(first posted 12/17/2013) The story of the Seville has five chapters, and unfortunately most of them are rather sad. By far the most depressing one is Chapter Three, which covers the years 1986-1991, the Seville’s nadir. By the metrics of sales, the 1986 Seville and its E-K Body stablemate Eldorado are rightfully Cadillac’s Deadliest Sin ever, their combined sales plummeting 70% from 1985. But there are other metrics to consider too, including the ownership experience. Unlike the other GM Deadly Sins I’ve written about, I have something to add on that account. But it’s not exactly cheerful either.
The Seville was originally conceived to counter the growing popularity of Mercedes in the seventies, which were smaller and more expensive, and were rightfully seen as a threat to Cadillac’s dominance of the luxury market. Despite it being a fairly handsome car and a decent seller, I called it a Deadly Sin. That was controversial, and I’ve never heard the end of it.
My key point was that the Seville was a lost opportunity for GM and Cadillac to build a true Mercedes fighter, like Lexus did so successfully with its 1990 LS400. The 1975 Seville broke no new ground, given its Nova-roots, leaf springs, standard vinyl top and wire wheels covers. High-earning professionals on the coasts, the key trendsetting demographic for this segment of the market shrugged off the Seville, and Mercedes laughed all the way to the Bundesbank, unlike when the LS400 appeared. Average sales for the gen1 Seville’s four full years: a healthy 50k per year, but those didn’t come at Mercedes’ expense.
The second generation Seville (1980-1985) made it blatantly obvious that it had given up any pretense of being a Mercedes fighter. It was a slightly toned-down pimp-mobile saddled with three of the worst engines ever built by GM: the Olds 5.7 diesel, the V8-6-4, and the HT4100. Average sales for its six years: 33k per year, down by fully one-third. That alone qualified it for DS status, never mind its highly questionable looks, cheap interior and terrible engines. But at least no one mistook it for anything else, especially a cheap little compact.
We’ve covered this story E-K body debacle from another angle before, but after styling boss Bill Mitchell retired, GM design went into a death spiral, with Irv Rybicki at the controls. The great GM Cookie Cutter Era correlated to GM’s greatest market share losses ever. And it wasn’t just that the $27k ’86 Seville looked too much like an $8k Oldsmobile Calais, which even preceded the Seville by a year. It’s also the fact that all these cars just didn’t look good, period.
Their proportions were terrible; the Seville’s roof line is so abrupt and truncated, with the base of its C Pillar arriving way too far ahead of the rear wheel center line, making it look like a short-bed crew-cab pickup, a lá Ranger Sport Trac. The wheel openings are disproportionately huge. Stare at the Seville long enough, especially its rear half, and you can’t help but wonder what the hell was going on at the once-vaunted GM’s Design Center; it looks like someone was learning to use Photoshop. The Calais’ proportions are actually better, for what it’s worth.
I can hear it now: but Paul, poor GM had draconian CAFE regulations to meet, and had to drastically shrink all of its cars, and this was the inevitable result…with the technology of the times then, it was virtually impossible to make unibodies look different across the various GM brands…. I call B.S. on that whole line of GM apologia. Ford’s Taurus, which appeared the same year as the Seville, was two inches shorter overall, but suffers none of those inexcusable Alice-In-Wonderland proportions, bad lines, and cookie cutter shape. And the Sable managed to have a decidedly distinctive look and feel, despite sharing much of the Taurus’ body and Ford having a lot less resources at their disposal.
That’s just one example close to home; there were numerous other examples of lean, efficient, but roomy and good-looking sedans in Europe at the time. The Seville went from pimp-mobile to pinhead-mobile.
The gen3 Seville’s styling perpetually creates an odd (and unfortunate) visual effect: it always manages to look even smaller than it really is. I shot these two from across the street, standing right between them, in a deliberate effort to eliminate perspective.
The Civic coupe certainly looks longer, and when I measure them on my screen, it confirms that. Weird. Yet according to their stats, the Seville is 15 inches longer. Do they shrink in the rain?
Anyway, shortness has nothing to do with aerodynamic efficiency; in fact the opposite. GM soon slathered on longer front and rear ends on some of its shrunken head-mobiles like the Riviera–with dubious results–since the fundamentally bad proportions couldn’t be so easily fixed. And those elongations certainly didn’t hurt their efficiency.
The simple fact is that a relatively longer shape is intrinsically more aerodynamic than a short one, other factors being equal. So no, there was nothing in the CAFE regulations that mandated stubby ugliness, vertical rear windows, and look-alike cars; maybe Ford was putting something in GM’s CAFEteria coffee.
