(first posted 2/4/2013) Cadillac entered the ’80s in fine shape–at least on the outside. The de Ville series and Fleetwoods were given an attractive facelift, the sharp ’79 Eldo continued on with a bolder eggcrate grille, and the Hooper Rolls-inspired Seville–well, let’s not talk too much about that one, although many folks liked the looks–myself included. But the bread-and-butter de Ville line had it all, enjoying great acceptance at golf clubs and swanky hotels alike (Why didn’t Al Czervik drive one of these in Caddyshack? It would have fit him to a T.); a reliable 368 CID V8 that still had a decent amount of punch; lush interiors; and gadgets galore. And then it all went wrong.
With over 55,000 built, the Coupe de Ville was still Cadillac’s most popular model in 1980. In your author’s opinion, the new styling was an improvement over the already nicely styled 1977-79 model. With better lines than the more shrunken-appearing 1980 Continental and Mark VI, it should have been a great success.
But the 1979 gas crisis adversely affected sales of all cars, and even luxury makes like Cadillac and Lincoln were no exception. Total Cadillac sales were down nearly 40% from 1979; for the Coupe de Ville alone, sales were down by 65,700 units! Still, it was a great success compared with its Lincoln Town Coupe competitor, of which a mere 7,177 were built for 1980. Despite the sales downturn, the ’80 CdV, with style, comfort, and a reliable power plant, was still a good luxury car buy; unfortunately, that soon would change.
First, there was the 1981 V8-6-4: Even though it was still the solid 368 CID engine, its cylinder displacement electronics were totally unreliable. While that could be fixed easily by disconnecting the 8-6-4 components, Cadillac owners–having shelled out for a new luxury car–were, understandably, not thrilled with that solution. Things got even worse with the new HT4100, which debuted for 1982–the same year as the infamous Cimarron. Oh yes, Cadillac was on a roll in the early ’80s: unreliable boat-anchor engines, $12,000 Cavalier look-alikes–who was making these decisions?
On paper, the “High Technology” HT4100 wasn’t a bad idea–aluminum block, better fuel economy and digital fuel injection. But in practice, and as installed in new Cadillacs, the 249 CID V8 produced just 135 horsepower. Acceleration was, uh, stately–and that’s when everything was working properly. When it wasn’t, you could take your pick of potential problems that would end with your new Caddy on the hook of a tow truck, including head gasket failure, oil pump failure, or the head bolts stripping out their threads, which led to its “Hand Tighten” nickname.
Outside the engine compartment, the big Cadillacs carried on with only minor grille and trim changes through 1984. Except for their engine, the cars were well-built and nicely finished. The 1984 model year was the last for the big Sedan and Coupe de Villes. Basically the same as the 1980-83s, they featured gold-color winged Cadillac crests on their front parking lights in honor of Cadillac’s 80th anniversary.
Befitting a Cadillac, the CdV had many standard features, including electronic climate control, power windows, power locks, a six-way power driver’s seat and front and rear center armrests. Even a no-option CdV or SdV was pretty cushy, coming with a standard rear window defroster, power antenna, interior litter container, and Soft-Ray tinted glass. Opera lamps, a Cabriolet landau vinyl roof, and wire wheel discs cost extra.
The standard interior, shown here on our featured CC, was of Heather knit cloth with Dundee cloth inserts. It was available in five different colors -a far cry from today’s lame tan- or gray-only choices. Leather was optional, and available in ten different colors.
Despite all the standard goodies, many of these cars were loaded with extras, just as you’d expect with a luxury make. When you’re spending $17,140 for a car ($39, 510 adjusted), another couple of grand’s worth of options wasn’t too big a deal. You could choose such goodies as a power Astroroof, Twilight Sentinel, genuine wire wheels, Firemist paint, two-tone paint, a heavy-duty ride package and Touring Suspension. With the right option boxes checked, there was no problem pushing a CdV’s out-the-door price to twenty grand and above.
For that kind of money, it would have been nice if the bumper fillers had been a little more robust. Granted, this is a 29-year-old car, but the plastic used for these trim pieces became brittle awfully fast. I have seen plenty of ’70s and ’80s Cadillacs, both online and in person, that were in fine shape except for those fillers, which ranged from having minor hairline cracks to the total annihilation on this example. And consider our recent ’78 New Yorker Brougham CC: No missing or perished filler panels on that one.
Actually, the fillers were a minor issue compared with other early-’80s Caddy troubles; besides, they weren’t a problem for the typical Cadillac buyer, who traded for a new one every two or three years. But no matter how much equipment you added or how nice the car looked, there was still that pesky HT4100 engine to contend with. Oh, you could specify the 350 diesel V8 instead, but picking between the two was kind of like deciding on whether to be pushed off a cliff or hit by a bus. Neither choice was very palatable.
Our featured Coupe, in almond with a brown interior, is a bit drab-looking. There were so many cool colors available on these back in the ’80s–a wealth of greens, reds, and blues, not to mention the ultra-metallic Firemist paints.
image: ebay.com
I would have much rather have had one in wine red, midnight blue or triple light yellow, like this Sedan de Ville that was on eBay a while back–and with leather, of course. Oh, and I’ll take mine in an ’80 model, please–I don’t want any 8-6-4 or HT4100 nonsense on mine!
image: ebay.com
Check out that cheerful yellow leather interior on the above 1980 model. I love it! Plus, I am an ’80 model myself so it works out great!
image: classic-carauction.com
Or perhaps you’d prefer one in Pepper Green with white leather–also a stunner! Finding one in this hue will be a challenge though, as it was a 1981-only color.
image: classic-carauction.com
I am always a sucker for a Cadillac with white leather, too. This one would look perfect next to Chris Green’s 1976 Monte Carlo, wouldn’t you say? A lot has changed in the car business since then, that’s for sure.
image: classic-carauction.com
Okay, I changed my mind: Give me the green one instead of the yellow one. I’ll just clip the cylinder displacement wires and this ’81 will be good to go! As many of these cars were pampered by well-to-do owners, plenty of nice ones survive. Just make sure you get a 1980-81 model with the 368.
It was pretty embarrassing for Cadillac owners to have so much trouble from the HT4100s in their cars. Meanwhile, Olds Ninety-Eight and Buick Electra drivers had all the room and comfort, plus reliability, because their cars didn’t share the Caddy engine. This aluminum clunk of an engine in the prestige GM make? What an utter black eye for GM.
There were, however, recalls and TSBs involving the HT4100, so perhaps later examples were a bit better. I’m not sure, since I have no experience with these Cadillacs other than admiring their lines when I was a little kid. Our elderly next-door neighbors, the Ohlweilers (if you’re interested, they had a beige, Fox-body Ford LTD sedan), had a weekly bridge game; one of the couples, the Hesemans, had a 1982-84 Sedan de Ville, in black with a dark red interior and the standard wheel discs.
As a five-year-old, I always had to wander over to that car and give it a good look-see when it was parked at the curb. That car, along with the other neighbors’ light metallic-green 1980 Continental Town Car and midnight blue 1984 Olds Ninety-Eight Regency, are probably responsible for my love of 1980s luxury cars, an affliction that I’m proud to have carried into adulthood. Of course, as I child I knew nothing of the HT4100’s issues–I just liked the way the car looked. Sadly, they wouldn’t look that way for much longer, as the ’85 models, except for the Fleetwood Brougham, would be very different.
With the shrunken, FWD ’85 model waiting in the wings, the ’84 model was the last call for the big Coupe de Ville. Sadly, one thing that did carry over was the infernal HT4100–the bane of every 1980s Cadillac owner’s existence. That situation finally was corrected by the 4.5 V8 in 1988, but it was too late for the “biggie” Coupe. I really like the looks of these cars, but there’s a reason I saw so many more 5.0 Town Cars as a kid in the ’80s. As for the Hesemans, they traded in their black Sedan de Ville for a circa-1988 Park Avenue, which Betty drove well into the late ’90s. It’s all about timing, and for Cadillac in the ’80s, this was a swing and a miss, all thanks to a half-baked engine.
I will agree that this generation of Coupe deVille was a very nicely done car. I too preferred this version to the 1977-79 version. And my oh my was it ever better looking than that horrid Town Coupe. My father had a white 1980 Town Coupe that I simply hated. It may have been the ugliest 2 door luxury car ever made. I knew that they did not sell well, but I had no idea that my Dad was one of only 7177 who adopted one of these ugly puppies.
Come to think of it, I was surrounded by all of these bad luxury cars. When I first got out of law school and got a job, one of the partners had an 81 Sedan deVille. I remember how the radio displayed whether the car was running on 8, 6 or 4 cylinders. It was his first Cadillac, and his last – he drove Honda Accords for the rest of his life. Another partner had a light yellow 84 Sedan deVille with the HT4100. It was a slow car. He traded his for a Town Car.
I remain convinced that CAFE killed Cadillac and Lincoln in those years. Should GM and Ford have decided to eat the gas guzzler tax and penalties and kept the bigger (and better) engines in these? A Cadillac with a 368 or a Lincoln with a 351 would have been quite a nice car.
Should GM and Ford have decided to eat the gas guzzler tax and penalties and kept the bigger (and better) engines in these?
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I don’t give a rats hiney that it was against GM corporate policy to have to pay government fines etc. I honestly feel that not only would Cadillac and Lincolns loyal customers would have paid the gas guzzler tax, in the long run they would have been happier and more loyal customers.
I agree, these low-po motors really helped kill the American Luxury car. At least the old gas guzzlers were reliable, which can’t be said about the Caddies. Although once Ford went to the MPFI 302’s in 1986, they actually had decent power and fuel economy for the era. I think Cadillac would have been better or in retrofitting a Chevrolet V8 with fuel injection in 1982 rather than the horrible HT4100. However, after the 1977 Olds using Chevy V8’s, my guess is that they wanted to avoid using any “low end” V8 in a “high end” car. But it really worked out well for them with the 4100. Then by 1990, they used a reliable fuel injected Chevy V8 anyway, for the best drivetrain ever offered in these Cadillacs (yes, I know the 307 Olds was the std engine for 1990, 1991-1992 were all Chev).
Shoot: even the cross-fire 305 would have been better than the HT4100…I mean….they were already available and Cadillac could still glue ‘Electronic Fuel Injection’ emblems on them.
The use of a SBC with a proper FI set up would be, in today’s eyes, the thing to do, but GM was still smarting from the inter-divisional engine swapping thing that had happened a few years before. GMers are a very loyal (if dwindling) bunch it and it would not do having a Chevy engine in a Caddy. Hence, they came out with the 4100, which was hamstrung by bean counters into having both iron heads and TBI.
Later on GM did indeed put first the Olds 307 and later the Chevy 305 and 350 into their large RWD cars but by that time, the damage had been done. The customers lost never came back.
Yes, I mentioned the 1977 Olds 350 debacle in my post. They could have atleast run an FI setup on an Olds 307. They were half-way there with the 350 Olds from the Sevilles. It would have still been a slow engine, but atleast it would have been better than a 4.1L.
Ironically, the Chevy LT-1 powered 1994-96 Fleetwood Broughams were superb road cars that delivered an impressive combination of performance and gas economy for a huge car. The difference between the 80’s and the 90’s was that in the early 80’s GM was still going for volume sales on the DeVilles and GM couldn’t take the risk of another “Chevy engine in a luxury car” debacle. Ten to twelve years later, the RWD Brougham was a niche market car, and buyers had gotten more used to the concept of sharing drivetrains across brands.
The 368 was based on the same block that gave us the famous 472 and 500 cubic inch torque monsters. For whatever reason, downsizing that engine did not produce as much MPG improvement as GM might have hoped. Interestingly, 368 cubes works out to about 6 liters, and GM has had a fair amount of success since about 1999-2000 with 6 liter Vortec V8 truck engines — some of which were installed in Escalades.
I always thought it would have been a better idea to keep working on the injected Oldsmobile 350 that the Seville(1975–1979) and Eldorado(79 only) used. Since Olds wasn’t going to use the 350 any more, it still could have been Cadillac exclusive and it would have saved all that money Cadillac spent developing the 4100, or it could have at least given them breathing room to get the 4100 right before releasing it.
