Coupe-2-Door-1996-Eldorado-with-all-why-miles-BEST-OFFER-/131243105863?forcerrptr=true&hash=item1e8eb2de47&item=131243105863&pt=US_Cars_Trucks
NO, its not a small block 350, you can’t rebuild it for $25 in an afternoon with a mallet and chewing gum, its a complicated and expensive engine, lets read about the guy that spend $60,000 to keep an S-class going.
http://jesda.com/2012/03/10/maintenance-costs-for-a-used-s-class-about-60000/
It’s funny you mention the 7 series. To parrot your point I recently saw a Bangle era 7 series in my neighborhood billowing blue smoke from the exhaust. Other than that it looked pampered(the black paint was PERFECT).
I agree the uber luxury German cars turned to shit from the 90s on, my trips to the Junkyard import lot really tell the tale.
Exactly, I imagine it would cost less to fix anything wrong on a Northstar Cadillac than it would cost to re-hab that heap of a 7 series, there are $1500 7series like rotting fruit on the ground.
My sister bought a 2003 740/745 with 49,000 miles on it for $19,000 a couple of years ago. Last year while on a trip it required a new battery and alternator which the closest BMW dealer was willing to replace for only (weekend special!) $2700.
NO, its not a small block 350, you can’t rebuild it for $25 in an afternoon with a mallet and chewing gum, its a complicated and expensive engine
Is it really any better than a small block though? 4.9 and 5.7L Cadillacs have robust engines. And, the Cadillac V8 from 1914 to the introduction of the 4.1L relatively speaking were the “Rock of Gibraltar”.
The Northstar is a fussy engine. I think that is a problem. GM could have at least kept the 4.9L in production for people that didn’t want to deal with it, although I guess that is what the 3800 was for.
A major reason I would want a Cadillac or Lincoln in the first place is that it isn’t some temperamental diva from the UK or Germany. Saying a 740i is worse, doesn’t really soften my heart on the N*.
Interesting to ponder how many good modern engines GM put out not counting the Buick V6 (that dated to 1962) and the Chevy V8 (from 1955). Honorable mention to the Olds 307 (1967-ish?). Duck and cover. 🙂
And Lincolns fulfill that wish for you. They didn’t have to have some sort of uber-complicated contraption of an engine–they just used Ford V8s. Mark VII and pre ’90 Town Car had the venerable 302. Post ’90 Town car, the 2v 4.6. Neither may be a very exciting or advanced engine, but they’re both pretty damn bulletproof. If you want a little more tech in your Linc, the Mark VIII and the final series of Continentals had the DOHC 4.6. All aluminum, 32v, knocking on 300 HP (in its RWD configuration, the Conti was limited to 260 as Ford didn’t have a FWD tranny that could handle more), and just as reliable as its less complex relative. Just don’t overheat it.
I think Cadillac was approaching it as “we’re the luxury division, we need to have our own engines so the car is all Cadillac.” Trouble is, their engines had a history of suck going back to the early 80’s. Packaging concerns aside, can you imagine if this generation of Seville had carried an LT1? Sure, it’s a 16-valve pushrod, but it can make copious power reliably. Something the Northstar had trouble doing, to say the least.
My thoughts exactly. Lincoln. Northstar was and is UTTER GARBAGE. If you can’t get luxury right, good luck selling your basic crap to Average Joe.
As far as I know, and I have googled the RWD Northstar for problems, the RWD Northstar is a solid engine. Mine did not use oil between changes, and the monitor gave more than 12,000 miles between changes. The RWD Northstar is a reengineered engine, so is not like the FWD at all.
Later versions (FWD)are re-engineered too, the FWD Northstars from about 2001 and up have a better rep than the early ones, but I have seen the earlier ones with mileage up into the 300K mark too.
Yes, Caddy did pretty much get the Northstar right a ways into its existence, according to multiple posts on the Cadillac forums, after 99, they got much better and after 04, they really got it right. I’ve known a bunch of Northstar powered Caddy owners, going back to the early days. Luckily, the ones I knew who had them in the early days were all like my mother, who partially thanks to my dad being a GM retiree (thus a nice extra discount on any GM product) has leased a new Caddy for at least 25 years, usually on a 3 year lease. So, she never had to worry about the funny things they’d sometimes do as they aged and if it was one that went real early, it was under warranty.
As I remember, she had one of the new style “bubble” looking DeVilles in the early 90’s from the year or two that the base, non-Concours DeVille came still with the 4.9L V8, which of course was the final gen of the infamous HT4100 V8. The 4.9L version is also considered to be a very good and reliable motor, much unlike the earlier versions of the HT4100, which were lucky to hit 100k without MAJOR work. Then they swapped in the Northstar for all DeVilles and of course that was before it was perfected either! Since then, she had all Northstar powered Caddy’s through her last DTS, which was then replaced with a last gen CTS and now a new ATS, both great cars.
