I had the good fortune, along with my coworkers, to have been given the Friday before Labor Day off from work this year. This effectively made it a four-day weekend, and as such, it felt like another small vacation much like the one I had experienced just a few weeks prior when I had gone to Indiana for the day. Maybe five or ten years ago, I might have been planning my extended weekend around which parties to attend or bars to hit with my friends, but being in a different place now, I’ve been much more focused on trying to live life to the fullest and experiencing new-to-me things that have been right in front of me the whole time.
I had always functioned at an insanely high level between work, maintaining a busy social schedule, keeping physically fit, weekly creative writings, photography projects, and everything else, but I’m so much more productive now that I’m not spending entire mornings during the weekend getting “back to normal” after a late night out. I’ll still hang with you, but I now value being present more than ever before and will have no issues with leaving once I’ve had enough social interaction. I’m also much more selective with the quality and quantity of my friendships.
During that week of staycation in August, one of the areas I had explored locally was Montrose Beach & Harbor, in the Uptown neighborhood just south of mine on Chicago’s north side. I had been ready to write about how it was the “first time” I had ever been to Montrose Harbor before I remembered I had been there about four years ago, as I had been invited to attend a car show by a member of the local chapter of a nationwide car club. Getting to Montrose Harbor was something of an ordeal that last time around, as I wasn’t quite sure which CTA Red Line station would be best to deboard, and then how and where to cross DuSable Lake Shore Drive. Happening across the harbor last month felt magical and almost like serendipity. I was on one of my evening walks and at the point I would usually turn around to go home, I simply kept on walking since I didn’t have to go to work the next day, and thus, felt no obligation to get to bed early.
Montrose Harbor. Monday, August 15, 2022.
Walking along the docks of Montrose Harbor is a view into a world completely unfamiliar to me – a place inhabited by many people who own not only their home and at least one vehicle, but also a boat. They can take them out into the water for maybe four months out of the year. That’s luxury. I’m beyond content with my modestly-sized condo and without a car, in the varied-income, beautifully diverse neighborhood where I feel safe, welcome, and a strong sense of community. I have a few friends and acquaintances who own boats, and I enjoy seeing their social media posts about being out in what feels like a private club, bobbing gently on the lilting waves of Lake Michigan.
“A legend becomes a lifestyle”, says the ’74 Cadillac brochure. Sounds right to me. Both boating and Cadillacs are worlds I’ll never know except as a participant through invitation. I suppose the boating life is really no different than with someone who puts money into his or her classic car for enjoyment in the summer. While I can swim well enough, I’d rather be on dry land where I can just leave if I want, so no boat for me, even if I came into unlimited wealth. Still, we all have the right to spend our leisure funds where we enjoy them most, and I respect those who not only are able to boat, but are also good at it.
It was amid this monied environment while walking to Montrose Beach from a bus stop that I spotted this ’74 Cadillac Sedan DeVille parked right next to the harbor. It was like a dream, a scene right out of an hourlong Aaron Spelling production from the 1970s. I was tempted to post-process these pictures to look like period photos, but opted against it only because I wanted you to be able to behold this Cadillac’s glorious, factory Mandarin Orange finish (topped with a Sandalwood vinyl roof cover) as it appeared in present day, at almost fifty years old. One can buy a new 2022 Cadillac XT4 and XT5 in eight colors specific to each line. The usual options are accounted for, including shades of silver, red, white, black, blue, and brown. According to two different sources I was able to reference, there were no less than twenty-four different exterior paint colors available from the factory for ’74 Cadillacs.
Among some of the more interesting options were Apollo Yellow in a light pastel, Persian Lime Firemist which was the color of a lime Lifesavers candy, and Chesterfield Brown Iridescent which resembled the innards of a Chesterfield cigarette, an association I couldn’t help making with this particular kind of Americana from a time when smoking was considered luxurious. This Mandarin Orange color is as audacious as one might expect from a car that measures 230.7″ from end to end, is just shy of eighty inches wide at 79.8″ (six feet tall is 72 inches), and 54.4″ tall.
