Yes, that’s its official name, except for the “Mark III” part, which I added, for obvious reasons.
Not obvious enough?
Vintage Ad: 1964 Cadillac-Superior Royale Coupe de Fleur Mark III
– Posted on March 17, 2021
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Curbside Classics Archives
I confess I thought you’d been at the photoshop again. ’till Dr Google enlightened me. One question: Why that ghastly roof line?
It keeps the sun off the driver’s neck.
I guess they still had extra-height windshields left over from ’59-’60.
The windshield is common to all the ’61-64 Series 75s, they weren’t redesigned as fully as the B and C bodies and just wore a new skin over the old hard points. I think either the limo or the procar chassis – not sure which – even kept its’ complete 1964 look, including holdover ’59-60 windshield, into 1965.
Here’s a ’64 Series 75. They kept as much of the ’59 version as possible all the way through ’64 including the windshield.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/cc-outtake-1964-cadillac-series-75-the-fraternal-twins/
I believe the 1965 Series 75 limo retained this body style as well.
Yes, the old 75 was built right through 1965, oddly enough.
I’m guessing the donor Lincoln roof was the only way to get the vertical rear window required for pickup/flower car use.
The rear doors in the sides of the bed for easy access is a feature that modern trucks would do well to copy!
It may be where someone got the idea, but I don’t think Superior used actual Lincoln donor parts. The height and angle look slightly different.
No actual Lincolns were harmed in the making of this vehicle.
Reminds me of the pilot episode of “Six Feet Under”.
During a flash back screen, a sexy girl extols the virtue of the Crown Royal Funeral Coach!!
Attractive (human) models used to sell everything from beer to hearses!? Wow!
I can’t quite decide if this roofline looks better or worse than that on the early ’50s Coupe de Fleur:
The logical choice would’ve been to put slide-out floral rails in an otherwise-stock El Camino but I could see why that would be considered insufficiently classy for the sort of high-end funeral that involves a flower car.
If it had been a biker funeral, the El Camino would have fit right in the attendees.
I doubt that a Mark III was cut up each time a Coupe de Fleur was produced. However, I saw the rear window treatment right away. I love the ad for the Millennial hearse. Thanks “3Speed!” The Coupe de Fleur, if any still are around, would make an excellent gift for “The man who has everything.” Today is St. Paddy’s Day, so my attachment is anent the occasion and not anything automotive. Enjoy!
As someone was kind enough to post a picture of an early 50s version, I couldn’t help thinking how different say a 54 is from a 64, then a 74. How did the professionals deal with that?
OOPS! i needed to make t file into a JPEG to attach. So, here is my St. Patrick’s Day offering.
The more I see those big Lincolns, the more I’m starting to like them.
Talk about awkward styling!
Still, I really liked the 1959-60 GM corporate windshield as a kid and saw the return to more conventional windshields as a retrograde step. The fact that Cadillac kept this space-age windshield through 1964 (or was it ’65?) in the limos and hearses was proof to me at the time of the superiority of this design.
If that could cheer you up, Chevrolet and GMC kept the “Dog leg” wraparound windshield to 1963 when they got more conventionnal for 1964 to go head to head against pick-up trucks from Ford and Dodge (however Dodge kept the old wraparound windshield from the Power Giant trucks era for the heavy-duty D900 and Bighorn trucks).
But the wrap -around windshields were expensive to manufacture and replace. Somewhere I have a 1959 Car Life (?) magazine article lamenting this fact, complaining that the windshield of a typical late 1950s car cost up to $400 (1959 dollars) to replace. This represents about 10% of the car’s purchased price. Both consumers and insurance companies were grumbling at this extra cost which arose for styling reasons.
Conventional windshields were simply cheaper.
Can anyone enlighten me as to why both these cars (the ’64 and the ’50) have rear doors? I don’t think a real passenger was provided for.
Rear doors on the side? It’s for side loading. These hearses were marketed to independent funeral home businesses. Some homes were smaller and may not have enough space in the driveway or at the curb to load items inro the vehicle through the rear doors. So they had an option to load caskets, flowers etc through a side door.
The full wraparound was a safety feature, though GM never sold it as such. Before the wraparound, the base of the glass was only a couple inches ahead of the dash. Your head would inevitably hit the glass first.
Moving the dash back by 9 inches with the doglegs made it possible for your head to hit the dash before it hit the glass, so the seat belt plus padded dash could help. Later the shoulder belt and airbags made this dimension unimportant.
One can perfectly well add any degree of slope to a windshield without having it wrap around. Which is of course what was done after 1960 or so.
The rear doors on a flower car, more effort that it’s worth to remove them, so….
https://cdn-0.barnfinds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/1994_cadillac_flower_car_d-2-630×390.jpg
No way to side load caskets through the rear doors of a flower car…
https://img.hmn.com/stories/2015/07/45308678-770-0@2X.jpg
Gotta love Flower Cars .
In the 1960’s many farms had them as heavy use non road vehicles ~ it wasn’t considered right to drive them into town but for hauling hay or fencing, they were perfect : cheap to buy and run, hard to kill .
-Nate