Agreed – if the archaic CCC 307 was still up to snuff with emissions in 1990 I’m sure the fuel-injected 350 Olds would have been fine… and who knows what it would have been capable of with the later port fuel-injection stuff. Then again, that’s really what I wish Olds’ would have done.
I guess the whole idea behind the HT4100 was that it would be capable of adaptation to a FWD chassis eventually… and by the time the FWD cars debuted it was almost a good motor, too. What they really should have done is just kept their own V8, kept developing the EFI system (which wasn’t that good in 1981) and sat tight for a year or so for the energy crisis freakout to blow over. That’s exactly what Ford did with their fullsize cars and they made out much better in the end. This is all hindsight and second guessing, though, of course.
Times were different then. Everyone believed that we were “running out of oil” within the next 40 or so years, and gas was supposed to hit $3-a-gallon by 1985 (which would have been a big hit to 1981 incomes).
The United States had experienced two big spikes in gasoline prices within the last decade (1974-75 and 1979-81). Even if you didn’t buy the doomsday scenario regarding oil supplies, you felt the pain every time you filled up the car.
GM could have simply decided to pay the fines (or pass them on to the customer) and make less efficient Cadillacs. Ralph Nader, Joan Claybook and every other environmental organization would have been screaming that GM was enabling the “waste of natural resources” and keeping “American dependent on foreign oil” by ignoring government regulations. That would have been terrible PR for GM at a time when the public was highly concerned not only about gasoline prices, but also the future availability of gasoline. No one, in 1980, was predicting that gasoline prices would FALL drastically throughout the 1980s.
If I recall correctly, GM had a policy at this time that it would NOT sell any car that was subject to the gas-guzzler tax, and largely for these very reasons.
Realistically, what GM should have done was design a more durable engine that offered better fuel economy AND performance. It needed to pull something on the order of the 1949 ohv V-8 out of its corporate hat, but instead chose to cut corners when possible.
GM is still enabling and validating the eco-Nazis via the EV craziness and the-sky-is-falling CO2 insanity. They’re blowing huge amounts of money that could be used to develop and build *better* vehicles, and instead we’re getting non-viable junk pushed on us, which consumers have had to be bribed to buy; that at best will be unsupported by the nation’s electric grid and at worst is it’s own ecological disaster in the mining of the battery materials and the smoke and toxic waste from the fires the batteries undergo.
We need to END CAFE, we need to END tax-funded support–and claw-back support already given–for EV infrastructure as well as “Ethanol” infrastructure. If folks WANT EVs, they can pay for their charging stations the same way gasoline/Diesel owners pay for their gas stations–by allowing the seller of “fuel” to make a sustainable profit. Ideally, we’d return Diesel emissions standards to about 2005-era, pre-DEF. Gasoline emissions standards with the exception of NOx limits could go back to the 2000s as well, if not the 1990s. NOx limits need to be raised so that fuel economy can be improved–leaning the mixture beyond stoichiometric reduces fuel use, but tends to increase NOx.
> Should GM and Ford have decided to eat the gas guzzler tax and penalties and kept the bigger (and better) engines in these?
I am of two minds on this. My first reaction was yes, just roll the tax into the cost of the car, as the customer will pay without flinching in this case. On the other hand, the more upscale marques often got the cool features and latest technology first, then it filtered down to the plebeian brands.
There is always the risk that the new technology will ultimately have problems, especially at GM in the late 70’s and early 80’s it seems. Cadillac buyers in that era were probably more interested in their car getting around with minimal drama than having a “high tech” engine under the hood.
I looked into this a bit. The fine was $5.50 per 0.1 mpg by which the corporate fleet failed to hit the standard, multiplied by the total number of cars built. If I understand this correctly, the fine would have been based on GM’s entire production, not just Cadillac. If these Cadillacs would have put GM 1.0 mpg under the fleet average, the fine to GM would have been $258 million in 1984, based on corporate sales of 4.7 million units (admittedly a guestimate based on Wiki numbers for that year) and $55 fine per car.
Mercedes was paying $17-20 million in fines annually in the 80s, even with its limited numbers. Perhaps the only way would have been for GM and Ford to spin Cadillac and Lincoln into separate corporate entities. Anyhow, I am beginning to understand how the domestic luxury cars have long been operating under a disadvantage on the CAFE playing field.
I would love to hear from someone with a better working knowledge of CAFE fines.
For GM, though, there was more than money involved. Keep in mind that in 1979, GM had very close to half the U.S. market. Aside from their lingering fears of being split up by the Justice Department, GM was aware that they were a focal point for automotive safety, emissions and fuel economy battles — and a big target. If Mercedes decided to just eat the fine and pass the cost along to their customers, that was one thing — that was a luxury car company selling something fewer than 60,000 units a year. If GM did it, then maybe Congress would have decided the penalties weren’t stiff enough or that there were too many loopholes.
While the engines didn’t help, I still think the fundamental problem was generational. Cadillac did lose some existing customers, but the bigger issue was that Baby Boomers seldom bought Cadillacs to begin with. Once Boomers had Cadillac-size money, they went from Rabbits and Accords to BMWs and didn’t look back until the Escalade.
A lot of my generation inherited the Boomers’ distaste for this type of car. I can appreciate the emphasis on comfort and luxury, but the American luxury car road manners are mostly alien, conjuring up memories of childhood carsickness and nosebleeds. The real problem for me is aesthetic. Looking at cars like these, even in much better condition than this neglected example, the cheapness is hard to take: the acres of fake wood, the simulated wire wheels, the budget-grade plastics. I can appreciate a ’60s Cadillac, but these still look and feel like discount-store luxury to me, regardless of what’s under the hood.
I am a cusp/boomer-gen X myself and by the time I was going to buy new cars, nothing from GM really held any interest for me. It was just the same in all their cars, mouse fur, baby blue carpets, acres or petro-wood, and fake wire wheel caps. It didn’t matter whether it was a Chevy or Caddy, it was all the same to me. The Cadillac, in particular, struck me as a pale imitation of the cars it made only a decade before.
I have never really understood the gas mileage thing. I mean, gas is about the cheapest thing you put in a car. Putting a decent motor in these cars would have resulted in a CAFE fine but I am absolutely sure that that the vast majority of buyers would have paid it. The difference between a nice, torquey 368 and a gutless, exploding 4100 wouldn’t have been much more than a couple of hundred bucks a year.
Or GM could have gone back to the drawing board and make something new, unique and efficient. They did that for 1985 and the results were even worse, so much so they kept their RWD cars in production.
You are confusing CAFE requirements and the Gas Guzzler tax. CAFE as the name implies applies to the entire corporate output and it paid per total number of cars sold X the amount difference between the fleet economy and the target. The Gas Guzzler tax is for a particular model being below a certain MPG. However sell to many cars that meet the Gas Guzzler tax definition and you will have a hard time meeting CAFE requirements. On the plus side you can tack the GG tax onto the car and pass it along to the specific consumer purchasing it.
Riding in these makes me think of going to a Buffet instead of going to a nice restaurant. Also it didn’t help that long before the 1980’s a vast swath of American Cars could be tarted up to Cadillac/Lincoln levels. And when we’re talking “tarted up” Cadillacs of this era remind me of strip clubs: Cheap, Tacky and Showy, and you might end up with a disease when you get out.
The only realistic way these survived for as long as they did was the fact that they do well in the hands of older customers that didn’t demand too much other than isolation in their cars, plus the thousands of miles of flat interstate in the heart of America.
Where I grew up if people wanted this type of car, they optioned up a Cutlass Supreme and saved a few thousand, and had a more manageable car. Of all things, I think the shrunken C’s did better in Northern California because they struck a more rational compromise, and performed better in most measurable ways.
I would consider owning one of those over any of the Boaty C’s of the early 80’s that had none of the greatness that they had 20 years previous.
Your description of “discount store luxury” is a good one. I struggled with this when I owned my 89 Brougham. In some ways, it was quite well built. The body was quite stiff, the leather was first-rate, and it was very durable. It was the last of the kinds of cars that GM was uniquely good at. On the flip side, flimsy plastics were everywhere, especially inside, presumably why there were so many Cadillac crests peppered about so that you didn’t forget that you were in a Cadillac. I guess what made me like the car as well as I did was what came later, and the “old-school” 1970s touches that were everywhere (mainly because it was still a 1970s car).
I can appreciate a ’60s Cadillac, but these still look and feel like discount-store luxury to me, regardless of what’s under the hood.
Very well said and I feel the same exact way. I was born in the middle of this generation of Cadillac and when I came of car-appreciating age these were already antiques in my mind and in the opinion of anyone else I knew, despite not being very old – and still being produced as the Brougham. The only people driving them were octogenarians and “Goodfella” wannabes. Even the name “Cadillac” always seemed to me like some piece of 50’s kitsch akin to sock-hops and poodle skirts until I got older and started to appreciate where they came from. My parents are boomers and borderline hippies (as “hippie” as Irish Catholics can get, anyway) and still think cars like this are grotesque compensation machines. None of the other adults I knew drove anything similar and any “rich kids” (pfft) parents drove the pricier Japanese cars, VW’s or small-ish SUVs. There was strong nostalgia for the muscle cars of the 50’s-60’s, but landyachts weren’t even really acknowledged. At one point I’m pretty sure I thought all Cadillacs came with bull horns fastened to their hoods because of The Dukes of Hazard.
Maybe I was just poisoned by my parents’ disdain for opulence, but it’s not like they really had strong opinions about any cars – or could even name a model that Cadillac sold. It’s always been rare that my automotive tastes are in-line with theirs otherwise, and I’ve always been a huge fan of several other luxury cars – so this is only a minor factor at most, for me anyway.
I think what was unimpressive about these Cadillacs to (most of) my generation was… everything. We grew up in an era where all cars were relatively comfortable, quiet and decently equipped. By comparison to any other modern car from this perspective, a 1984 Coupe deVille looked like a 1984 Oldsmobuick Caprice (via 1975 Seville), ergo it was a funny looking taxicab decorated with lots of shiny shit. The inside looked like an old lady’s living room, your mom’s four-cylinder minivan could blow the doors off of it and it handled like a hot water heater full of cement. This is without even knowing about the massive engine problems or extremely high pricetag… so needless to say they seemed like one of the most pointless cars on the road. Why and how was this a luxury car? BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Jaguar – even LINCOLN at the time with the Mark VII – those cars didn’t need any explanation. Neither did the lesser GM makes… but Cadillac was a real head scratcher for me until I got a little older and wiser.
Put simply – 15 years ago, looking at the pictures in this article would have felt to me like anyone who grew up loving Cadillac felt looking at the Moskivitch Duet from the other day!! Yeah, think about that one!
Of course now I can absolutely appreciate these cars. They’re true relics of a bygone era. The passing of time is usually kind to cars like that (spoiler: it won’t be for the poor Moskie) – and understanding their context, I do like the way they look, although I like the ’77-’79 version better. They still seem flimsy and “faux”, but that’s more a result of being misguided than being miserable. They were still selling circa-1970 luxury 20 years after the world had passed that standard by.
Sean, excellent comment. You hit the nail on the head, in that it reflects my own experience almost exactly, except that I’m probably more like your parent’s generation.
In CA in the seventies and eighties, we’d snicker about the clueless old fogies driving these, as superior-feeling young folks are inclined to do. I was well aware that the GM B-Body was intrinsically a capable platform, and had a friend with a hot F-41 Caprice, but what Cadillac had done with it was just utterly pathetic. Very sad….but the source of much derision and amusement to us at the time.
I have a 1982 Cadillac coupe deville with the 4.1 and overdrive auto. It is the most comfortable clean car I have ever driven and has 95345 miles. I get 22mpg on the hwy and is fun learning how to get better mileage. I have a 70 camaro which I have made very fast and fun so I do allot of things to the deville also. I put a 4 inch X 14 inch air cleaner on, removed the catalytic converter and better flowing muffler. I’m going to dual out the exhaust and see if that helps. I service the car regularly and never ever push it too hard. Turns heads where ever I go.