A 7.7 liter (472 cubic inch) V8 engine with 205 horsepower moves this two and a half ton car to sixty miles per hour in the eleven-second range, and will deliver fuel economy of approximately two dinosaurs a month. Seriously, though, even in fossil fuel-strapped ’74, anyone who could afford this car could probably also afford to send the hired help to wait in the long, slow gasoline rationing lines. The $8,100 starting price of a ’74 SDV translates to $49,000 in 2022. These weren’t the most expensive luxury cars for their times, but they still cost plenty.
Seventy-four stands out as a year where pretty much every, single U.S. model of car had their exteriors significantly altered more than ever before, owing much to the new 5-mph standards to which both front and rear bumpers were held. A vehicle had to sustain no significant damage to a car’s front and rear lighting following impact. The 5-mph front bumper requirement that was introduced the year before seemed to be met by stylists with subtle and graceful efforts by many domestic manufacturers. There were exceptions, mostly from Ford (Torino, I’m looking at you), but flipping back and forth between pictures of even a 1972 and ’73 Chevy Vega, there’s not a whole lot of apparent difference. The front bumper of the ’73 Vega sticks out a little bit further, and not to the detriment of the car’s overall styling. Your orange and white ’73 Millionth Edition Vega looked just as pretty stranded on the side of the road as your run-of-the-mill ’72 GT.
A luxury car like a Cadillac DeVille would be expected to have a significant refresh on a yearly basis up through the dawn of the 1980s, and its ’74 restyle was full of external changes. Instead of listing them all out, I’d like to call attention to one, since we’re on the topic of bumpers. The ’73 DeVille had its taillamps integrated into its chrome bumper unit which horizontally capped its rear fins. For ’74, horizontal lights sprouted below and parallel to the trunk opening, and red reflectors / parking lamps were integrated into the bumper. I’m not quite sure why, but this combo always seemed a bit busy to me, like there were too many things going on back there. Other GM cars would feature this approach, including Cadillac’s Eldorado, and even Buick’s A-body midsizers (Century, Regal, and Special) of 1976 and ’77. There are worse looks, but I think that, for ’74 anyway, Lincoln and Imperial had cleaner rear styling among the domestic luxury makes.
Coupe DeVille sales for ’74 stayed static, dipping just 1,000 units from the prior year to 112,000. Sales of its four-door counterpart, however, tumbled over 40% to about 60,400 units. How many other Mandarin Orange Sedan DeVilles besides this one were made that year, and what’s the number of those left in existence in 2022? I liked that this example had a trailer hitch, which made me think that it might have been the rig to tow a small boat to Montrose Harbor, making use of the 365 lb-ft of torque put out by that 7.7 liter V8. There was a little rust in the lower section, but not as much as there might have been for a car in this area of the country where lots of road salt is the norm during winter months.
This orange DeVille reminded me of the last orange in a beautiful, citrus gift basket that would be received during the end-of-year holidays. You want to hang onto that orange just a little bit longer to prolong the enjoyment of what had been some of the tastiest fruit you had ever experienced. It’s cold in December, and it’s going to stay that way for months. Yet, brown spots will appear if you hang onto that orange for too long, and if you’re not careful, you’ll need to simply chuck it into the trash without even getting to taste its sweet nectar one last time.
The end of summer saddens me, and I can’t help that. Much like I would sometimes be among the last group of people left at the party, yukking it up and contributing to the laughs, it’s hard for me to let go of soaking up ample amounts of Vitamin D courtesy of the sun while being outdoors during the warmest season. Over the past few years, I’ve been working to internalize the end of summer as being temporary and cyclical, versus something that falsely feels more permanent than it is. Another day in this life is never guaranteed, but there will likely be another summer for me. At the very least, I know that I made the absolute most out of another fantastic, sober summer, and for that, I’m thankful and smiling as I head into fall.
Uptown, Chicago, Illinois.
Friday, September 2, 2022.
Labor Day Weekend.
