Eugene is a mecca for curbside classics, but there are certain cars I’m just not going to find here. Toyotas from the seventies? Gobs. A genuine vintage 1974 Eldorado pimpmobile? Just not gonna’ happen.
But Chicago is a different story, and Joseph Dennis found this very well preserved Eldo there. Let’s face it, the mortality on these was bound to be a bit high, so finding one nowadays still on the streets is a real score.
Too early in the morning for my eyes to adjust……. on second thought, that’s not going to happen ever.
My first thought on seeing the front end was; “This is what a 1973 Monte Carlo (or ’75 Cordoba?) looks like to someone on LSD.” But then it WAS the ’70s!
Customs, in general, are unlikely to survive the test of time. Typically, such a car would have lived a few years as a stock daily driver. Once depreciation has set in however, an owner feels somewhat liberated to get creative. Drilling holes seems harmless, and cheap steel sheet metal screws in those holes seem good enough. One winter in salt however, will let the tin worm in, and voila!–junkyard time! I can only assume this car is a recent import from Los Angeles.
there. is. just. so. much. going. on. i had forgotten what this visual spectacle was like.
Nothing exceeds like excess!
One of the nicer looking pimps-almost conservative looking when compared to many others. I would be proud to drive this car,sure would get attention.Would make me feel like Bad Leroy Brown.
Shut yo’ mouth! 😉
But I’m talkin’ a bout Shaft.
Can ya dig it?
He’s a complicated man, and no one understands him but his woman.
He’s got a custom Continental ,He’s got an Eldorado too… He gotta .32 gun in his pocket for……Wait, If LeRoy Brown could afford TWO pimpmobiles, you’d think he’d do better than a lousy .32! No wonder he got offed in that fight!
The neighbor behind us when I was a kid really was named Leroy Brown. Seriously! He didn’t drive an Eldorado, but he did have a special-ordered, every option but leather ’78 Coupe DeVille d’Elegance.
I like it! Seriously, it’s better than some factory ‘concept cars’. The landau effect is proper, resembling a 1910s Town Car. The straps on back echo the trunk straps of that era. It has LESS chrome than the original, which immediately disqualifies it as a Pimpmobile.
Aren’t those wheels from the beautiful 1967-1970 Eldorado? It’s amazing to me that the 1967-1970 Eldorado was both beautiful and minimalist in a certain sense, whereas the 1971-1978 Eldorado is just fat and overdone.
The factory rims from the ’67 Eldo all the way to ’78 are the same. You just can’t make out the details on the later ones because they’re hidden by the full wheel covers. Same story with the Toronados of the same vintage.
I would take a 70s F body all day every day over this. And for me, this is saying something.
We all have our secret vices, I guess, but I actually think that this particular example works…. I like the look. I mean, If you are going to drive a 20-foot long 2-door coupe with a 500 cubic-inch engine, who are you trying to kid by suddenly pretending you’re all conservative and painting it beige or something?
I think there is a point when a given car reaches “peak Brougham” and peak Brougham is like a supersaturated solution. Add even a tiny bit more solute, and it completely destabilizes and turns to solid (usually). The 70s Eldos straight from the factory were at “peak Brougham” already, you so much as tack on a single Continental kit, those trunk straps, some superfly grille and it immediately goes from era appropriate flashy to ghetto gaudy.
The example in the pics is a less offensive one than usually portrayed, but give me a stock Eldo any day.
The perfect explanation! So, you are saying that this car has turned to a solid? I mean in the way sewer workers mean when they refer to solids.
This is fairly conservative versus one of these that shows up at some local car shows: flat black paint, pink leopard-print landau top, and a “Stop laughing, your daughter is in here!” bumper sticker.
Whitewalls are far less offensive than donks.
I had to look up what you meant by this donks thing you spoke of, Damn! Seen that crap but never knew they were called that.
I don’t miss seeing those and cars dolled up like these – made me sick back then, nauseates me now.
Thing is, the stick-on chrome portholes and other stuff, not to mention the rental wagon wheels on cars not worth a thousand dollars is just as bad.
Phooey.
It really should be purple FTW and its missing the landau bars too. Those wheels from those era GM cars always remind me of truck wheels.
And the landau vinyl should be zebra stripe.
I watched Superfly recently for fun. Sort of a CC effect don’t you think?
Yo Damn Right!
Actually, it’s quite swayve. Check out Black Dynamite, the Blaxpoitation parody from 2009. There were some shorts about selling heroin to kids in the neighborhood that were pulled from the website early on– presumed to be in bad taste.
Well………. I do like the color.
That can’t be a pimpmobile-it’s been done with entirely too much good taste.
I grew up in Oakland Ca. In the 60s and 70s and I actually saw these occasionally rolling down the streets. Most were fairly sedate like this, no Duzy side pipes or leopard print landau tops. In the early sixties the Devilles sported big whitewalls, extra chrome, that big flying goddess hood ornament and the legendary” diamond in the back” landau top. I loved them but as the 70s arrived they grew over the top. I always wondered who would drive one, if I was a pimp or drug dealer I think I would keep a lower profile.
