When I first spotted this pairing of old and then-new Cadillacs in downtown traffic on a Friday afternoon, my first thought was that the ’76 Sedan DeVille in the foreground took me to the opening credits of a 1970’s American sitcom. You’ll notice the driver’s door window was open, which enabled me to confirm the model year with the surprised, but enthusiastic, owner. The second-generation of SRX was new for 2010, a year before this photo was taken. For the sake of the contrast in age between these two vehicles, let’s suppose the SRX was the newest model available at that time – a 2011.
The DeVille, at the end of this generation’s run before being radically downsized, was Cadillac’s most popular line of cars for ’76, selling over 182,000 units between the Coupe’s 114,000 figure and the Sedan’s 68,000. Likewise, the SRX edged out the CTS to become Cadillac’s most popular 2011 offering, selling almost 57,000 units against the CTS’s 55,000. In this moment, I witnessed Cadillac’s two best-selling vehicles of each’s respective era next to each other. Separated by roughly thirty-five model years and moving slowly, side-by-side, near Chicago’s Thompson Center, they both looked right at home in Friday’s rush hour traffic on this stretch of West Randolph Street.
As photographed by the author downtown, The Loop, Chicago, Illinois on Friday, April 8, 2011. Titled with respect to Jan & Stan Berenstain.
What is it with ChiTown and dorky aftermarket tail pipes? How many of JD’s posts have we seen with these indignities? There have been several, the last one being a ’73 Imperial. And that SRX may as well be a Daewoo Captiva. I’ve since read they share nothing in common, but a casual observer would never know at first glance.
Chicago is not the only place that you see dorky tailpipes. I see them too often here in central Texas. Some of them stick out far enough to be shin knockers. It is hard to tell from the angle of the photo, but it looks like it has aftermarket wheels as well. The only saving grace is the damage is not permanent.
While our tastes run differently, I will give him credit for going through the effort of keeping an old car on the road.
I am going to suggest that dorky-long aftermarket tailpipes stem from putting the cheapest replacement exhaust system sold to man on cars that don’t come from the factory with stainless steel exhaust systems. They’re pretty much one-size-fits-most systems, and are intentionally manufactured for the longest scenario necessary; the theory being that they can be trimmed to the proper length…except no one does.
Call me weird but I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to external appearance of a CC. I’d take a stock, single system as close to factory as possible, if this were mine,even if it cost more.
I once had a 70 El Camino that had been converted to dual exhaust, which made it run a bit lean and under the right conditions a bit hot. When I replaced the exhaust system the guy at the shop looked at me like I was completely insane. It was a 350 with a 2bbl, and should have a single exhaust. I was very pleased with the outcome, no more running hot at highway speed and it was a lot quieter.
Looking at the Sedan deVille’s rear brake lights. If someone were following too closely, how could they possibly tell when you were stopping? Those lights are so low to the bumper.
That massive rear bumper could handle most anyone who hit it!!??
Wish my current car had one like that for the idiots who are texting instead of driving!????
I’ve seen a new Kia or Hyundai CUV that had brake lights in the lower edges of the bumper, they can’t be visible in bumper to bumper traffic so when driving close the 3rd brake light better work.
I think I’ve also seen older model Land Rover Discoverys that had the brake light or turn signals down in the bumper.
I’ve often wondered the same thing about GM’s A-body wagons and utes from ’73 – ’84 (did El Caminos from ’85+ get CHMSL’s?).
No, they weren’t required on trucks until ’94.
They’re still higher than the ones on the ’73-83 A-body wagons.
I never really noticed how odd the back end of the ’76 deVille really looks. I don’t dislike it, but it definitely looks strange to me after seeing it with the new cars of today.
As a kid I thought it looked odd because I expected the taillights to somehow be part of the fin/blade on each side, but the taillights are actually located in the rubber panel below the trunk lid. They were also horizontal, after years of vertical taillights located at the end of the quarter panel fin/blade.
The real problem, in the long run, was that those rubber panels inevitably cracked and became discolored within a few years.
So true Geeber! That’s exactly what I was thinking.
I remember thinking the same thing. I had been conditioned by years of big, vertical taillights on Cadillacs. These just looked wrong to me.
Same for me. I remember liking the new vertical treatment on the ’74s, but I didn’t understand why they’d have such a bold look, and then relegate the actual break lights to a plain horizontal strip (which itself was so not Caddy like).
Same as with the later Sevilles, even the downsized ones. They looked like they were from a Buick X Body Skylark.
It took me a few years to realize that the vertical bumper extensions had lenses that were just reflectors and didn’t illuminate. Like others, I found it a great disappointment. Fortunately, Cadillac did figure this out, and has produced a number of excellent vertical tail light themes in the years since.
A few years? I just came to that realization while reading this article! Guess i’d never looked closely enough at the tail of one of these, and just *assumed* that the actual lights were in the fender blade cap and that the horizontal pieces were reflectors. How interesting that the reverse was actually true!