Just yesterday I was thinking about how even in the heyday of 28 color choices in the ’50s-’70s that orange never seemed to be one of those colors, except for roadsters, air-cooled VWs, and the like. Not big American sedans. But low and behold, we have a land-yacht Cadillac in a color better suited for a safety vest. By the 1970s, big, elegant cars still offered a huge range of colors inside and out, but I remember them all being sedate and restrained, especially on luxury models. There would always be a few outliers that were off the beaten path like a light creamy yellow or mint green, but bright day-glo colors were out. I have no recollection of ever seeing a late 20th century Caddy in this color.
I was never clear on whether the red lamps and reflectors in the vertical chrome tailfins were supposed to be taillights at all – each side has one light facing outward and one facing inward, but nothing facing backward.
It’s odd after so many decades of being obsessed with having a new look every year, after 1980 they just gave up completely, not even bothering with easy stuff like a new grille texture or taillamp lens on their big RWD sedans until about 1989.
The small lights in the vertical fins came on with the taillights (since this was where the side marker function was), but the primary taillights and brake lights were the horizontal lenses under the trunk opening.
I remember seeing a mid-1970s Cadillac as a kid, and being aghast that the tailfin lights didn’t come on with the brakes. My mental image of “a Cadillac” was an 1980s Fleetwood Brougham, and Cadillacs were supposed to have vertical brake lights…always, no exceptions! I felt as if the car had upset the equilibrium of the world.
My Grandmother had a ’73 Electra in “Harvest Gold” which was similar to this orange, just not as “burnt”, a more medium shade. Was offered at other GM brands, mostly seen on PLC’s.
I agree with you that the lack of change in external Cadillac design starting in the early ’80s was jarring. I can tell the downsized 1977 – ’79 models apart by little detail changes like grilles, taillights, and the like. After 1980, I’ve got to use the internet.
I think of the wild Cadillac colors appealing to a certain demographic, including the Las Vegas set – and I mean that in a good way. I like that wide palette of colors simply for existing.
Great morning read as usual, Joseph. While I don’t really lament the end of summer as much as you (Fall is my favorite season though, so there’s that), I do get kinda sad when it’s time to close my little above ground pool.
As to boats, I’m with you there. Even if I won the lottery, this would be the last thing I would even think to purchase, but then I suffer with motion sickness when out on the water.
And will this be the last orange Cadillac? Somehow I doubt it. I think you can still get one 😉…
Thank you so much, RS Rick.
And, wow. The entire premise of my essay – that one cannot buy a new, orange Cadillac – is completely wrong. The 2022 CT5. Oops!
Instead of putting this piece in the trash (unless someone else does), I’m going to leave it as-is. My time as a contributor (not as a participant! I love this site) may be running out, as I should probably save some of this stuff for my autobiography… LOL This isn’t me having hurt feelings or anything, as I’m over here laughing. Thank you so much for being nice about it!
I’m not usually motion-sick, but I do remember once about twenty years ago when I was at the engagement party on a boat for my friends Aaron & Marianne when I’ve never been sicker, but that probably had more to do with all that tequila!
Well, I’ve noticed for the past couple of years that Burnt Orange seems to be making a comeback. Now I’m even seeing “That 70’s Gold” (like my first car, the ’73 LTD) popping up here and there.
The odd thing is though, if you want one of these cool colors, you have to pay a premium for it. I suspect that it’s because dealers don’t want to be stuck with inventory at the end of the year… like that’s even a thing anymore. 😢
Car companies should take a chance, darn it. I really think that if better colors than the non-colors that they usually stock (50 shades of grey) were more readily available, customers would snap them up!
Automobile advertisements almost always feature one of the cool colors offered, and yet that’s what you never see on the lots (in normal times… see sad faced comment above.) What exactly is their fear of colors?
Edit: I took your title’s meaning to be more about the end of summer and the loss of good produce. Veggies and fruits really aren’t that good in the winter, although there are a few exceptions. 😉
>The odd thing is though, if you want one of these cool colors, you have to pay a premium for it.
