As many of you here on CC have guessed, I have a thing for Broughams. Maybe it’s because I grew up in the 1980s and seeing them reminds me of my childhood. Maybe it’s because many relatives and family friends had these landau- and velour-bedecked gunboats in my formative years. Or maybe it’s because one of my most favorite childhood toys–nay, my most favorite childhood toy–was a dark blue Tomica Fleetwood.
Even before I could read, write, and ride a bicycle without jumping off of it (I could get it going, but didn’t know how to stop), I was into cars. To this day, I have crystal-clear memories of my dad’s 1979 Pontiac Bonneville company car, a car he got rid of when I was one or two years old. So this affliction has essentially been a lifelong affair.
So from an early age, my parents bought me 1/64-scale toy cars. So did my grandparents, aunts, uncles–you name it. Ertl, Majorette, Hot Wheels, Zylmex, Matchbox and others all found their way into my car cases, and I still have the ones I didn’t destroy.
I was a destructive kid. Models that I would love to have today were unceremoniously and intentionally smooshed, crunched and stomped on by my own little hands and feet. It didn’t even matter if the cars were worn out or in nice shape. One day, I got it into my head to smash some cars in the windowsill, with the window. Boy, did I get in trouble for that. I have no idea what I was thinking at the time!
But I digress. Two of my earliest models were by Tomica, better known as Pocket Cars in the U.S. in the ’80s. They were a little smaller than the usual Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars, but they were a lot more detailed. And my favorites were a blue Fleetwood Brougham and white-over-blue Continental Mark IV.
I took them everywhere–school, car trips, wandering around the yard when Mom was working on her roses. According to my mother those two were always in my mitts, and if I tripped and fell, I would continue to hold on to the cars, so as not to get them scratched. Apparently I had no concern about getting bumps and bruises on my own person.
Despite the love I had for them, they did get pretty banged up, racking up as many miniature miles as they did. But I still have both of them today. The Caddy was pretty paint-skinned by the time I entered junior high, so about fifteen years ago I repainted it in light blue metallic. And as you can see from the pictures, I still have it today.
In the late ’90s I discovered eBay, and bought quite a few vintage 1/64-scale cars, including the mauve Brougham you see here. I also got a Cadillac ambulance, to supplement my also well-worn example. I still have my original ambulance and the Mark IV previously mentioned, but those are mini CCs for another day. So now you know how I got this way!
Tom,
You have the best model collection. I have to say its always a pleasure seeing pictures of cars I never would have thought were available as a model.
I was also a big consumer of Pocket Cars in the 80’s (and Hot Wheels and Matchbox, of course). I had a blue Fleetwood which I loved, but lost it somewhere. To parallel your story even more, years later I found a mauve Fleetwood to replace it. What I remembered about the original Caddy, which i’m sure mirrored the full size models, is that it had the best ride! So smooth and soft…it was a very luxurious toy. When I got the mauve one, it was just like I remembered it. Like riding on 1:64 scale air.
I have the same cars, along with a blue Mark IV with a white vinyl roof. Miss those Pocket Cars. I have the Caddy Seville as well, in gold.
I had one in a dark brown copper color, it was all metal. Probably the most unusual Fleetwood-style model that I have come across is this Japanese ambulance design. Of course at one point Cadillac was the premier ambulance chassis but I can only assume that this was a lead car and not use to transport bodies.
I had this same die-cast car from Tomica, but by the time I inherited it from my brothers it was inexplicably painted black and the front doors were missing. That didn’t stop me from spending hours pretending it was involved in countless high speed chases that caused the big Caddy from sliding sideways around every corner due to throttle induced oversteer. Good times. Good times.
While making realistic tire-screeching sounds that drove your parents insane? Good times!
You might want to have the front end checked out on the blue Caddy. That much positive camber can’t be a good sign.
I had a blue one when I was a wee lad and it was my favorite toy car for a loooong time. For all I know it’s still buried in the back yard of the house we lived in until I was 13. Now I have to head for the Bay of E and look for a replacement…
What are those white towers in your first photo? Great shot, it looks like a science fiction landscape.
Those are the power plug-in units for the dock slips 🙂
How did I completely miss this one. I can get Cadillac obsessed. These capture that time, just prior to DOWNSIZING>. It was the last Big is Better Cadillac.
I’m pretty sure I had one of these as a kid as well. It may still be among the old toy cars my youngest son plays with when he visits my parents’ house. I want to say that mine was kind of a light brownish-goldish color, but I’m not positive of that. I can remember my brother and I playing with it, probably in the wake of the 1979 oil crisis, calling it a “gas guzzler” and pretending that it was always running out of gas.
Some time ago I bought the Lincoln Mark IV at a yard sale, repainted in that old Testors’ brush-and-bottle silver enamel that was so gummy it never, ever completely dries.
Not wanting to dismantle it, I used a milder-than-usual paint stripper I knew wouldn’t harm the plastics (90% isopropyl alcohol iirc), revealing perfect original blue-and-white paint worn away only at the door moldings!
Goodness Tom, when I saw the first picture, I thought you had raided my Matchbox collection! Ironically, I too repainted one of mine, but I redid the copper one, it’s now dark brown. I thought of redoing the blue one, but seeing how I couldn’t find the right shade of blue, I decided to leave it alone. These were my favorite toy cars too! I used to take mine to church and run them up and down the pews! A couple of times in my grown-up years I took them to church to show friends and remember the good old days 🙂
I sooo hope that one of these days we can get together and go through each others collections…
I too have both a blue and dark gray Caddy sedans of those years. I took care of them and they still look pretty good. However, the Caddy ambulance that I have is not a sedan BUT a real Superior or so high top in red with a white top and it is a Pocket car.
My favorite though has to be the ’35 or so red Packard convertible they made…or maybe the ’75 Coronet taxi and highway patrol cars….
Yep, me had me a bunch of those little pocket cars!
That is what my ambulance is as well–I never had the sedan “ambulance.” When I was little I pretended it was a Cadillac station wagon…
I’m pretty sure that all of us have this particular toy Cadillac.