I also own and 84 Fleetwood brougham 2 door beautiful car I have had the same problem with the 4.1 I don’t no whether to keep it or sale it a lot of people like it but with out a working engine they don’t want to pay to much I need someone opinion what is a good price for this car the body of this car is straight it still has the back light covers any ideas for asking price
I’ve often wondered how many Town Cars were “sold” by these 1980’s Cadillac ownership?
In my parent’s circle of friends, Town Cars quickly outnumbered Cadillacs by thelate 1980’s.
Don’t forget the V6 4.1 available in 1981 and 1982. Very weak performance but more robust than the HT4100.
4.1 was a stout, Buick engine. Had a Quadrajet. And, as usual in the day, not available in California. We are all looking at fixes in hindsight. I do agree with the consensus that it would’ve made better sense to suck it up and get hit with a gas-guzzler tax and keep the four-pot non V8-6-4 368, or as was the case by GM in this time anyway, dump a good SBC into the engine bay and use the brochure/ad disclaimer they used back then saying “some engines supplied by other GM divisions. . . . ” . . . which is what was said about the Olds Diesel (which, in actuality, had most of it’s problems solved by ’82 . . but too little, too late) and the Buick 4.1 Litre V-6.
How could I forget?
I spend at least one day a week checking ebay, craigslist, and hemmings trying to find one for the collection.
I can find you one. I have a 1962 198 with dual path transmission serving no purpose on a skid with your name on it…but you’re probably on the west coast aren’t you….
My grandmother’s husband had a 1981 Coupe deVille with the V6. I had to drive it some in high school when my Olds was broken (which was frequent). What a hunk of junk. I could walk faster than that engine could push along. It looked completely lost in the engine bay. It was barely faster than my neighbor’s CJ5, which is really saying something.
The funniest was parking it at the high school in the angle spaces – the tail stuck out 3 feet beyond every other car there, except the dualies.
I love me some Brougham, but that combination would have turned even the most hard core supporters.
Good capture; I’ve been looking for one of these for a while.
My great aunt Stella and her husband had one of these (look at the last ad and imagine it in dark blue). They had the HT4100 in theirs; my Grandpa Albert thought the car was a four-cylinder due to its leisurely acceleration. I also remember him stating Stella had had issues with the engine. Despite the engine, I can vouch that Coupe De Ville rode fantastic driving up the shoulder of I-55 at 70+ mph.
My father-in-law had an ’83 Seville with the HT4100. He bought the car in ’85 or ’86 with around 40,000 miles. He soon learned from others about the less than stellar longevity of these engines; he figured he would just drive it until it quit. He squeezed 177,000 out his HT4100 before it seized in spectacular fashion. I have no idea if that is typical or not, but that’s my oh-so limited experience with these.
JP’s right; Ford and GM should have left the bigger engines in place for Lincoln and Cadillac.
It was more common for the HT4100 to fail around 75-80K, but yeah, when it did go, it could be pretty spectacular and the driver often didn’t get a whole lot of warning.
All through the 1990’s you could go to any U-pull salvage yard and see dozens of HT4100 Cadillacs with near-perfect bodies and interiors — and dead engines at less than 100K. Usually, mixed in with them would be 1970’s Cadillacs that had been junked due to rust, body damage or just general cosmetic wearing-out — completely shredded seats, door panels and headliner, for example. The 70’s cars were being dismantled for their engine and other mechanical parts, while people were stripping the HT4100 cars clean of their good interior and body parts, and leaving the engine compartments untouched.
I was never charmed by these big Caddys. They look better to me now than they did when they were new, but that still doesn’t mean that they look *good* to me. A woman I worked with in the late 80s/early 90s had one of these and I rode in it sometimes; it was a floaty, ill-built beast.
I agree with you. I had a 1980 triple yellow coupe de ville, very floaty, one could get sea sick, but that 368 c.i. Engine was very reliable, and the only real problem I had was those darn plastic valve covers that deformed from heat, and leaked very bad. I bought it used with 19,000 miles on it, sold it with 53,000 miles, or 33,000 miles, I forget. By that time it was 1995, autumn, and I got an Impala SS, still my garage queen to this day, with 26,000 miles on her. Highly collectible, as it is in original condition, most have been modified, whether it was to up the horse power, or to make it look like a rapper car.
In a recent comment, I told about the 84 Coupe I missed out on by 15 minutes. $ 5,500 and 39K miles, it was like new. Same tan as the ad with the Coupe Deville script. The Coupes were the best looking cars of the decade, in my opinion.
Maybe I was lucky I didn’t get it. Undoubtedly, I would have had it long enough for it to self destruct. Our 86 Coupe destructed 2 weeks after we sold it, with 70K.
As far as those plastic inserts are concerned, I’ve replaced the fronts on my 78 Eldo, and the back pieces around the trunk are cracked. The back fender extensions still look good.
Until I replaced the rear bumper fillers on my ex-1980 CDV, replacing taillight bulbs was a breeze. Unfortunately I was living in an apartment complex at that time and some low-life decided to help himself to my left taillght bulbs…and sockets…and wires. I was so mad! And to top it off, the genious just clipped the wires when he/she/it could have unplugged the mini-harness.
I always liked the looks of these Caddies, but the drivetrains were terrible. Even the 368 only made a measly 140hp, but I suppose it would be a good candidate to swap in a Caddy 500. The 4.1L were underpowered, and a horrible design. Aluminum block with cast iron heads? What were they thinking! GM built good V8’s up until that point, why did they make this horrible engine? Then after 1985, they brought the boat anchor 307 in it’s place stepping back to a carburetor when Ford just moved to MPFI in the Town Car. Talk about a step backwards.
Nice cars to look at, they drove okay, but I’ll stick to a 1977-79 model thanks. I prefer the looks of the older car anyway. Better yet, just give me a simple Caprice with the F-41 suspension and a 350.
Even the 368 only made a measly 140hp…
Torque, Bill. T-O-R-Q-U-E is the thing that made the 368 desirable. Torque is what helped move the beast away from the stop sign.
I can attest to that. My dad owned an ’84 Coupe de Ville which I loved to drive…but the ’80 Coupe De Ville I owned years later would easily run circles around it.
It was literally a 6-cylinder vs. V8 difference.
I aware of the torque’s ability to move a heavy car, but these 368’s had somewhere around 265 ft-lbs – big deal. Hell even a 77-79 Chev or Olds 350 made more torque than that, and they had more horsepower to boot. I have driven a 368 Caddy and it was no rocket. At least the 425 in 77-79 had decent power and torque, but they were gas guzzlers.
To be clear the 368 is a bit doggy for its displacement: it felt peppy as compared to the 4.1 though 🙂
Yes, I agree, still MUCH better than the 4.1L. They accelerate in glacial time.
the 425s werent that bad of gas guzzelers! they get a bad rap. I own a 1979 Sedan DeVille that has just sold me on the 77-79s. The 425 is a very adaquite motor, enough power to keep a NEW 6 cylinder doge challenger at bay up to 115 MPH, roast both tires up to 35 mph on dry pavement and generally toast most cars out there except the very new ones (last 4 years or so when even the civics got 300 hp motors) For the size of the car and performance they get GREAT mileage, I average 14 MPG driving like im in goodfellas. worst ive ever gotten was 12.3 MPG when i beat the Sh*t out of it. Best was 18 MPG on flat highway with the cruse set at 73 for all 25 gallons of dino fuel, not E10 ethanol BS.
dan – I doubt the 140HP 368 was any faster than the HT4100 cars. It might’ve felt that way when you put your foot down, but they had essentially the same power:weight ratio and if anything the gearing and 4-speed auto probably favored the higher HP peak of the 4100. The credit option 20-year old Buick V6 would have “smoked” them both!
I can attest to the optional credit option Buick 4.1 liter V6 being surprisingly peppy for what it was. We sold several C-body cars equipped with this engine and my buddy had a 1982 black Deville coupe with that engine. It made 125 HP and 210 torque compared to 125/190 for the same year HT 4100. Both engines had the 200 R-4 transmission but the Buick engine has a 3.23 rear axle and the 4100 used a 3.42. The V6 cars weighted less however and made use of that extra 20 LBS FT of torque.
With close to 100K on the odometer I went through his clean 1982 Deville, rebuilt the then 27 year old Quadrajet, tuned it up, set the timing to factory spec, changed the fluids and made him swap out the restrictive bead catalytic converter and the look on his face when he drove it was priceless. It always ran okay before but it felt anemic and you needed to give the gas pedal a hardy shove to get it moving. In proper running order it would actually peel out and easily moved right out into traffic and 0-50 performance was quite good.
Out on the highway going above 65 was where the small size of these engines showed up with not much left for passing above those speeds. This is where the torque of the larger 368 would better the two 4.1 engines.
Thanks for the info about the catalytic converter. My ’82 Fleetwood Brougham (85k) with the V-6 will probably appreciate it. I’ll be off to my mechanic this week.
I love the looks of these and I’m more of a small car guy. Didn’t the later ones come with the slow but reliable Olds 307cid V8?
1986-90 were 307 powered, 4bbl carbs and 140 hp. In 1990, the L05 350 Chevrolet TBI engine was optional. 1991-92 the L03 305 Chev TBI was standard. This engine was FAR superior to the 307 Olds.
I did a CC on a ’92 Brougham a while back and according to the literature, the 5.0 was standard and 5.7 optional during the 1990-92 run.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1992-cadillac-brougham-the-only-way-to-travel-is-cadillac-style/
Yes, that’s what I posted. It’s just that the 1990 5.0L was the 307 Olds, while the 1991-92 5.0L was the 305 Chev.
My mistake. I must have transposed 305 into 350 🙂
Nothing wrong with the 307.
307’s are reliable, although they had issues with intakes sealing, and sometimes blow-by. They are just very underpowered and have a narrow powerband making them feel very slow. Drive a 305 4bbl Chev or a 302 MPFI and they feel much faster even though they are all rated with similar power.
No problem Tom on the 305 to 350 transposition, I figured you must have just misread it.
My dad had a 78 SDV with the velour D’Elegance pillow seats that I’ve written about many times before. Solid driver and very comfy and quiet, but dog slow and bad MPG. I can’t imagine the same car with the 4.1 over the 7 liter, although if I recall, 0-60 fell from about 11 seconds to about 14.
Anyway, I still loved that car and it, along with the other Cads he owned, explain my love of these things now…
However, it must be said: he never liked his 78, 85 SDV, or 90 Seville for that matter. Nope, his all time favorite was his 75 SDV in Jennifer blue. Loved how it sounded, and how the front end would lift up gently on acceleration, just like a Chris Craft.
He was one of many, many people who detested the 77 downsizing. Although I now do like the look of this generation of cars, back in the 70s they were actually kind of homely compared to the stately, huge cars that precede them.
In anearlier Chrysler New Yorker thread, I stated how my aunt bought a ’79 in ’79 and what a disaster it was. Well, 5 years later, her next car was a year-old ’83 Sedan de Ville. Yes, I know, talk about bad luck. If I remember correctly, the Cadillac was in the shop quite frequnetly. I remember my uncle talking about how each visit to the shop seemed to cost “hundreds” in repairs. It was a nice-looking car (burgundy with burgundy leather) and my aunt was able to start it once in 27-below degree weather, so I guess it had its pluses.
I thought these were very formal and elegant-looking cars. To this day, one of my favorite Cadillacs is a 1980-1991 Fleetwood Brougham (or “Brougham”) d’Elegance.
The 1984 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham d’Elegance:
Matt Garrett has (or had) an amazing Cadillac collection, doesn’t he. And he’s 100% right that the true wire wheels look great ony any Cad from 1960-1990.
Matt Garretts page is pure broughamporn.
Yeah, except he seems to keep his cars two weeks, then sells them; rinse, repeat. I always thought that was a little odd…
He had a super-sharp Hatteras Blue ’84 Brougham with only 511 miles, wow! Sold now, but there are still pics on his site, check it out: http://www.mcsmk8.com/84-TWINS/84-CAD.html
As long as he has the pictures still up, though I imagine wants a mint and half for every 15 mile 1980 Fleetwood d’ Broughalegance that he gets his hands on.