There was often an upcharge for “Diamond Firemist Paint” or some such on ’70s Lincolns and Cadillacs, but it was usually only about $175 or so. The German luxury brands normalized having to spend $695 to get metallic paint, meaning anything that wasn’t black, white, or bright red, and now we have Tesla charging up to $2,500 for ordinary metallic red or blue that would be free on a Camry.
You’re probably more likely to see another ’74 Mandarin Orange Sedan DeVille before you see a new Orange CT5 outside of a magazine, people just don’t order the colors on something like that, but the take rate of Orange on Subaru Crosstreks seemed to be outstanding. Or if you DO see a CT5 in Orange, it’ll be in south Florida and probably will have a dealer installed Sandalwood vinyl top. You can’t win, in other words. 🙂
Nice piece!
Hi Jim,
I had made a similar, yet perhaps a counter-point to actual colors on cars in a reply to Joseph. It posted. Then when I tried to edit it to add something, it seems to have vanished. I don’t THINK I hit cancel reply, but who knows?
Would one of you top contributors please have a look and see if it is retrievable? I’m trying to comply with the rule regarding not posting the same comment again.
Thanks!
Rick
P.S. to Joseph – to us land lubbers, there is a rule regarding that fermented and distilled agave nectar: “One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor.” I couldn’t even imagine drinking that stuff on a boat! If I haven’t said so before, kudos to you for giving all that up! Bravo!
Retrieved it – thanks for letting us know!
Thanks Eric!
Thanks so much, Rick. Tequila was never at the top of my list of favorites, but at a celebration, and when in Rome… 🙂
And thanks to you, as well, Jim.
I’ve noticed this fairly recent phenomenon of “launch colors” – an offbeat color offered for maybe the first month or two (or for a max of 500 cars or so) of a new model that is shown in advertising and given out to the press for testing, before quickly becoming unavailable. It’s like they know a unique color will help their new cars stand out in online road tests and promotions, but know that dealears don’t want to be saddled with lime-Slurpee hatchbacks that would sit on their lot for the next 8 months.
Terrific read as usual – the 74 Sedan DeVille holds a special place in my heart, as my Pap had one as his “garage queen” that I grew up with (it’s my avatar on the site as well).
I liked the styling of these, inside and out, better than the 71-73 models, even with the 5 mph bumpers. Only complaint was the lack of rigidity – the doors didn’t feel as secure when you closed them as you would have thought.
The interior was huge, or maybe I was smaller back then. Bench seat, acres of fake wood, and that Wonder Bar radio that fascinated me as a kid.
Other oddity on Paps car was that it came from the factory with a 500 instead of a 472 (sticker and all). Only thing I can figure is later in the production year they switched over due to supply issues.
Thanks for bringing back great memories!
Thanks, Tom. And also you’ve now sent me down the path of researching the Cadillac Wonder Bar. I thought I had read about it somewhere, and I’m sure it was featured in the factory brochure I looked at, but I need to know more!
Hi Joe,
Wonder Bar radios were optional on Oldsmobiles and Buicks too. Maybe Chevy and Pontiac, I’m not sure. And I remember them on fullsize GM cars, not sure on the midsized ones. I’m not sure I ever saw one of these, but I have seen them in ads and some owner’s manuals.
I believe they date back from the mid ’60’s, They basically have a seek feature activated by a bar shaped button underneath the radio dial (hence the name Wonder Bar) or a button on the floor similar to the old floor mounted dimmer switches. Hitting either of these allowed the radio to seek the next station higher on the dial that had a strong enough signal to be received.
Thank you for the article.
Love it! In Burger King corporate colours, you may have unknowingly tracked down the Burger King’s original company car circa 1975.
A great find, and excellent article Joe!
And I thought that the plastic faced “King” was creepy. Wow the seventies were weird, although they didn’t seem at that strange at the time!
This is my favorite thing I’m going to watch on the screen for all of today – thank you for posting this! I forgot how much I liked the Burger King! This also reminds me of Burger Chef & Jeff.