I’ve known a bunch of other people who’ve owned higher mileage Caddys and the last 10 years at least I’d say, have been very reliable as far as I’ve heard from anyone. This generally follows what the extensive research that Consumer Reports does each year on every regular production car/truck, the US makers (Ford and GM at least) have improved markedly over the last 20 years from their formerly rather dismal reliability, coming close to the Japanese in many cases. The Germans have lagged far behind and as a former Audi A4 owner, they manage to make pretty much everything far more expensive to maintain, fix, etc than everyone else does! Now, even though the A4 is an Audi (VW’s premium brand as far as “normal people” cars go) its also the least expensive Audi and not overly luxurious, so you’d think it should save you some of the ridiculous expense that comes with maintaining an S-Class, 7 Series, A8, etc. but NO! Mine was a 2000 with the wimpy 1.8T motor that put out 150hp at the time and felt more like 100, yet it still required premium gas and full synthetic oil, which it is well known that choosing to skimp on will certainly lead to a BAD case of engine sludge! Even when I heard first one and soon after both rear wheel bearings start to hum loudly at times, what is normally a fairly easy and relatively cheap repair turned out to be more as the Germans choose only bearings that must be pressed into place with a special shop tool, thus MORE $$$$!!! Yet, they still blow out regularly, no advantage seen by me to that.
I’ve also known several suckers that made the bad choice of picking up a moderately used 7 Series or S-Class, apparently thinking that old bit about Euro MB diesel taxis that would run to 1 million + miles also somehow translated to the top MB’s and Bimmers, but no such luck! They were such money pits every time, even ones that still looked nearly new soon ended up shredding their wallets!
“how big a piece of shit a 2003 745il with only 111,000 miles on was, all the electronics were fried, it was overheating, multiple faults and warning lights”
Hmmm, sounds like a 2003 Cadillac to me! Service Air Ride! Check Coolant! Service Engine Soon! Air bag! Garbage.
You see a few Cadillac survivors, that’s great; they sold way more DeVilles and Sevilles than the 7-series. Just because the odometer reads 297k doesn’t mean the engine has that many miles.
Ok, so both are garbage, goes to show that its equal opportunity, whether it’s a $90,00 German car or a $40,000 American car.
We concur. I’m not a fan of BMW quality either.
Maybe wolverine works at the car wash?
+1
Carwash Manager: “Wolverine, can I speak with you for a minute?”
Wolverine: “Sure.”
CM: “The owner of the convertible Cadillac complained that you scratched his car…”
W: -Worried look- “I’m sorry sir. It’s just that…my girlfriend left me last week and you know how my claws get. It was just a scrape anyways. Won’t happen again.”
CM: “It’ll come out of your paycheck.”
W: “By the way, it’s not a convertible. I checked.”
Even the tacky fake roof doesn’t spoil the lines. I’d like to give it a good home in Australia.
Re the paint damage, reminds me of reading a story in a British car magazine about kids from the “estate” ( read housing projects) tieing nuts to the bristles of auto car wash bristles at night.
The manager had to spend time every morning feeling along the brushes to find the nuts the little ******** had tied on.
C’mon Niedermeyer, you’re in the Pacific NW…ever hear of Sasquatch?!?! 🙂
Or maybe his cousin, Sascratch?
If I make it to Auburn in October, you get a beer for that, Cavanaugh.
Im surprised the vinyl bits aren’t all moldy and mildewed.
Forget about the body, look at those horrible American Racing alloy wheels. I’ve seen these brand/style wheels on almost every make of fwd car or car based suv; they have never looked good, they always looked cheap. Under those caps I bet there are a dozen holes drilled in, ready for any bolt pattern out there.
Back in the 70s when the Great Adventure theme park opened in New Jersey, they had a drive-through safari attraction. On opening day, hundreds of brougham owners were dismayed at the end of the drive to find the chimpanzees had found their vinyl roofs to be irresistible, and said roofs were now in shreds. Not saying this Caddy has been attacked by roving bands of chimpanzees …
I witnessed this in person from a school bus. Saw a big Caddy with vinyl roof with a chimp sitting on each corner of the car, looking for all the world like body guards for a banana republic dictator.
Since it wasn’t an official school trip they had to cover the school bus signs above the windshield and back door of our bus. They used canvas covers that snapped on, and the chimps loved those too.
However amusing that was, our busload of middle-schoolers was far more amused when the elephants got frisky. I was sure the bus would tip over as every one of us ran to one side of the bus to watch.
We went there a bunch of times when I was a kid, it was one of the coolest things ever!! It was still open up until a few years ago, which is pretty amazing. I can’t even imagine what kind of lawsuits came out of there and what kind of awful things people fed to the animals (we fed them E.L. Fudge cookies).