After looking at the vehicles he’s already owned, I sometimes wonder if they really mean much to him at this point. He’s already owned the best of the best — where would he go from there?
I just think about stuff like that. Zero offense to him intended whatsoever. I’m thankful he enjoys sharing these beautiful cars “with the rest of us”.
Well, at least he collects them…it’s sad to me that most of these cars aren’t exactly collector’s gold. I used to watch Mecum and Barrett Jackson, but now they just bore the hell out of me. 90% of what they sell is Stangs, Vettes, BelAirs and Plymouths. They’re all about the same, and way way way too expensive.
Would love to see auctions with old luxobarges for a change.
Oh, more power to him, and I’m glad he shares his concours Broughams with the rest of us.
I love perusing his site. The Colonial Yellow with yellow cloth ’78 Fleetwood Brougham he used to have is my favorite: http://www.mcsmk8.com/78-CAD/78-cad.html
Jb – I understand this madness, and only because I think about stuff like that too. I am a major “winning the lotto” fantasizer, even though I don’t really buy lottery tickets that often… and if I had the money, I’d do the same exact thing. I’d have a fairly decent collection of permanent cars in a temperature controlled underground bunker somewhere and then rapidly run through every single other car I had ever been interested in. Buy ’em, fix ’em up, drive ’em for awhile and sell ’em. Maybe even make a buck or two.
As OutKast once said “there’s only so much time left in this crazy world”, and everything I’ve ever wanted has already meant something to me in my imagination – all that’s left to do is win the Mega Millions jackpot (or go back in time, kill Steve Jobs and invent the iPod) and actually experience it.
Not really my type of car, but man that interior looks amazingly comfortable!
GM was eager to show the US market that it was trying to improve MPG. If GM ignored CAFE, the news media of the time would have trashed them left and right. At same time, buyers were demanding ‘100 mpg carburators’ too.
But they just kicked the 4100 and Olds Diesels out the door, not caring if they’d break down. They figured buyers would keep trading in every 1-4 years, duh!
Remember there was also the massive fear that there would be another embargo or something that would make gas scarce or expensive, or both.
Not sure what they were thinking with the 4100. Aluminum block, iron heads, aluminum intake. I’ve read that the 85’s were “fixed” and eventually became the 4500. Supposedly the block was stiffened in the areas that often created headaches from intake leaks, resulting in overheating and the resulting meltdown.
The 85 Eldorado is a beautiful car, I’d love to have one if I knew that the 4100 was really fixed during that year. Although an LS3 transplant would be fun too!
Well, my ’85 didn’t get the fix because it has a blown head gasket, LOL! Blown head gasket means “replace engine” on one of these…(to me).
Yup, you can’t do head gaskets on a 4100. The thing is a boat anchor after it overheats the first time.
One of the cars my father bought at a dealer auction to resell was an ’84 Coupe deVille in “Hatteras Blue” — sort of a medium blue. It was heavily optioned as most of these cars were but its highlights were its beaufiful leather interior and Astroroof.
He actually bought two other Coupe DeVilles that same day, a gorgeous black/black/maroon ’81 and a rusty dark blue metallic/blue/blue ’81. The black car was the sharpest but its maroon velour upholstery didn’t measure up to the Astroroof & leather of the ’84. I jumped at every opportunity to drive these things and very much missed them when they were gone. I told myself I’d own one again some day.
My father sold the Alabama scrapyard to some very nice folks who befriended me and about a year later…this was probably around ’96 or ’97…I dropped by & saw a silver 1980 Coupe deVille sitting there…sold for scrap. It had silver leather interior and a good 368-4V engine but oddly a bad THM400 transmission.
I bought it for $150 and drove it several blocks away to the mechanic shop I swept floors at. The transmission actually got me to the driveway & officially gave up as I was pulling into the parking lot. Two weeks later I stumbled upon a transmission out of another scrapped Cadillac for $50, installed it, and enjoyed my car for a year or so.
Sadly, the body seam under the blasted 1/4 vinyl top had completely rusted through on both sides. No rust was visible but the bulges were obvious and they made a sickening crunch when probed with my finger. I sold it to a buddy for mine for $500 and he turned around and sold it to a tote-your-note car lot in Birmingham for profit.
BTW, the car lot sold the car on payments for over $2K and the transmission went out a few months afterward. The car lot then repo-ed the Caddy, installed another transmission and sold it again for around $2K, again on payments. The last I heard the transmission went out a third time & they got the car back & were installing transmission #4. 🙂
So my dream Cadillac remained a 1980 Coupe deVille sans Vinyl Top until I saw the green ’81 model above. I LOVE that color and didn’t know any were built. Green with white interior: must have! If I ever did find one, it would probably get a 472 or 500 drivetrain though. I love how the 472/500 engines are literally a bolt-in replacement for the 368. No rigging necessary.
JB,
I am with you on the ’81 Sedan de Ville. That green is wonderful, especially with the white top and interior!
I have never seen that color in person; must have been pretty rare.
The Hatteras Blue is also a nice color. An older couple at my church had an ’83 or ’84 CDV in that color with white top and interior. It was beautiful!
Sadly, I don’t think they have it anymore and I never got any photos of it. It was still pristine the last time I saw it, probably in 2006 or so.
A guy I worked with in the 1970’s bought a new 76 Toronado, in the green with white interior like the car above. I recall it cost $ 11,000 new, and the car was just striking. Hope you find one a Caddy like it. You will not be able to resist buying it.
Thank you sir — I’d no doubt donate organs for funds if I found one!
Man, that color on a mid-70’s Toronado must have looked pretty far-out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those in anything but red, white, poop brown or black.
I love it on the Sedan deVille pictured here. The white top/interior compliment it perfectly, which you probably couldn’t say about too many other colors. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of cars like this, but I do have a soft spot for the offbeat and more daring paint choices Cadillac, Olds and Lincoln offered in this era. Color can do so much for this type of canvass and the shades they chose were often one of the few ways Detroit showed they were keeping up with styling (fashion?) trends at the time. This actually says “1973” a lot more to me than “1981” but just look at it… it was too cool to leave in the 70’s. The only way this could have gotten better is if they had offered a toned-down Gucci interior on these – just the green/red stripe as a trim element, not the busy pattern from the Seville.
I’ve never liked yellow cars, but Cadillac built some yellow deVilles in this period and some had a complementary yellow leather interior, and I thought those were beautiful!
My dad had a white 1980 Sedan deVille. Not bad to drive (or I was too inexperienced then to know better), & the 6.0L once got 18 trip mpg, not bad for a Baroque Barge. He later replaced it with the hyper-boxy Town Car; I’m not sure why.
I wonder whether GM’s CAFE-compliance budget would’ve been better spent on automatic overdrives & aero refinement. It’s ironic that today, a ‘Vette with an engine about the same size gets hwy. mpg into the high 20’s.
The Fleetwood Brougham is the car that brought me to CC a few months ago. I had been looking for a 76-79 Seville for a couple of years and given up. There weren’t enough nice ones around and I worried about maintenance on the Bendix FI (can’t convert to carb in Calif). A couple of people told me I started looking 10 years too late.
Along the way I noticed the lines of the facelifted 1980 deVille and Fleetwood did almost the same thing for me visually as the Seville. Since they were built until later model years I figured I might have better luck finding a nice one.
My reasearch took me here as there were no fewer than three articles in 2011 about the FWBs. You guys helped get me hooked 🙂
From this site and others I learned about the model years. I remembered the sedans went on until the early 90s virtually unchanged but couldn’t remember when RWD CDV production ended. I was sad to learn the 82-85 cars were last of the line and all had the HT4100. Even if you could afford an engine swap there were few to choose from — it was a low production car to begin with and most were junked a long time ago. The few that remained were often customized or at a minimum “90ed”, at least in Calif.
The sedan was different. They built plenty of those and many are still in the hands of their original owners. The 86-89 cars turned out to be the sweet spot for me. Reliable Olds 307 power and 4-speed OD. I liked the 90-92s too but felt the facelift gave too much of a Lincoln Continental look. I especially didn’t care for the wrap-around front bumper and carriage roof.
After a few months I found a nice, one-owner 1986 Fleetwood Brougham in Arizona. The drive back to LA was pure pleasure. The 86s had the tallest gearing of just about any year, and I got nearly 24 MPG. While these cars are out there I imagine in 5-10 years they will become like 76-79 Sevilles are now.
The style of the modelings in the CC Clue reminded me of my car but I thought Panther because those often came in a similar Oyster(?) color and I’m used to seeing the opera lamps on a B-pillar. The CDV feature car looks terrific in the gray. It would be heaven with an LS engine swap.
A very sweet car you have! I think that these Cad Broughams are the only cars that look right in that shade of yellow. Doesn’t it make you want to hit the early bird special at one of the family restaraunts? 🙂 Enjoy.
Let us know if you ever want to do a “My CC” post on it. A very sharp Brougham!
Thanks for the compliments. The rear-wheel-drive 80s Cadillacs had most of the charms of the 60s models but with much better ride, handling and fuel economy.
The heavy “clang” when you shut a door feels as strong as a Mercedes thunk. The doors on a hardtop Cadillac rattle and sound hallow when you close them. My 70 SDV was awful.
It might be fun to do a CC sometime to educate the folks who haven’t experienced one of these.
OK, someone else who thinks the 1990-92 Broughams look strangely Lincolnish. I remember that from when they were new. It was particularly odd because the 1990 Town Car was the first year of the aero redesign that looked so good, and so much more modern than the RWD Caddy. And there the ’90 Brougham was, looking for all the world like GM had designed it to look like LAST YEAR’S Town Car.
Today though, both the 1990-92 and 1993-96 versions of RWD Broughams are fast becoming collectibles, while a 1990’s Town Car is just a used car.
Keep in mind that if you want a Caddy without wrong wheel drive and you don’t want a badge engineered pickup those are your only choices. It also helps that the Caddy was a ghetto favorite which caused the numbers of clean survivors to drop rapidly. The Lincolns did not used to have the ghetto appeal so clean survivors are more common and of course since they stayed in production they are far more common and thus are a dime a dozen. However the Aero Panthers are gaining poplularity with the lifted and lowrider crowd since the supply of B/C’s has dwindled greatly.
I loved the HT4100, it made me a lot of money in the early 90’s. I’d replace about two per month for about 2 years. For what ever reason they were mainly the transverse FWD version though I did a couple of the longitudinal Eldos too. I don’t remember doing one in a RWD car though. After I memorized the right combination of extensions, universal joints, ect I could have one of the transverse ones out on the ground in about 1 1/2 hours. It did displace Honda as the most likely vehicle that would be waiting for me to replace an engine on.
We made a load o’pesos on them, too. There was no point doing head gaskets on a 4100 because they’d come back within a couple of weeks as the blocks on the early ones warped easily. Nor was swapping out a 307 or an SBC much of an alternative since making the accessories connect up cost a fortune in time and hence money. Many were in fact scrapped I never bothered trying to swap engines and sell them on the used market since there were no used motors available.
I never liked facing the ire of a 60-something, portly gent being told his 4 year old gem needed a $5000 engine. At least it wasn’t as bad as doing the same at a dealer.
We didn’t have trouble finding used engines around here, all of the ones I replaced were with used engines of which surprisingly none came back.
They never sold that well here which probably accounts for the dearth of used engines. Besides, I was always loathe to install used engines in anything as comebacks on big jobs are a f-ing nightmare to be avoided at all costs. It would be pretty hard to give 12/20 on a used 4100, and 12/20 was dad’s policy on all big jobs like trannys and diffs.
I had good luck back in the day and in reality had fewer comebacks on used engines vs rebuilt ones which is bad since I installed way more used engines than rebuilt ones.
We also were careful with who we purchased our used engines from and made them eat the cost or at least part of the cost of R&Ring the engine the second time.