Don’t make me choose between the Burger King and Ronald McDonald. It would be like asking me to choose a favorite uncle, or something.
And I could totally see the King behind the wheel of this Cadillac.
The Burger King was always a sharp dresser. And the King of Fun. Why he ruled in the late 70s, and early 80s. His Sedan DeVille served him well. He had better eyebrows than Brooke Shields. And he knew it, so he flaunted them.
It was always a challenge for kids, and kids at heart, to take Ronald McDonald seriously. Especially when at local events, the ‘Ronald’ that showed up, didn’t look remotely like the one on TV.
“He had better eyebrows than Brooke Shields”
!!!
But Daniel, it wasn’t really just about the eyebrows….was it? 🙂
Ah! Burger Chef! Second in allegiance in my youth only to McDonalds…only to vanish during the 70s. I always suspected that Burger KING – that interloper from Florida – had something to do with Burger CHEF’s demise.
I spent a lot more time thinking about this stuff in the 70s than I might shoulda.
That address has been a McDonald’s as long as I can remember, and I’ve been there dozens of times, usually for a quick bite after leaving the Kennedy Shriver indoor pool and gym a few blocks away. It’s been there as long as I can remember and had no idea it was once a Burger Chef. I did eat at a few Burger Chefs as a kid and liked them but don’t recall their locations. One of those places that disappears and I don’t notice they’re all gone until years later.
The phone booth is long gone too of course, but the 7-Eleven in the background is still there and conversely I thought it was a much newer building than it is, but it has the same shape now as in the b&w pic.
I will suggest though that “Open Wide, America” was probably not the most inspired advertising slogan.
That’s Eve Plumb! My favorite Brady. 👍
I KNEW she looked familiar! Yes, Jan….
This guy (in the pic) is familiar too, I just can’t place him. Shirley he was in something ranging from Gunsmoke to Star Trek to Adam 12. 😉
Joseph, beautiful article indeed.
I’ll join the chorus of folks bemoaning the lack of color in modern cars. As Jim Klein points out, the colors may be offered, but it seems that no one buys them…except for orange Crosstreks (where it seems to me that MOST of those are orange). Even so, there are just so many fewer choices nowadays.
That big old Coupe DeVille in your article is perfectly situated near the boats and the marina. That seems like a setup that should have been in a Cadillac brochure from that time (it may have been for all I know). You can just imagine a leisure-suited guy with a woman on his arm walking away from the marina and toward a heavily shadowed (it’s sunset, after all) enormous Coup DeVille. Oh, and there’d have to be a tag line like “A quality car that makes sense for today” (what does that even MEAN???) across the bottom.
An orange car would be perfect in that context.
Thanks, Jeff. I’ll be honest. When I had first snapped these photos, the working title of my essay as I started writing it in my head was along the lines of something like “A Boat At The Marina”. I opted against taking that tack, as even as I read it now, it sounds unsympathetic toward the subject car.
I did, however, think that Montrose Harbor was the absolute perfect setting for this ’74 Cadillac.
And I agree with you that “A quality car that makes sense for today” is weak!
Mother had a Sedan de Ville for ’74, in a sort of light metallic blue. It was a nice car, but when the lease was up, it was replaced with a tan over brown ’76 Fleetwood. Now *that* was something!
Maybe this is because it’s close to dinner time for me, but tan over brown makes me think of chocolate cake! That color combo sounds really appealing on a car like the ’76 SDV.
That orange Cadillac reminds me of this red Chrysler (owner’s video here)
That’s another bright, beautiful color combo – fittingly bold for a car that’s bold in style and overall dimensions.