My guess is that it was parked under a bush for a couple of years before it was resurrected. The wind blowing the branches would make that sort of pattern and could even tear up the vinyl on the driver’s door. I’m not sure that explains the more puncture-like holes in the vinyl though.
This was a great looking car…GM wasn’t merely copying the Germans, they penned a very contemporary, sporty sedan with this Seville
I agree with that. I don’t know what Paul means when he brings up the Mercedes 124 and 126. Just because this Seville didn’t look like the prior ones didn’t mean it looked European. It was its own thing, an original.
I third it, I really don’t see it either, I do see a bit of Lagonda in this generation of Seville.
Click on the image attached below. The top car is the gen 3 Seville, which dates from 1986. The second car is the Mercedes W124, which dates from 1985. The third car is the gen4 Seville, which dates from 1992.
I didn’t say that the gen4 was a direct crib, but the influence of the W124 is unmistakable, unless of course you’re wearing genuine GM sunglasses. The W124 was a highly influential car, that made the gen3 Seville look like very dated and rather pathetic the day it arrived. The W124 had a wide influence, and there’s no doubt its success and acclaim very much influenced the completely new direction GM took with the gen4 Seville. But as I said, Chuck Jordan didn’t directly crib, and was able to add aspects that gave it its own personality.
Of course the Seville’s excessive front overhang was not a design choice, but dictated by its FWD.
Nothing wrong with that, but it just reinforces the point of how GM missed the Mercedes boat ever since the gen1 Seville. With the gen4, they finally got on board. And you’ll find the same Mercedes influence on the Gen4 Seville’s interior too. The difference from the gen3 to gen4 Seville is huge, and it was the result of the drubbing the gen3 took in the market as well as by the press. Mercedes was in its golden years, and on the ascendency. It was only natural and obvious to target the W124 with the next generation of Seville.
I must be blind because the 124 and Seville don’t look anything alike in that pic. The only reason they might look similar to someone is because you have the gen 3 Seville in there which is so unlike the other two it pushes them together.
The gen 4 Seville has volume in the lower body, the 124 in the upper body. One looks long, the other short. The very fast windshield and forward leaning stick in the rear window give the Seville a profile that’s not like anything really.
Then there are the front and rear graphics which couldn’t be more different. One has a horizontal gesture up front, the other a more vertical one. One has a tapered tail, the other doesn’t. Etc, etc.
I see it in the rear portion of the roofline and there’s some similarities in the door cutlines but overall I’d say the resemblance is very minor, in fact it’s the same exact resemblance Foxbody Mustang Coupes have to the R107 SEC – you’ll see influential design elements but only if you really look hard and know what to look at.
I agree with calibrick that the cribbling that is there is a bit more obvious because the area that bears resemblance to the W124 replaced the substantially different ubiquitous and grossly overexposed thin C pillar/formal roofline look that was so typical of Cadillac(and most of GM) at the time. Any other sleek roofline GM could have chosen instead probably could be compared to something in existence too
If anything the interior is Audi like in this generation, not the angular Mercedes style. I believe GM even commented on going with an Audi like dashboard.
I only see a little Mercedes in the C-pillar, other than that its all USA.
Paul, I think you’ve misattributed from where the gen4 Seville draws many of its styling cues. Just replace the bustleback with a conventional trunk (keeping the low, wide horizontal tails), make the C-pillar a little faster and slimmer, and drop the nose. It’s like the third-gen car never existed.
I see the rounded roundyness and darkness of the tires, very similar, and the 2 openings per side…..oh and they both have rear taillights and headlights…..door handles, they both have door handles.
What I see in the picture you posted is….
From top to bottom.
Ughhhhhh….
Yawn…….
and
Gooooooooooorgeous.
I’ve seen damage like this before. A good friend of my wife’s is a “horse person”. Her truck has very similar damage caused by horses licking the paint and chewing anything that can be chewed. Apparently they have tongues like 80 grit sand paper.
Here in the BC Rockies we also have a problem with racoons. You have to very careful if you are going hiking for any length of time and leaving your car parked in a remote area. Vandalism and theft are unlikely, but Rocky the Racoon can do an amazing amount of damage. Locals know to carry a portable mesh screen fence to keep them away. Looks silly, but it beats getting stuck 50 miles from home when the local wildlife decides to snack on your wiring harness.
Either that or it’s mice. It is a pretty cheesy car…..
We have a native parrot that tears rubber components off cars wiper blades windscreen seals etc theyve been known to shred vinyl tops did somebody import one.
I seem to remember a woman that was a crop insurance adjuster who needed a windshield put in her mid to late 90s Bonneville. It had the fake convertible top on it and she was talking about having to take the car to a body shop to get the top taken off before the glass people could install the windshield. It was one of those horrible fiberglass shell tops that glued to the roof and she was picturing it looking like a turtle without its shell while driving it thru traffic.
Possible cause for this? Doubtful but just wanted to tell the story.