Nice how everyone blames CAFE for GMs failure to engineer motors properly. These cars were portrayed as the Standard of the World and it seems they are far from it. We didnt have CAFE we got high gas prices and car makers learned eventually how to make cars that are affordable to drive or their cars dont sell simple as that and its been entertaining watching the Aussie govt continuously bailing out Misubishi Australia as they build lemon after lemon, nowdays Mitsu offer 10 year warranties to try moving their cars of the lot in defiance of market forces. Cadillac has never really had a presence in NZ until the CTS landed by mistake and sold like beer at a Rugby match, now I see Caddies a lot they are priced well under the price of luxury Holdens sorta half price from where GM was going to put them on the market.
Both points are valid. GM couldn’t engineer new engines that complied with various regulations, which was their failing. OTOH, without CAFE they’d have kept selling the engines that they properly engineered in the 1950s. The customers would have been better off if GM could have kept making lazy, large displacement engines out of iron.
Boy, it really seems like CAFE seriously botched up the car companies. Though to be fair, GM had been nickel and dimeing well before ’78.
And by the bye, why in the world do we have all these gargantuan Brougham-Up Trucks and SUVs if CAFE is still in effect? Are they still exempt?
LD trucks were only exempt from CAFE for it’s first year 1978, though they do have different standards. Trucks are however exempt from the Gas Guzzler tax which is separate and on individual vehicles.
Also, trucks with a higher GVWR were not included in the light-truck CAFE calculations, although I think the threshold has recently increased (I think from 8,500 to 10,000 lb, but I’m not certain).
The over 8600 GVW trucks don’t even have EPA fuel economy ratings to put on the window sticker. They are changing the rules so that the “heavy light duty” trucks will need to meet CAFE standards, not sure how they factor in with the light light duty, “foot print” standards ect. Medium duty and heavy duty trucks are also destined to start meeting CAFE standards.
I guess this means we can look forward to 10,000 lb F250s in the not-too-distant future.
In interesting point here is if you calculate the MSRP of the Cadillac in inflation adjusted dollars is almost exactly the same in 1960, 1980 and 2013. Thus the Cadillac was the same price as any other entry level luxury car, then as now. The big difference was in 1960 the only real competition Cadillac had was the Lincoln. By 1980 was competing with itself, as there wasn’t a lot of difference between a C body Caddy and a C body Oldsmobile, except the Olds had a better motor (if it wasn’t a diesel, that is).
In today’s world, Cadillac is not a big player anymore. Buyers who were burned by the V-8-6-4 and the HT4100 went to the many other brands that were coming on line by the mid-1980’s. As those buyers took their final rides, new buyers (like my generation) went somewhere else. Those sales have never been recovered. For example, MB sold more E class cars than Cadillac their CTS, despite the MB costing a lot more. Caddy’s top seller, the SRX is #71 in sales, while the Lexus RX series is #49. Seems to me a dead brand; faced with ever declining market share, GM might be better to focus purely on Chevrolet cars and GMC trucks, since the other brands don’t sell well enough to justify their existence.
My opinion is that the Cadillac 1980 did not reach the level of quality of 1960 and thus, there must have been a lot more profit in the 1980. Of course, GM’s legacy costs were already taking a large bit out of GM profits. However, cheapening out their brand has not, again in my opinion, been a good move for GM.
I’ve often thought about that, but its not really an apples to apples comparison. In fact, I’d say the typical Cad back in the day went for $35-40k, topping out at $60k for Fleet Talisman or Seville Elegante. Today’s cars cost much, much more, topping out at $90k for an Escalade.
And here’s why: financing.
30 years ago you’d be lucky to get a 2-3 year note, whereas today you can get 7-8 years or, better yet, easy terms leases.
It’s all about the monthly payment! 🙂
90K for a Cimarron-ized Suburban? I had no idea they had gotten up that high.
I think you can still get a Tahoe for $40K. Who in their right mind would pay almost double for a grille and fancier leather seats?
Tom, believe it or not, $40k buys only the base Tahoe. Typical LT models you see everywhere run $50+, and top-line LTZs are – are you sitting down? – $60-65k.
There. I said it.
Yikes.
Yet you can get a Cadillac XTS for $45-50K. I’d much rather have one of those.
Yes, I am a bit smitten with the new big Caddy–especially in White Diamond pearlescent! First one in about 15 years to remind me, if only a little bit, of the Fleetwoods of yore.
Tom – I’m into the XTS too, although it doesn’t remind me of any pre-CTS Cadillac – which I think is a good thing for them. A lot of the mixed reviews I’ve read on it are from people who love it yet don’t see it as what a big Cadillac should be. IMO that’s flat out crazy… everyone killed Cadillac a decade ago for making the modern interpretation of a 1992 Brougham d’Elegance (the DTS), and unfortunately it seems that no one was into the STS – which I personally had a major hard-on for. If this thing had Audi shapes and an A6 badge it would be par-for-the-course, especially if they end up doing a -V version.
Three-year notes were pretty common going back to the mid-50s. I think four-year or longer notes were rarer at least until the late ’80s.
Gm pegged the CTS here @$90k or there abouts right at the top of the Holden range but with NO cachet. Ebbetts the dealership who brought them in flogged them at $48k or so, Average Holden money.
No you do not want cash buyers, you make more money on a finance deal particularly if you get the buyer to bite on the first rate you offer them, or you want people to lease so they will come back to you to turn the car in and need something to drive back home.
Two big reasons why Cadillac is not a “dead brand.” 1., Escalade. 2., China. Both booming. Both extraordinarily profitable.
Just guessing here, but I suspect that CAFE fines are not what really spooked GM into economy engines: more likely they were afraid of a huge spike in gas prices. Remember, whatever new engine they used, they would be stuck with it for a few years regardless of market conditions. So a fuel-sipper probably seemed like a safe bet.
There was plenty of “displacement downplay” in that era, bid CID and litres were a no-no, if people even thought it wasn’t fuel friendly, it could have cost you sales.
Cadillac wasn’t the only one, for a few years you could only get a 150hp 3.8 V8 in Mercedes-Benz’s in the US too.
Of course, it is all about the monthly payment…..for many of us. However, what you really want in the car business is the cash buyer. People who finance luxury cars are proof that the brand is downmarket. Most really high end cars (around here at least) are bought for cash.
God only knows what they were thinking in 1981. The HT 4100 program was rushed into production 3 years early for the full size Cadillac’s because the 8-6-4 engine turned out to be both unreliable and barely any more efficient than the 1980 368 engine. This was still so close the 1977 fiasco where buying an Oldsmobile netted you a Chevy engine or purchasing a Pontiac got you a Buick motor or a Buick got you a Pontiac engine etc. So installing a Chevy Cross Fire 305 was totally out of the equation. GM didn’t have the heavy duty 700-R4 transmission ready yet as it was to be introduced only on the 1982 Corvette with Cross Fire 350 with production not ramping up until 1984. The 1981 introduced 200R4 would have been fine on the 368 which only made 140 HP and 265 torque or not too far off what the 305 and 307 V8 did at the time but for some reason Cadillac choose to early intro there little HT-4100 Power System as it was called by marketeers in 1982. On paper this engine looked good to both the bean counters, Cafe and the consumer alike. Better mileage. Check! Lighter weight through the use of aluminum. Check! Digital fuel injection. Check! Lower emissions. Check! 4 speed overdrive automatic transmission. Check! The problem was that this engine came out well before they had the bugs worked out and very soon into ownership the tell tale intake manifold/coolant loss issues started. The early blocks were weak, the head bolts stretched, head gaskets popped due to the differing metals of aluminum block and cast iron heads and the early oil pumps were garbage.
Worse, this new high tech V8 could only muster 125 HP and 190 torque in it’s debut year of 1982. Imagine 125 HP and 20 LESS LBS FT of torque compared to the credit option Buick 4.1 liter V6 carrying around near 4000 LBS luxury barges. Motor Trend wrote up a lighter Eldorado with the then new 4100 and got 15.1 seconds 0-60 or 4 seconds slower than it’s brothers and sisters Riviera/Toronado with the Olds 307. Yes even Consumer Guide noticed that with the same power and less torque the HT 4100 hardly seemed worth it. By then GM at the time figured the large cars would be gone in a few model years and most owners wouldn’t notice the issues as many traded every 2-3 years anyway. It was a decision that cost Gm dearly!
Good points but we have to remember that by this time, GM was largely competing for customers among itself. There was little reason to pay the extra for a Cadillac with a crappy motor when you could have a reliable V-8 for less money in an Oldsmobile.
Yeah, but the Oldsmobile didn’t have chrome valve covers. 😉
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the HT4100 was quite expensive…moreso than the existing engines from other divisions. Expensive to develop (all new, clean sheet design) and expensive to build. Plus, no way to amortize any of the costs with other divisions as it was exclusive to Cadillac.
If anything, the 4100 was designed to allow Cadillac to better compete with the Germans…in any event, it was never really meant to go into the full size tanks, just the front drivers that were delayed 1-2 years unexpectedly.
GM had time tabled the new FWD C-cars to premiere summer 83 as 1984 models, but that got pushed back a year to 1985, I am guessing they thought that there was going to just be a narrow window of big C-body cars with the 4100.
“Carmine”, I’m surprised at you!!! Don’t you remember the reason the FWD models got pushed back by a year was because GM couldn’t get the transmission right?.
At least this is what I remember.
Yeah, I said that they got pushed back, it was the 4 speed auto that was the main delay.
It wasn’t meeting so-called durability targets. I guess that means it was failing at 10,000 miles instead of the usual 25,000.
Tadum-tish.
The engineers were later hired by Honda to develop the Oddessey transmission.
Not before the did a stint designing the Ultra-drive for Chrysler 🙁
My father was a GM believer. Never questioned why his Vega blew apart, nor my mother’s Sunbird. He forgave. Then he decided to go Caddie. Don’t know how many, they all fell apart in it’s first year. They were all white, and all shit. Remember his last was the infamous olds diesel. Replaced the motor twice. Was major shit.
I could never talk cars with him. Nor sex, politics….
Then he started with gold Town Cars. Do not know how many of them either they all looked alike. I did congratulate him they were better than the Caddies, and got a Hummm…..response.
This article makes my grandmother look like a genius for buying a loaded 1979 Oldsmobile 98 with the 403 and putting 100,000 miles on it. Although as a widow she likely would have found the Cadillac badge too ostentatious.
And so what if it used $20 a month more in gas? Over the span of 100k mi, it would be enormously cheaper than replacing an engine. Besides the 403 had decent grunt!
Well to be fair, in 1979 though you were still getting a Cadillac with a 425, or was the Olds used?
I just meant Carmine that I’m glad she wasn’t one of those buyers who bought a car every couple of years. I’m glad she didn’t buy a Cadillac in 1979 and then one in 1982 with the 4100. Instead she bought a new Oldsmobile in 1979 and didn’t buy another car until 1985, although she did have Cadillac money.
Though I can sometimes see why some people traded them more often, every year in the early 80’s was rummored to be “the last year” of the big car.
Here is my ’81 CDV, which I’ve owned since 1997. The V8/6/4 has been “snipped”, so she runs as a full time V-8. Mileage averages around 18-20 on the highway if driven conservatively. Two observations based on the comments so far. First, I can’t see why they messed around with developing the modular displacement engine when GM was making the overdrive tranny available a year later (or the torque converter lock-up). The o/d tranny would have been an easy way to boost mileage 10-15% on the highway without the complicated technology. That, and a little breathing on the 368 would make a nice drivetrain. Second point is that I have my doubts about the horsepower/torque ratings in that period. The ratings for the Caddy seem to be taken at a low 1400 rpm, and I have a sneaking suspiscion that they were underrated. Had they used a 2.73 or 2.93 axle, the 0-60 times would be as good or better than the 1971-76 models.
Competition for the ’81..
There are the two different rooflines side by side. Hard to say which looks better they both look great here! Nice cars!
I’ll take both.
Interestingly, I think Cannon had one just like your 78-79 (the pic is a little blurry so I can’t make out the telltale differences). He (William Conrad) did a reunion episode back in the late 70s, and I remember him extricating himself out of his CDV. It looked like alot of work for him, and the cars soft springs didn’t help matters much.
He was a portly fellow you know, and he really didn’t have much in the way of muscle mass. One helluva PI though.