I grew up with a ’74 Coupe in close proximity, owned by a neighbor and close family friend. When we were all young kids it was not uncommon for my mother and Joan to pile all 6 of us kids into that car for shopping excursions or to our sports events. It probably helped that its owner was only about 4’11”, so with the bench seat pulled forward the rear compartment was enormous. That family acquired the car as a hand-me-down from the grandparents around ’77 and held onto it until 1982 as their primary family car. By then it didn’t look much better than the featured car, with plenty of rust and battle scars. When it was replaced with a 1982 Pontiac 6000 Joan remarked during the test drive that the Pontiac “didn’t drive like her Cadillac”, to which the salesman replied “Lady nothing will ever drive like your Cadillac”. It was worth next to nothing by 1982 as a trade-in, so it sat in their side yard for years while her husband threatened all of us kids with it as our first car. Of course none of us wanted to be seen in a rusty green Cadillac by the mid-80’s, so it was actually taken as a threat. I kind of secretly thought it would be cool. I can’t remember when it was finally towed away, but it was a featured character in all of our childhoods, and we still joke about it when we see each other. It was Jasper Green with a dark green top and Maharajah green interior. Seeing one of these always brings back fond memories of good times. From today’s perspective it’s almost unfathomable that something like this was just normal family transportation not so long ago.
Green on green on green. Yikes. That may even be a bit too much green for me.
C’mon, How about two green cars?
Wow. That’s one year older, but that’s precisely the color scheme, right down to the interior fabric. Just picture it with rust “repairs” in not-quite-the-same shade of Duplicolor and the flat plane of the vinyl top faded to a near turquois color.
Great recollection. I think that “Jasper” might have been a good name for Joan’s Cadillac.
“…flipping back and forth between pictures of even a 1972 and ’73 Chevy Vega, there’s not a whole lot of apparent difference.” [bumpers]
Some cars got an exemption to 5 mph bumpers in ’73, Vega, Camaro and Firebird had 1972 bumpers, but then full compliance in ’74. Maybe Pinto and Maverick, too.
FWIW, it was the Insurance industry that pushed these. first.
What a great find! I remember orange being really big in the 70s. My father bought a boat for his lake cottage, an open-bow runabout with an outboard out back. The boat was white (as most of them seemed to be then) with a bright orange strip around the outside and bright orange seats and carpet inside. It went great with the orange Formica on the kitchen counters – Dad and the 70s were made for each other.
This car reminds me strongly about a family friend own owned a paint store and a drywall business. One day in 1974 he drove to our house to show off his new car. He had traded in his Olds 98 and bought an orange 74 Coupe DeVille. I can’t recall if it was this Mandarin Orange, or the slightly darker Andes Copper. Anyway, he had it for a year and then fell in love with a baby blue 75 in the showroom and traded on a whim. He brought that one over too.
It is a good feeling when you can get your life into a good, sustainable place.
Maybe this Cadillac is as Daniel M. says the company car of Burger King, but it sounds like your dad’s boat was part of the official Navy of Howard Johnson’s. 🙂
Haha – I wish I had thought of that, especially because the outboard motor was, you guessed it, a Johnson!
BTW, I later impressed people with a big inboard ski boat with how quickly I could pop up out of the water on skis. When you learn to water ski behind a small boat with 5 occupants and 55 horsepower, you learn to give that little boat all the help you can. 🙂
Actually, it probably would have needed some green or teal to pull that off…I don’t know why at first when I read your comment I inserted green in my mind.
Well, HoJos should have had a Navy…or at least a fleet of clam boats.
Orange is, indeed, very ’70s – and I have a lot of it in my house. I did have to flip back and forth a few times between Mandarin Orange and Andes Copper, but ultimately decided that this Cadillac was finished in the former.
My dad brought a new 1974 Coupe de Ville in Andes Copper with a terra cotta leather interior and a white Cabriolet roof. It was a LOOKER. My mom actually picked out the color combination.
Our neighbor had a 1974 CDV in Mandarin Orange, with the orange plaid cloth interior and a white full vinyl roof. It was also a looker, especially with the factory faux spoke wheel covers.
Andes Copper and Mandarin Orange are very different colors. Andes Copper is more of a terra cotta color, while Mandarin Orange is more of, orange. There was also a Terra Cotta color, which was pretty similar to Andes Copper.