I’m curious – does anybody know how the interior dimensions of these two vehicles compare? I have this theory that the reason that people drive SUV’s is that they are the only thing with the interior space of the old big cars.
I think the real reason is because it’s easier to enter and exit a modern crossover.
The SRX has 100.9 cubic feet of passenger space. It is considered a standard size utility vehicle by the EPA.
I continue to be struck by something about your photos. There is a timelessness about the scene that (for someone not looking too closely at the cars in the backgrounds) that could place the events anywhere over the last 40 years. Keep them coming.
I remember when these 76 Cads came out, thinking that the stylists had pretty much run out of ideas with what to do with this basic body and shape. I didn’t much like these at the time. I will say that when driving one, the car never felt as big as the competing Continental felt. At the time, I didn’t like that.
When it came to ’71 – ’76 era big Fords and GM cars, the Ford vehicles always felt a bit ponderous to me. The big GM cars were big, and you knew it (those hoods were loooong), but seemed to drive in a reasonably similar manner to GM’s generally well sorted out ’73 – ’77 mid-size A bodies. When I bought my ’72 Pontiac Grandville, there was a definite learning curve keeping track of all that car on the road, but it felt down right “tossable”, as the automotive writers like to say, when compared to my Dad’s ’76 Ford LTD.
The brown over pale yellow was never one of my favorites from this era, but that is a remarkably clean car.
The exterior of these cars had such great presence, and being a true four door hardtop makes is quite elegant.
While the all new ’77 Cadillac that replaced this was a truly better car, I mourned the loss of this look for a long time.
Gross. Just about the entire collection of ’71-’76 GM B-bodies were beaten to a pulp with the ugly stick, but the first couple years of Cadillacs managed to avoid the worst of the bloated, ungainly, Frankenstein’s-monster’s-corpse effect resulting from a random collection of crammed-together, misshapen, ungainly curves. By the time the excrescence pictured here came down the line, Cadillac had succumbed. Look at that melted-bar-of-soap quarter window randomly hacked into the sail panel. Look at that crapmess of a rear end, with random chrome blades replacing what had in ’71-’72 been elegant vertical taillights, and disproportionately small horizontal taillights carelessly thrown onto the filler panel. We can’t see them in this picture, but this body shell was not meant to have rectangular headlamps, yet GM disfigured these cars with them anyhow.
These are among the cars I’m glad we generally don’t see any more because they make my eyes want to bleed.
I, for the most part, agree with you. The ’71 Cadillacs were handsome beasts but by ’76 they looked lumpy and inconsistent and tasteless. Ditto the full-size Chevrolets and Oldsmobiles, although I don’t mind the later Pontiacs and Buicks.
If I had the bucks to spend during these years, the easy choice would have been Lincoln.
@ Daniel Stern: My sentiments, exactly. The 71 was almost perfect, then Cadillac kept jacking with it till it became the monstrosity seen in the photo above.
Cadillac sells a ton of the SRX. Maybe because it’s the right size, but I think because it’s better looking than the rest of the line. And better looking than it’s coming replacement.
Part of the problem was that the cars that debuted in the early 1970s were styled without any thought of how to adapt the basic design to the federal bumper standards, which took effect for the 1973 model year.
The 1972 Ford Torino, for example, wasn’t a bad-looking car when it first debuted. But for 1973, Ford grafted that blunt front grille, with the big chrome bumper, on to what had been a fairly “swoopy” basic design. For 1974, Ford did the same thing to the back end.
Not only did the car look ponderous, but it also looked as though two different teams had styled the car – one working on each end, with another working on the middle of the car.
To comment on the tail light treatment: They look much like the 74 Eldorado tail lights. Cadillac’s C-bodies (or series 60 for those of us who remember) had vertical tail lights on the 71-72’s, which got revised for 73-74. Then the 75-76’s get this Eldorado style.
Cadillac’s vertical tail light started with the 1948 models. While fins grew in the last part of the 50’s, the vertical tail light was replaced by round lights. The vertical tail light came back in the 60’s.
What is obvious to me is that Cadillac tried a number of times to change the tail lights, but seemed to come back to the vertical theme.
While I liked the 71-76 Fleetwood sedans (six special or brougham), when it came to buying one I found them to be much too big. I also tried a Deville but thought it too big also. The Buick Riviera’s were a big, but not too big car. Looking through the Cadillac history site, I think Cadillac’s got a bit too large at the end of the 60’s. Early 60’s Cadillac’s were better or at least the Deville’s are better.
The 75-76 Deville’s C-piller is not better looking with the window addition, but is different. GM’s styling kind of goes downhill after the 60’s I think. The bottom is around 1990 to my thinking, when their cars start to look better.
I don’t dislike the styling of these mid-70’s DeVilles, though I prefer the years / designs that bookended them. I have an appreciation for them now, but when I was growing up in the 80s, most of these c. ’76 DeVilles I’d see on the road were in rusty, icky, subpar condition. I’m sure if I had seen most of these in their glory when new, I’d associate them with that instead of with third- / fourth owners and these cars’ subsequent slide down the socioeconomic ladder.