Really? Cannon switching from a Mark to a Cadillac, blasphemy!
Watch it, Mr. Carmine.
Actually, this is what he was driving.
The show referred to was a failed pilot that intended to revive the series. Since it wasn’t a QM production anymore, it wasn’t all Ford.
Will Conrad went on to ‘Jake and the Fatman’ in the mid 80’s, but I don’t know what car he drove in that show.
Great cars Dean. Tough decision on which looks better, but I like them both. Looks like your ’78-79 is a D’Elegance to boot!
Is the ’81 Briar Firemist?
The short answer is probably yes, and I don’t have access to the body plate at this moment. The car was repainted back in 2002, and the body shop went for a base/clear combo that was a shade different than the original colour. Same issue with the vinyl roof which was more gold in hue, but ended up a dark brown. I always ask for the original colour when painting a car, but the results are often a bit of a surprise, but thankfully not objectionable!
I picked up the ’81, which was outside my buddy’s garage. It was bought for the true spokes, and once removed, the guy wanted to get rid of it. I really liked the leather interior, which seemed more classy that the ’79’s blue D’elegance velour, so I flogged it to a buddy who needed a reliable car. About 6 years later, he picked up his Dad’s ’02 Focus, and the Cad came back!
About five years later, the Dad passed, and my buddy ended up with an almost brand new Escape, and the Focus was up for grabs for $2500, and it became my daily driver. If I ever did a COAL recap, I wouldn’t have to go too far, as most are still in the barn. Some vehicles refuse to go away!
Often customers will want the colour their car matched but since the car has often faded over time, it’s not possible. I remember showing the exact sample for the paint code on her Buick and she wouldn’t have her car painted in that!
Here’s the project car, a ’79 CDV D’elegance with red bordello interior in a yellow car. Pictures were taken at the vendor’s house when I first bought it. Orginally picked up as a potential parts car, it is too nice to be broken up, and I will try to get it roadworthy this summer
Interior prior to tidying up..
Interesting color combo. I’d be curious to what your list-o-cars would be in that barn. I can relate to how parts vehicles turn into project vehicles.
Oh yeah, definitely a bordello interior. Thanks for saving that beast.
nice looker, plus Henry Hill drove on similar to that, so it makes it even cooler right?
Nope. Checked the trunk for a proper Caddy floormat, and didn’t see any bodies covering the mat…
Henry Hill did have one of these in Goodfellas, it was a 1979 Phaeton with the factory fake convertible top.
Dean – the cars you’re interested in work awesome with the backdrop of the architecture in your neighborhood. I loved the picture of the Monte in front of that split-level house, despite not really liking those Monte Carlos.
I’d love to see “for sale” signs on either car. If I see one in my neck of the woods, it’s a done deal.
OH WHERE WOULD I KEEP IT?
That’s what drove me to buy them. The ’79 was $1200 back in 1994, the ’81 was a grand in 1997, and the Henry Hill special was $500. Decent covered storage is definitely an asset in my case. I’d love to have some Matt Garrett examples, but would be afraid to drive or park them, and I’m fortunate enough to be able to derive plenty of enjoyment out of a sub $2000 driver when it is bought right.
Coincidentally 1984 was also the last year for the Holden Statesman de Ville, it was 6 years before they re-entered the luxury market (as featured on CC last week).
Why didn’t the Cadillac dealers just disable the V8-6-4 feature at the first service? It had served its purpose then, to lower the CAFE number.
With the filler pieces missing from the rear end, would it be possible to trim the bumper slightly and mount the tail lamp surrounds to the body? I know it wouldn’t be completely neat without a bit more work, but it would be better than this 58 Imperial-esque free-standing look. Or at least tidy up the wiring.
In fact many did and it was very easy to do, all you had to do was pull the connectors off the tops of the solenoids. Problem was many customers wanted their high tech doohickey to work. In addition, it could seriously foul up GM’s CAFE numbers for the brand.
CAFE is spread across the brand and Cadillac had no small car to bring up the average. That’s why we got the Cimmaron.`
CAFE stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy, it is not BAFE. So no we didn’t get the Cimmaron because of CAFE. We got the Cimmaron since former Caddy customers were leaving the brand for them furrin cars which were for the most part small.
It was a combination of a bunch of headaches, CAFE, Cadillac dealers wanting a small car and Cadillacs fear of an increasing number of dealers that were adding European car franchises to their former stand alone Cadillac dealers.
In the case of the dealers wanting a small car it was certainly a case that they should have been careful what they wished for. I think I remember that some of the Caddy dealers, likely those who had asked for a small car, were not happy at all with having to try and sell the Cavmmaron.
There were many people within Cadillac that hated the Cimarron, but the marching orders were given from Grand Ave and the “Cinammon” was an 11th hour addition to the J-car program and the edict was no major changes, just trim and facias.
Is it possible to install a 4.5 or a 4.9 in one of these or were those made for FWD only?
Well, the engine mount arrangement is totally different right off the bat but that could be worked around. I think someone actually does make an adapter to mate that bellhousing to one, or more, set(s) of RWD transmission patterns. I remember seeing RWD Northstar conversions long before that engine was actually offered in anything but a transverse, FWD configuration – and that’s the same pattern as the FWD HT-series engines.
I like the idea since I’m a fan of “keeping it in the family” when it comes to stuff like this, and the 200HP 4.9l V8 would make a nice, yet not overwhelming, match with this chassis (you could even keep the 2004-R). However, considering the amount of custom fabrication you’d have to do, it would probably just be easier and cheaper in the end to spend the bucks for a RWD Northstar & modern Hydramatic out of a wrecked SRX/STS. The 470HP small-bore supercharged version from the STS-V would certainly wake up a sleepy Coupe deVille !!
Or you could do what everyone does and go the easy route – get a snoozefest SBC crate motor with a medium sized Holley carb. Yaaaaaaawwnnn! I like your painful and complicated idea much better, not that a bland-as-eff 350 wouldn’t be very practical and useful in one of these cars.
Just looked this up and not only are there companies that sell adapters and RWD mounting kits, the FWD HT-series V8’s (4100/4.5/4.9) also used an identical bellhousing to the Chevy 2.0/2.2 S-10 trucks – start hitting those junkyards, GrangeRover! 😉
Yes it is possible to put a 4.5 in a RWD HT4100 car. This place offers a conversion engine. http://www.remanufactured.com/Cadillac_Engines.htm and I think there are others as well.
Thanks both for the info. I’ll keep it in mind if I ever decide to bite on one of these.
Nice writeup! Too bad the car has seen better days.
And that green one, wow! I hate to say it, but I have never seen one in that color.
I don’t really think these cars came with very many standard features. I remember the summer of 1983; I went with my parents to look at Sedan Devilles @ Kerbeck Cadillac in Atlantic City, NJ. They advertised Caddys starting at just $9,999 all day long. Even a rear defroster was an option. Once those options were tallied, the out the door price was much higher.
In 1980, I almost bought one of the strip down Coupe Devilles. Drive out was $ 12,118. I recall no vinyl roof and cheap sombrero wheel covers. The silver metallic blue was nice. It came with A/C, ps,pb, p/w,AM/FM and whitewalls. The velour upholstery was quite nice. I can’t recall power seats or power antenna, probably not.
I thought the car was nicely equipped. The salesman told me that prices were going to skyrocket in the next few years. I wish I had bought it; I’d probably still have it. I’d have needed the wire covers, though. The cheap caps made the car look ultra cheap, more like a LeSabre than a Caddy.
My tastes are exact opposite and obviously in the minority: I love the standard wheelcovers and always hated the flat Cadillac wire caps. They were impossible to keep clean on the 1980 CDV I used to have. The later wire covers looked better when they added some color to the pot-metal center piece.
I was not wild about the ’77-’79 flat disc covers but still prefer them to the wire covers.
Real wires or go home!
The Fleetwoods had a version of the sombrero style cap with a body colored insert that was pretty nice.
My ex-stepmother’s ’84 maroon Biarritz had the real wires and they were gorgeous. I suspect the wheels were added motivation to the thugs that stole & stripped the car while its owner was blowing money at Marshall Field’s in downtown Chicago.
Real wires are rare on the FWD Caddies.
Those caps look a whole lot better to me now than they did in 1980. I’d still prefer the wires, but they do have the retro 1940’s look. Need the wider 2 1/2″ whitewalls.
Real wires would be spectacular!
I always liked those sombrero wheelcovers – they had a retro look to them that reminded me of Caddy wheelcovers going back to the late 40s. Add the whitewalls that got a bit wider for 2 or 3 years around 1980 or so and I thought it was a cool look.
Fake wires clean up nicely in the dishwasher. Done it many times!
that’s a great tip, thanks. So regular dishwashing soap or…? I suppose something like lestoil or other cleaner would ruin the dishwasher, but it sure would produce some purdy wire wheel covers
I always find it interesting that whenever an author writes a trash article they always pick poor examples for the showcase pictures. Just about any 29 year old car that hasnt been lovingly attended to by its owner or has been restored is going to look kind of bad. There are far more 29yo domestic cars on the road than imports especially Japanese. Until the early 1990s, most Japanese cars rusted away as worse as any Vega…
With that said, truth be told most people need to realize the circumstances that took place that made cars come out the way they did back in the early 1980s. That was a time of extreme change in the automotive design. First we had general downsizing, which was far more successful in the public eye than much of the technology that followed. The 1977 GM B-bodies were a big hit but it wasn’t enough long term. Motor sizes came down or technology was employed to give the big motors a bit more efficiency. It really wasn’t until the mid 1980s that people slowly realized that the end of the gasoline wasn’t near and then-$3.00 gasoline (which in 1985 would be about $6 today). It wasn’t just CAFE but also the buying public that drove many of the changes. People that were used to spending $15-20 a week on gas suddenly faced the prospect of spending $50-60 a week on gas and that was big money 30 years ago. Plus, large land yachts of the 1970s were quickly becoming out of fashion with buying public that were increasingly buying smaller cars and more FWD cars.
The V8-6-4 was not an inherently bad design (they are using it now!) but electronics sophisticated enough to process the data fast enough to prevent driveability issues. Most of the driveability issues with the V8-6-4 centered around hesitation on acceleration during speed and unintended shudders during 6 cylinder operation when the engine was relatively unbalanced. Of course as we see today many makes are employing variable displacement on cars now.
The HT4100 was originally supposed to have appeared in the downsized C-E-K models that came out in 1985-1986. While those cars were not notably fast, they were not slow and at least on par with the 368 equipped cars of the past. The C body program was delayed due to various tooling problems at the new Orion Assembly plant in Michigan which pushed back a 1984 model year launch to 1985. The V8-6-4 was supposed to be the holdover motor until the downsized models debuted. The longitudinal HT4100 was developed late in the cycle to replace the V8-6-4 and adapted to the cars. I came up into automotive when the HT4100 were still on the road in large numbers and serviced many of them. Early examples suffered from intake gasket problems due to the torque to yield bolts and most importantly suffered from maintenance issues due to lack of fluid changes and the use of the tablets. Mostly due to lazy owners and ignorant service techs. What is ironic is that by the 1996 model year, when the HT4100 evolved to become the 4.9 but was basically of the same design, had among the least number of warranty claims.
GM did not have an overdrive transmission capable of handling the torque of the big block B-O-P engines. All big blocks used the THM400 3 speed transmission. Chevrolet bell pattern engines got the 700R4 in the late 1980s. B-O-P big blocks ceased to exist after 1981 and the 200R4 debuted to handle all V8 overdrive needs. The remaining installations of the 368 Cadillac motor for 1982-1984 used the THM400. That was part of the reason why Cadillac got the V8-6-4 GM was not going to develop an overdrive for the Cadillac only application knowing that downsized units using the 440T4 were already on the drawing boards.
I own a 1983 Eldorado with Touring Suspension. It has the HT4100 and 3.23 gear ratio which makes the car spirited if not fast on the road and agile for its size.