I do like both these colors, but my preference would be Andes Copper. But, there is something really special about Persian Lime with the green plaid interior and a white Cabriolet.
I kind of did the same flip-flop thing myself but I am pretty sure you called it right as Mandarin Orange. I have never really been an orange car guy, but it would be hard to out-70s a huge orange Cadillac. So I could actually kind of do this.
Love the article. Being from IL myself, I can relate to some of the things you wrote about. I too dislike being “stuck” on a boat and prefer my feet to be firmly planted on dirt. haha. But unlike you, I always loved the fall into winter (at least for about 2 months and then I was sick of it).
That old girl is showing the signs of those harsh IL winters with salt and all. This would have been one nice car when new, although that color would be low on my list of wants. My parents had a 1975 DeVille in a light green with a white top and darker green interior (Brocade or something like that). It was their first Cadillac and I loved every minute of it.
Funny thing about those bumpers. One day mom was visiting my aunt’s and parked the DeVille along the street. A while after parking, along came a 1972 or 73 Buick Electra and hit the driver’s rear bumper of our car. You could barely see anything on our car (due to the 5 mph bumpers), but his Buick had a fair amount of damage to the passenger front. Even the police couldn’t believe how our car held up and the Buick crunched. I guess those new 5 mph bumpers did work.
Thanks so much, Dan. I am actually a fan of all the seasons and very much look forward to fall. Summer’s just probably my favorite, but all four seasons are like my “children”. LOL
I’d be interested now to see if there’s anything on YouTube about the engineering of that first wave of 5-mph bumpers for model year ’74. I’m sure that for some makes and models, some of those bumper systems might have even “over-engineered”, which might have been the case with your parents’ ’74 DeVille and that unfortunate Buick.
Surprised to hear no mention of the matching orange plaid cloth interior you could get with this color, or the green plaid with the Persian Lime Green exterior. You can these occasionally at a Cars and Coffee here in southern California.
David, it’s funny you should mention the interior. I didn’t see anyone anywhere near the car, and the windows were all down. I was sorely tempted to get a few interior snaps really quickly, and the car was clearly not in 1 or 2 condition, but I decided against it as I’ve probably read too many news stories about needless tragedy. Still I would have loved to see that plaid inside that you’re talking about.
Another fun story. Thanks for posting it. I don’t remember ever seeing this colour on a Cadillac, but I am surprised that I like it, probably because it is not as vibrant as some. I have a history with orange cars, having owned a BMW 2002 in Inka Orange for about 30 years and more recently an orange Crosstrek. My mother’s last car was an ‘82 Plymouth TC3 in orange. I once saw a BMW Bavaria in the same orange as my 2002 and it really did not suit the larger car.
I’ve always always always wanted an Inka Orange 2002, and have always been ticked off that Matchbox didn’t get the color right on its model.
I agree about the Bavaria in Inka…that was much better in Agave Green (or Malaga like the one I had).
I did once many years ago spend time in an orange Volvo 240 (I think Volvo called that color “Orange”), and that was very nice. Very close to Inka.
Thanks, Mike. I’m thinking about that orange color on a Plymouth TC3, and I think it would suit a cheerful, sporty car like that really well, especially with one of those plaid interiors I remember seeing in those cars in a brochure somewhere.
“A legend becomes a lifestyle.” I think I actually got a taste of that lifestyle with my ’94 Cadillac Seville.
I had bought a three year old ’77 Coupe de Ville as a college graduation present for myself in 1980. I was a single guy at the time, but this was the car I was driving when I met and married my Wife. In 1996 I bought a two year old black Seville. It looked like new and was our family car for almost ten years.
I had two young kids and we went everywhere in that car, the beaches of Marin County, down the California Coast, Lake Tahoe, Clear Lake, Los Angeles, Reno, and Virginia City. As well as numerous trips down the Central Valley to visit my in laws.
When I looked back at the car parked at the beach, or the woods, or in the mountains I felt like I was living out those Cadillac ads. The car was impressive looking and it seems that a lot of people were interested in Cadillac’s rebirth as a fine car manufacturer. It garnered a lot of attention. It was a fabulous road car, comfortable, spacious, and very powerful. It was everything that I expected a Cadillac to be.