Strange just how different seemingly similar cars can be. I would absolutely love to have a nice stock ’74 Mark IV, but I would be embarrassed to be seen anywhere near that thing.
The pimp who lived on my way to elementary school back in the early 70s had a brace of these – a kind of raspberry Mark IV with a white vinyl landau top, and a white-on-white Eldorado with Superfly headlights and “polar bear” fur seats. Both with mini-TVs and boomerang antennas, ‘natch. He was really living the Leroy Brown life.
The wheels just don’t look right. They do have a touch of “truck wheel” to them and seem at odds with the rest of the pimptastic treatment.
Also, where does one get whitewalls that wide? there is a ’72 Mark IV sitting at a repair shop near my house (have to photograph that thing at some point), purple with a white top, and “wide whites” like this. Except that they’re really blackwall tires with the entire sidewall painted white. Classy, no? Maybe these are done the same way, but if so, the work is of better quality!
Diamondback or Coker would be good places to look for such tires.
To each his own – I happen to think that the wheels may the best part of this rig. Actually though, I think in the year 2055 or so, CC will feature pictures of AMG Mercedes G500’s with chromed 20″ wheels and our grandchildren will be laughing. By the way, similar to the earlier poster Jose, I grew up in the town next to Oakland California and cars like this were not uncommon in the early and mid-70’s.
Its truly awfull in a way only these cars can be only missing the plastic fantastic fake wire wheels to go with the bumper turd for the full effect
I don’t know why there are so many cracks about those wire wheel covers on Cads and Lincolns. They are not Pep Boys plastic junk. Stock Cadillac hubcaps were very good,quality built out of stainless steel and were very heavy and expensive. My wire caps were stolen off my ’77 CdV and they cost the insurance company 625.00 to replace.( in the early 1980s) Original caps will retain their looks forever. I guess you may have seen some Cads and other cars that had lost the originals which had been replaced by a discount store set. I think that the wire wheel with whitewall look suits the brougham look on a lot of cars. Sporty variants such as Touring sedans and LSCs wore alloys and blackwalls from the factory. The spoke looking wheels on this blue Eldo are the original steel rims, used behind the hubcaps, that have been chromed. The first gen Toronado used a different design that used a small center hubcap. The original first gen FWD Eldo always had full wheel covers.
Thanks for updating! I just saw the new front end photo! Check out the hat on the driver and his pimpstache! Zoom in a lot to see them.
Now my eyes really hurt.
Hey! You waited till after I went on record as liking the look, and NOW I find out that although she has a nice butt, the girl has buck teeth and wears big glasses!
The comment about this guy girl is a flat out lie seriously. I saw this guy girl a few times she absolutely has a big butt trust me. She does not have buck teeth in fact she has a very sexy smile revealing a ultra brite white smile. If this guy girl was a lady of the night he would be rich because she is small in the waist not taken up space and she has beautiful coco brown skin and very sexy hair and the so call glasses are nothing but sun glasses. I always get the felling though if any guy come at her wrong that guy life would be over!!!!
Shades of “Live and Let Die” :)!!!
http://www.imcdb.org/images/017/918.jpg
To be honest I don’t think these look any worse than a stock Eldo
I’d love to drive one of these pimptastic old pimpmobiles for just one day, just to see the look on everyone’s faces when they see me behind the wheel. Especially the people who know me! Maybe I’m not the only one who feels that way. Who wants to start up Rent-A-Pimpmobile? It might be the business opportunity of a lifetime.
Does this post have anything to do with the fact that today is Elvis’ birthday? Probably just a unfortunate coincidence.
Must have been a huge explosion at the JC Whi\tney warehouse.
After reading CC for a few years I have grudgingly conceded that Eugene out-does the SF Bay Area for real CC’s. But this morning on Hwy 1 in Santa Cruz, in a true CC-effect moment, I saw the ultimate pimpmoblie, a Stutz Blackhawk. Fortunately, to offset that, right behind it was a Tesla. Actually, today was almost Eugene-like: in short succession I saw a 66 Galaxie and Impala, a ’64 Fairlane, and a DS21.
These pimpmobiles were real. And this has the look. As a 15 year old I’d see these and my Dad would wisely use it as a time to give me the lesson to MIND YOUR P’s and Q’s… and you’ll be all right. So Far I’ve been wise enough to generally follow his advice.
But the lifestyle that would enable a Cadillac done up like this , with extra icing, was Over The Top cool. Especially in Raspberry and White…
I saw this car last night at the Mariano’s in Skokie. We said “nice car”, and he rolled replied “thanks man” and then disappeared into the night. My husband and I were convinced it was a shared hallucination, until we found these pictures.
I saw this car today by The Hospital at Ogden and Polk! It’s still around