What a lot of people do not realize that is despite all of the complaints with the V8-6-4 and the HT4100 Cadillac sales remained robust during the periods covered by the traditional body sizes. It wasn’t until the downsizing of 85/86 that Cadillac started to suffer decreased sales mainly due to the public rejection of the new models. Of course the real long term threat to Cadillac was the rise of the luxury Japanese models especially Lexus.
Context is everything, as CraigNC mentions. Another shocker is the weight of these Caddy “barges’, which averaged around 4100-4200 lbs with the 368, and dropped below 4000 lbs with the 4.1. I seem to recall an ’83 Eldo coming in around 3700-3800lbs…..That’s what today’s Malibu or Impala would weigh. Chryco minivans are around 4400lbs, and we won’t mention current SUV’s or cute utes come in at. I’m guessing that the ’83 Eldo would offer up 24mpg on the highway if not beaten, shaming a lot of newer stuff.
I agree. No rose glasses in this post or off the wall theories in your post sir.
You do know that we need pictures of your beautiful Eldorado…a real classy body style.
To defend the original poster Tom, I think most who write the stories on here, like to post pictures that they have taken themselves to add to what they have written. Most of us haven’t seen these cars for years, some here are young enough to have never seen them. As you pointed out, 29 year old cars aren’t easy to find in nice shape of any make or model.
I’ve never driven a 4.1 powered Caddy, only a 4.5, and I thought the 4.5 was easily comparable, and a little quicker than the contemporary 3800’s in the other GM’s of the same chassis.
So my question is…to use the stop leak tabs as directed by GM, or to not use them? That is the question.
They are not stop leak tablets they are “coolant conditioner”. 🙂
touche!
I believe they recommend them for the Northstar also. I chose to do a empty and refill instead just for a little piece of mind. Of course there is no drain plug on the radiator so I had to suck it out with a shop vac…ugg
still not sure how I feel about putting the “conditioner” in…any thoughts?
Yes GM continued to require the “conditioner” in Northstars, at least the ones I’ve seen had the sticker giving the GM part number.
However GM is not the only one to require the use of “conditioner” Subaru requires it on some of their engines too.
I’ve put it in all the ones I’ve worked on, I consider it cheap insurance. The GM and similar stuff is not like some of the stop leaks out there in that it will stay in suspension and circulate until it needs to do it’s work and won’t clog up the heater core or radiator, at least at the recommended dosage.
The coolant tabs were used on Cadillacs to help seal porous surfaces in the engine due to the wet block design and with oring seals on the iron cylinder liners. Ironically it also helped in the radiator and other areas as well. The tablets are available at most auto parts stores and are useful for any engine that might have age or leak issues.
While I am not going to apologize for any automakers bad designs or mistakes, I will say that, at least during the early 1980s, poor maintenance and ill-trained auto technicians contributed alot to breakdowns. By that time, people were used to their iron-iron-carbureted cars running no matter what abuse they gave them. And for the most part that was true but that wasn’t the proper way to do things. Today, automakers have compensated for the idiot factor in today’s designs with 100K spark plugs and distributorless ignitions. Also most new cars have fairly long powertrain warranties.
Lets see, over the years I have owned some of the most frequently-cited ‘demon cars’ like 1981 Chrysler Imperials (which still resides in my garage with perfectly functioning EFI and just drive 500 miles two weeks ago), 83 Eldorado, 83 Olds diesel, 76 Seville, etc. with at least once I went through them (bought them all used) never seem to have problems.
Of course I remember my son coming home once from working at Best Buy and showed me a remote for a TV that broke off the top because the batteries died and someone thought the button was bad and kept pushing it harder and harder until he deformed the plastic….
There’s an ’85 Coupe deVille, Chevette, Citation, first-gen Cavalier sedan, several Fieros, air-cooled VWs, 3rd-gen F-bodies, and two Optispark-infected heaps at my house so you’re not alone.
As many of us know, once you get used to the quirks of a particular vehicle, they are actually quite easy to keep running.
The 100,000 mile spark plugs and crank trigger ignitions are due to emissions durability regulations as much as anything else.
Proper training was then and still is a tremendous problem in the auto repair business. My family ran a large on at this time period and we had a terrible time getting good techs, or techs who were willing to do new things, meaning new skills. By this point, lots of new technology and materials were coming into use and many techs flatly refused to learn it.
Years later, while working as a service advisor at a Chrysler dealer, it was the same thing. Of a shop of upward of fifteen guys, only two of them were really good at stuff like transmissons, diffs and front end. Only one guy did the diffs, front ends, diesel and alignment. None of this is really hard to learn and this one man usually had 17+ on his ticket every day. The rest were struggling on oil changes and brakes.
The GM store I went to after the closing of the Morpar place was even worse. The chief tech demanded, and got, all the gravy jobs. He especially liked fuel filters, which were 1.0 in GM time, which was unheard of for GM which is nasty as all get out about warranty time.
The Honda shops I have dealt with have always given me good service.
what do you mean 1.0?
Also, I found out that in ’87 and ’88 GM used Olds HO motors 5.0 with 170 hp and 255 lb/ft of torque–same as the 5.0 standard but with 30 more hp. It is a Vin Code 8 motor.
http://www.oldspower.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15639
With a 5.7 LO5, the ’89-93 ran between 10.2 and 9.8 for the D-body Fleetwood (I call it the D and not the B because it is bigger). The ’84 98 and Electras were C but unofficially D bodies due to being longer.
I love old GM iron. I will write for CC someday, God willing.
1.0 refers to the labor rate – techs that get paid on hours booked for repairs. Good efficient techs will complete jobs in less time than the book specifies allowing them to make extra money.
Oldsmobile produced two versions of the 307, Y code which appeared in about 90% of the vehicles that used a 307, and the 9 code which was the H.O. version that appeared on certain cars for performance reasons but also appeared on some Cadillac Broughams but only those built at the old Clark St plant until it closed in December 1987. I had an early 1988 Brougham built at Clark St with the 9 code engine and it was a nice driving car. Those D cars were a brick, but once moving the 9 code 307 wasn’t too bad. The 9 engine was discontinued after the G bodies were discontinued during the abbreviated 1988 model year. The remaining RWD cars using the 307, the station wagons and the Broughams, continued until 1990. Station wagons were redesigned and switched to the Chevrolet 350 TBI motor for 1991. In 1990 Cadillac introduced the 350 Chevrolet motor as an option on the Broughams that had the towing package while standard Broughams still used the 307. For 1991, the 307 was dropped and the 305 Chevrolet was made standard while the 350 was again optional.
As far as the D-body designation was concerned, prior to the mid 80s downsizing of the full size cars, that D-body primarily referred to the factory Cadillac limousine. When the C-body cars were switched to FWD, the remaining RWD Cadillac model was redesignated as a D-body.
Interesting on the transaxle ratio there. Two weeks ago, I stumbled upon an ’82 Eldorado Touring Coupe at my scrapyard hangout. What an interesting car that was. By the time I got to it, it was pretty much destroyed although I managed to grab the ETR, hood emblem, & miscellaneous bits smashed loose from the loader fork that stabbed & tore the instrument panel loose from the body.
Anyway, I finally extricated a buildsheet under the passenger bucket seat which I have here in front of me… it specifies a 3.15 axle ratio which I thought was neat with the 4-spd automatic.
You might find it interesting that the Eldo’s serial number was 606791 but its build sheet was for car 606700, that’s a large gap (79 cars!). Most likely there were no Touring Coupes with that interior built between car 700 and car 791.
This answered several questions as the car I found had an analog speedometer which contradicted the build sheet.
Other interesting bits on car# 700 were (exactly as spelled):
FE2 – RDBILITY SUSP
NB2 – CALIF EMISS
N90 – ALUMINM WHEEL
PA5 – SPORT HUB CAP
P45 – HI POINT TIRE
QGQ – BLACK TIRE
T93 – SPORT/LAMP RR
YP5 – TOURING PKG
I have no scanner otherwise I’d scan the sheet. The center instrument panel had a small “Touring Suspension” emblem just above the stereo.
Anyone know what a HI POINT TIRE is? Or how GM quality control allowed them to use the wrong build sheets? Or if optional aluminum wheels and sport hub caps are compatible? Maybe. I suppose I do remember hubcaps finishing off the Cadillac aluminum wheels of the day.
Could have been that the bucket seats were switched?
The TC’s came with blackwalls, though “high point” could also refer to the spare maybe?
The alloy wheel was standard on the TC’s they had a small cap around the lug nuts, which is what I imagine the “sport hubcap” is, the ETC wheel is a modified version of the 1979-1981 alloy wheel option.
This is the pretty sweet, but pretty rare 1979-1981 Eldorado alloy wheel.
And the same wheel with a different center cap as the Touring Coupe wheel, this wheel was also available on the Seville too, I have only seen one with them before.
I’m guessing that the seats for car 700 and car 791 were next to each other and were pulled out-of-order. I tore that car to pieces trying to find an additional build sheet since Linden vehicles typically have several copies in them but none were left. One junkyard Eldorado I pulled apart had several brand new unused leather head restraint covers (different colors too!) stuffed behind each rear seat quarter armrest. I assumed they were used as filler to deep the panels from collapsing but evidently it was a fluke. I’ve never seen another car “so-equipped”.
The Touring Coupe had a lot of special codes on the build sheet to cancel out the normal Eldorado equipment. BTW, it was sold new at Crestview Cadillac, 2700 E Garvey Ave South, West Covina, CA.
I google-mapped it and they are still in business selling Cadillacs. Cool.
BTW, that is a very attractive aluminum wheel. I should have checked inside the building to see if the wheels had come in with the car..
These were very nice cars. My uncle had a 1979 with I think the 368 and he let me drive it all the time as a teenager. I thought it went just great and the roadholding was way better than my Dad’s F-41 Impala, although the Chevy was faster. The quality of the leather was among the best I have ever seen, the leather on the Olds and Caddy cars was excellent at the time and very durable.
Uncle liked to trade regularly so he traded for an HT4100 Eldo and had no end of grief with it. It had toasted one engine under warranty, a second at 60,000 km and then he got rid of it.
Uncle is now 71 and drives a 2010 300C which he bought slightly used for a really good price. From is small farm house, he every day drives it to the Legion to have a beer with his mates. He then drives home.
Oh and he still lets me drive his cars. The 300C really goes like snot! Kaboom does that pushrod V-8 make gushes of torque and loads of power. Thanks!
I just wanted to thank you for your insight, Carmine. I wanted to be a car designer before the internet came, and now, people with knowledge of car design are much more accessible!
I love the E-body Eldos; my father had an ’84 Riviera with 307 4v, grey-green body and cream roof. At the time, it was a very valued car even in ’90 when we got it used. My grandparents were B-body and D-body fanatics and had an ’80 Olds 98 with 307–even the bourgeoisie were sans 403 by ’80 and were stuck with a car with 96 cubic inches less than the year before–but it was still a V8. My grandfather died but not before leaving her with the Riv, which she passed on to my father in May 1990. I was 6 at the time but remember when the Riv replaced the beater ’77 Impala with 305-2v. We also had a Panther LTD Country Squire with 302-2v, so our family had the best of the top-of-the line GM and Ford body on frame cars from Aug. 88 at least until May ’90.
Then came two Tauruses, a Windstar, a bunch of H-body LeSabres and now Town and Countries.
As for the choice of cars, the whole idea of Curbside Classic is to write about the cars that we find. There are lots of sites where you can go to see pristine car-show examples, and we will occasionally go that direction here. But our steady diet at CC is to document the stuff that is still out on the street and doing what it was intended to do.
To me, a car like the featured Coupe deVille is all the more noteworthy when it is one of the cars that suffered with a relatively problematic powertrain that took most of these off the road years ago, and especially when the car is still in regular use. The 86+ Broughams with the sturdy 307 are everywhere, but these HT4100 cars (particularly a 2 door) is a rare find and one that we should all celebrate.
I would love to write for CC one day. I love your posts jpcavanaugh 🙂
I am only 29, but my earliest memory of a car is when I was 2 and I saw my father’s gray Olds Cutlass–a maroon interior and lots of velour. This was in ’85 or ’86. It probably had a 260 or a 307 in it and was a ’76 or ’77; the last ones before the ’78 downsizing and the slantback era.