I will probably never be as impressed by a car as I was with that one.
That probably says more about me than it does about Cadillac. But I sometimes find myself thinking, “Maybe one more time!”
Life is short, and I hope you have another Cadillac ownership experience like that again! #TeamJose
for four maybe months out of the year??? What are these ‘MAYBE’ months you speak of?
Thank you for catching that transposition. Fixed it, friend.
That orange would get me a lot of speeding tickets.
CDV sales stayed high in a rotten year for land yachts (and the seat belt interlock) because it was the first with the big opera window. Nearly all had the cabriolet roof. ’73 had been a record year for Cadillac, too, despite the emission controls messing up driveability.
My ’74 Fleetwood was rusted around the pegs that held the center chrome strip on when I bought it in ’81. And under the rear window. And behind the front wheelwell. I believe the best I got was 13 mpg on the highway, but other cars would get out of my way when merging. It had 4 breakdowns in one month, mostly sat for two years, and went to the Salvation Army in ’86.
I, too, would have gotten out of your way when merging onto the expressway, especially if I was in something small like the family Tempo or my Mustang!
The seatbelt-interlock. Man, between the big bumpers, smog controls, and big bumpers, ’74 just had all of the things.
Unfortunately almost all GM cars from ’71 to ’76 disappeared in the midwest US years ago. The fuselage shape with the lower body tucked in so much combined with the wide track they all had, and heavily salted roads here, they rusted pretty badly. And as gas prices shot up these cars had little value. So many gave their lives in demolition derbies around here, including my parents’ ’73 Olds Custom Cruiser. Now the remaining ones are getting saved as collector items. These weren’t my favorite cars but I do appreciate folks who save them. They bring back lots of memories of when I was in middle school.
Bob, thank you so much, and also for that info on the Wonder Bar. Thinking about my own experience with factory Delco radios from GM cars I remember from the ’80s, that signal-seeking ‘”scan” function was handled by the touch of a button. Or, two buttons (scan and seek).
I remember seeing full size GM cars from 1971 -’76 in demolition derbies when I was younger, and even then, I found it a little sad. This is coming from someone who loved seeing car crashes on TV shows like “CHiPs” and “Dukes Of Hazzard”. I hope a good fate waits for our subject Cadillac, even if it isn’t in tip-top shape.
It’s funny seek and scan radios are pretty common now. Wonder Bar was a big deal and an expensive option in the ’60’s, probably why they are rare. Now cars and even our cell phones have more computer power than the computers in the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo space program.
I remember the ’71 to 76 GM cars being a little willowy and less solid than older ones. But they handled reasonably well for their size and weight, but really drank the gas. My folk’s Custom Cruiser get a steady 12 mpg, either one person and empty or with our whole family of 6, a popup camper and all the gear for a trip. Always the same mileage. And our ’66 F85 Deluxe wagon with a 330 Cu in 2bbl V8 and “Jetaway” automatic could beat it from a dead start. Custom Cruisers came standard with a 455 4bbl V8. I think both cars died in demolition derbies, I really miss the ’66. That was a keeper.
Maybe you saw this Joseph. I thought of you when this popped up on Youtube.
Bob, I hadn’t seen this – thank you for linking it! These have long fascinated me. It’s great to see such a concentration of them. I imagine there’s decent parts support for the mechanisms.
I thought you’d enjoy that. My folks’ Custom Cruiser was a 3 seat wagon. It had the fake wood on the sides. I saw a red 73 Custom Cruiser in the video with no fake wood.
All came standard with a power rear window, but the power tailgate was an option. Ours had the manual tailgate. Manual tailgates had a handle to pull it up. It took a healthy slam to close it. We never had a problem with the tailgate or mechanism but the drain holes for the tailgate well constantly plugged and the well rusted out.
The car served us well. In the end (13 years in Wisconsin)it was pretty worn out and rusty.