I remember going to Niagara Falls in the summer of ’87 and seeing a Pontiac Phoenix and realizing it was the same car as the Citation I saw in Erie or Buffalo, despite differing window trim. Same deal with the early Celebs–I was like 3 or 4 in Cleveland Heights and realized the ’86s had better taillights than the ’82-85s and sealed-beam headlamps later on in ’89 or so.
Thanks, Josh. It’s always more fun to enjoy old cars in the company of others.
What do I have to do to actually submit a CC? Can anyone do it, or should I become a member of some sort?
take care,
josh
Send us an email on the Contact Curbside Classics page, and someone can get back in touch with you, most likely after our editor in chief returns from a much-needed vacation.
Craig,
I’d love to find a clean CDV on the street, but this beige one was the first one I’ve seen in several years. I compensated a bit with some mint ones pulled from the Web. And it is a “Curbside Classic.” I periodically do writeups on mint cars found at shows; if ever I find a nice CDV, you will probably see it here.
And actually, with a new grille and rear fender extensions, this one could have been tidied up pretty easily.
And by the way, nice Biarritz! I always liked Colonial Yellow; Cadillac had it into the early ’90s. A friend of ours had an ’85 Biarritz in triple burgundy. He drove it well into the Nineties and it was always washed and waxed. His wife had a ’93 Grand Caravan ES in the same color.
Josh it’s the VIN9 and 180HP. The VIN9 is the most elusive option ever, I’ve never seen one advertised let alone in person. They say it was an option for the 86-89 FWB sedans but I don’t think it ever existed, except for maybe commercial/limo spec.
thank you for clarification! It is too late to edit it, but I see what you mean. I was surprised nobody mentioned it up thread. From an Olds site I remember seeing the pic of the engine on a body on frame chassis (ladder-rails) but a desc. had it as just for commercial use like limos and presumably the Presidential Limo at that time. Although I would think Reagan’s Limo used a 350 or a 454.
I know in the ’80s Chevy was testing Caprices with BMW V12s in them so they could learn throttle-by-wire applications (electronic controls, not actually as if the car was with a wire). Similar to fighter jets.
My Eldorado
that’s a very pretty car. Very nice.
+1
Biarritz.
I approve.
Real wire wheels are rare but on RWD cars they were often out of round and imbalanced.
I hate to see these fine cars turned into low riders. It makes me sick every time I see one, and is not too often. Uneducated chicanos who were refused from the US get them and convert them into flamboyant garbage cans and they feel so proud of their freaks and they show them in the streets with no shame of what they’ve done to otherwise classy and elegant vehicles of better times.
…and they end up at places like this. I could not believe how hacked-up this car was. There were huge rough cuts in the trunk floor where all the hydraulic garbage was mounted. The rear package tray and reinforcement behind the rear seat was sawzalled for speakers and the torsion rods that held the trunklid up were also cut out.
Nothing spells class like having a 2×4 holding up the trunklid of your Cadillac so you can show off your “modifications”. This car was such a shame because it had no rust or external collision damage.
On the bight side, way to go for that little Saturn wagon holding up that big Cadillac.
That’s the way to go for a lowrider. Compared with anything modern with similar form factors, a Saturn wagon is practically a ground-scraper bone stock!
That’s a shame. So many nice Broughams and CDV/SDVs have been sacrificed to half-baked mods and giant wagon wheels. They looked best as they came out of the factory.
There is a Crown Royal Crown Vic from the late ’90s running around here, with typical gigantic wheels. I won’t describe it further; I’m sure your imagination can supply the rest.
At least he didn’t do it to a vintage Caddy!
These were such classy cars. If cadillac could have kept building cars like this one (with a good engine), Cadillac might have been able to hold off the german takeover of the luxury market for at least a few years. It’s a shame that the majority were built with the HT, as I’d love to own any cadillac between 1980-84. At least the sedan managed to stay around till 92, with good engines for those last 2/3 years: the FI chevy 305/350.
PS: just discovered the Brougham society on Facebook. Great page! If you’ll accept my request to become a member, I’ll post my own brougham: a ’90 cadillac brougham, with the 5.7 V8.
I added you to the group, Welcome and enjoy!!!
IN ’87 and ’88 there were “8” code VIN 307 Oldses that had 170 hp vs. the normal 140. Then in ’89-92 they went with the LO5 and brought 0-60 times into the 9.4-9.9 second range. Good stuff.
One of these HT4100 (Hellacious Turd) engines in a 3500 lb Eldorado was torpid enough. I can’t imagine how sluggish one would be trying to haul 4200 lbs of de Ville or Fleetwood Brougham around. I think the full size Caddys from this era came with a 3.42 axle ratio from the factory as standard. There just wasn’t enough torque or horsepower to harness the potential of that gear ratio. Not for winning stoplight drag races, mind you. For passing farty old 1960’s dump trucks pulling a backhoe on a trailer on some lone stretch of 2 lane road with limited sight distance. Got to get around that one fast.
Do you all want to know the most ironic thing about Cadillac of the early to mid- 1980s? The cimarron. Yes the CIMARRON! Had the most reliable engine of all the models because they always had chevy-designed engines. The 1.8, 2.0, and 2.8. And easiest to work on too! These cimarron owners I bet were laughing while everyone else paid 6-10k more for their diesels, 4100, V864s and were bringing them back to the dealer in two years! I know from first hand experience. My parents bought an 83 Cimarron. No engine troubles.
I’m looking for a 1988-1992 Cadillac Brougham d’Elegance to buy. Please e-mail at bassam[at]mns-online.net
I have a elderly neighbor selling a 84 deville 4 door that is beautiful with 35,000 original miles on it, does anyone know a good replacement engine for the 4,1 in it. It is a rear wheel drive if you do leave me a message here
A olds 307 V8 would work nicely. I’m not sure if it’s a straightforward swap but it should be and would be the cheapest used engine. If you had the dough, just put a Chevy 350 in it and call it a day.
Thanks Brett I don’t know why I didn’t think of a 350. It is not the money to me it is just getting a good engine in it because I know the 4.1 is awful even in the RWD
Henry Ford II was once overheard saying “Cadillac’s done more to sell Lincolns than Ford has ever been able to do on there own.” I’m fairly certain those words were spoken during this time period.
I ordered a ’79 Sedan deVille for my folks. To this day, it is the only loaded deVille I’ve ever seen WITHOUT a Vinyl Roof. Dad dug his heels in on that one thing- a neighbor had a ’76 Seville, and the White Vinyl Roof was already turning a nasty dirty gray because of the So California smog. The deVille was a pretty car for a big boat, White with Tan leather, matching striping, and just about every creature comfort known to Western Civilization. In spite of all the whistles and bells, it also was an extremely reliable car. I ordered it with the Trailering Pkg, so it was sprung a bit stiffer than the standard variety, and was also geared lower. It was a great car for the long road trips the folks were still making. With the 425 (last year for that motor), it was also surprisingly quick. Bonus, on the road it gave pretty decent mpg numbers for the size car it was. 17-18 mpg was pretty normal, just don’t ask what it did around town. Yes, the gas crunch V1.2 was that year, but the car had a 25 gallon tank, so it gave a decent range between fill ups.
The In laws were still rocking their ’73 Coupe deVille, but finally bit the bullet and bought a Silver ’87 Fleetwood Brougham. It had just about every possible option, right down to the wire wheels. It was a stunning car… a grossly underpowered stunning car, even with the 307 V8. Their next car, a ’97 Crown Vic, must’ve felt like a rocket ship by comparison. But the Fleetwood was reliable, father in law kept it in great shape, it found a new home the same day we listed it for sale.
Once again, thanks for the memories.
I am based in Beirut LEBANON. I have small collection of american and other vintage cars. 2 years ago I bought All original 1978 Coupe Deville with 16K original miles with the 425 4B engine also wire wheels & Vogue tires and all documentation since new and owners manual. here is link to original seller AD http://www.connorsmotorcar.com/vehicles/314/1978-cadillac-coupe
What a shame they were hobbled, nay crippled, by unreliable engines.
GM should have said “These are our top-line luxury cars. Never mind CAFE, we’ll pay the guzzler tax and continue the 368. Our buyers will understand. If anyone balks at it, they’re not ready for a Cadillac anyway.”
Or, they should have thoroughly tested the V8-6-4 and caught the problem before it went on sale. The HT4100 likewise; and it just was not powerful enough. Who thought 130hp was enough for one of these? As we see from later developments, GM had the enginnering nous to do better – why didn’t they? Oh hang on, there was the Northstar…
And in that vein, they really should have specified a longer-lived material for those bumper filler panels. Penny-pinching. To cheap out on the basis that the buyer will have traded it by the time the stuff decomposes – that’s the attitude that killed GM.
I’m not sure if more testing could’ve saved the V8-6-4 or it simply required a level of computing power it wouldn’t be feasible to put in a car for another decade or two.
GM was already well in decline by then. The Vega engine fiasco, Olds diesel head bolt fiasco, Caddy going mass market, TH200 transmissions behind mid size V8’s, soft cam lobes and Chevy engines in Oldsmobiles.That die had already been cast by the bean counters who put short term profit ahead of long term stability. A piss poor business model if there ever was one.
GM has never really recovered. Caddy is no longer any kind of world standard, Buick depends on China, and Pontiac and Olds are gone.
Granted they are still profitable but that took a bailout 15 years ago. As a business model, the GM of 20 to 50 years ago is a failure with plenty of junk produced. They literally drove people to Toyota and other off shore based manufacturers who have since been eating GM’s lunch.
In a strange reversal of years long gone by, today’s Cadillacs have actually became pretty decent vehicles, and for not that much more than the Chevy upon which they’re based.
A case in point is the latest Chevy Blazer EV. For just a few grand more (chump-change in today’s inflated market), one can get a nicer Cadillac Lyriq which has the same, identical BEV drivetrain, but more features.
I don’t know if it was the intended marketing strategy, but I can see people cross-shopping the two and making the decision to get the Caddy, instead. If nothing else, although it’s nowhere near what it once was, there’s still a bit of cache to the Cadillac brand.
IOW, GM began killing-off Cadillac prestige when they began offering other division vehicles that could be equipped nearly as well, for a whole lot less (the 1971 Chevy Caprice being a prime example).
Now, it’s just the opposite when you can get a very nice Cadillac for just a few sheckels more than an otherwise mechanically identical Chevy.
Can’t add much to the conversation but will agree these were very comfortable, very SLOW cars. If GM could build them today with a modern 5.3 or 6.2 they would sell like crazy, albeit they’d be $80k now. My dad had one was pretty reliable until it filled the crankcase with coolant and spun a (some? all?) bearing.
Never understood why GM used cheap plastics for the bumper inserts. I bought some after-market inserts for my 1978 Oldsmobile to be used as a template. I hired a metal fabricator to make a set out of aluminum.
I remember the first time I saw a 4100 engine at the GM training facilities. I was a light/medium/heavy duty truck tech at that time. My thought were this, who the hell is developing a new pushrod engine and what moron builds an engine that is nearly all aluminum but sticks cast iron heads on it? The instructor said that’s Cadillac’s new engine, the 4100! It looked like a bad copy of Ford’s FE engine. Cadillac, supposedly a world standard leader and they come out with a new pushrod motor. The smart thing would have been to develop a real world class engine and to offer it a premium engine in other GM lines.
Same old GM, customers will buy what we offer them, no reason to spend money and deliver real quality products.
My first Caddy was an 85 Coupe DeVille bought in 2000 for $600. Drove it a few months. Blew a head gasket. junked it. Here I go again. This time a yellow on yellow leather (no vinyl top) 84 Coupe DeVille 50k miles. Same 4100 engine. At $5,000 its less than the 6.0 liter 1980 will go for. .
My first Caddy was an 85 Coupe DeVille bought in 2000 for $600. Drove it a few months. Blew a head gasket. junked it. Here I go again. This time a yellow on yellow leather (no vinyl top) 84 Coupe DeVille 50k miles. Same 4100 engine. At $5,000 its less than the 6.0 liter 1980 will go for.