Having spilled so much bile, by now some of you may be wondering just exactly how and why I came to “own” one of these Sevilles? Well, I didn’t exactly spend some $30k of my own money on one, that’s for sure. In 1987, I headed up the acquisition of KSTS in San Jose for Telemundo. In case you missed it, that chapter of my life also involved a new 1986 Mercedes 300E.
After the sale closed and we moved to Los Gatos that summer, I discovered that one of the assets of KSTS included a 1986 Seville, the company car of the out-going General Manager. It was light blue like the featured CC car, but had the Pep Boys-approved wire wheel covers and white wall tires. It was an odd choice, since this was Silicon Valley, and Cadillacs in coastal California at the time were about as in as white shoes and wide lapels. The fact that he was even younger than me made it more perplexing, until I found out he had moved out from Wisconsin to take that job. And the Seville was his (short-lived) dream fulfilled.
Well, it quickly became my nightmare, in trying to dispose of it. I drove it to my house, and started advertising it in the Sunday papers. This Seville was just barely over a year old, and had cost well over $30k, with options, tax and license, just a bit less than my 300E. This gave me an excellent opportunity to compare the two. Oh my…
Everything about these two cars was about as different as they could be, for two cars competing in the same class. Where to start? By opening the door and getting in, obviously. “My” Seville had the same blue tufted leather interior as this one, which is of course by now an old car, but the only one at my current visual disposal. The seats were flat and slippery, unlike the well contoured buckets of the Merc. And everywhere one looked or touched, the feeling of a decidedly cheaper-looking interior was inescapable.
Except for the (genuine) oak veneer on the dash (this later seems to have walnut), it looked and felt like it could have been borrowed from any of GM’s cheaper cars, like a Celebrity or such. There was just no sense of exclusivity, taste or quality ambiance, and all the switch gear and such were of course shared with the Celebrity and the rest.
The Seville was low and wide, whereas the W124 is tall and relatively narrow. That may in part reflect my own body size and shape, but one sits high in the Mercedes, and has a commanding view. The Seville’s low and flat seating position was not to my liking.
It goes beyond design taste, regardless as to whether you think the Mercedes interior is stark, or Euro-contemporary tasteful. But touching (never mind looking) at any and every piece on the W124’s interior made the difference in material quality inescapably obvious. Instead of feeling like you were riding in a Calais Gran Luxe, the Mercedes conveyed exactly what folks were wanting after parting with over $30k of their money (about $65k adjusted): a sense of superiority, snobbishness and exclusivity. What else are luxury cars for, anyway?
Well, hopefully to enjoy the driving experience too; which I did with gusto in the case of the 300E (CC here). It was happiest at illegal speeds, and although not overtly “sporty”, it would tackle the most challenging winding canyon or mountain roads with gusto and aplomb. There was just no way to throw it off balance; the worse the road and conditions, the more it shone, especially compared to anything else on the market at the time.
The Seville couldn’t have been a more perfect polar opposite to it. It was softly sprung, and profoundly under-damped. It bobbed and floated even over the most modest pavement changes and bumps. It had that typical GM FWD front-heavy feeling, regardless of its actual weight distribution. And its low stance created anxiety about bottoming out the transaxle or such, because of how under-damped it was. Yes, it rode along in the classic GM jet-smooth ride on a glassy freeway, but it had zero appetite for anything higher than 70 or so, never mind anything resembling a change in direction. I understand that Cadillac re-tuned the suspension already on the 1987 model, presumably to tighten things up a bit. But this ’86 was profoundly floppy, rubbery and vague.
Getting up to speed was no fun either, with the 130 hp HT4100 under the hood. It ran smoothly and quietly, and tip-in was typically GM-exaggerated to give a greater sensation of acceleration from rest. But it quickly ran out of breath, and any attempts at aggressive driving were utterly frustrating. The simple truth was that I hated driving this Seville; except for being a bit quieter, it was hard to see where all the money went since it drove so much like a plush Celebrity. I was desperate to get it sold and out of my life and off my property, but that turned out to be a lot harder than I ever imagined.
I just wasn’t getting any response to my ads. Who wanted a Seville in Silicon Valley? Just about nobody, it turned out. So I just kept lowering the price each week. Lower, and lower, and lower, until finally someone bit. I can’t remember exactly the final transaction price, but it ended up right around $10k, possibly just below, or a one year depreciation of almost 75%. In today’s world with the internet, someone from the Midwest would have snapped it up and shipped it out. But this was 1987, and the Sunday paper was the craigslist of the times. And as a point of comparison, I sold my 300E when it was over seven years old for $13k.
It annoyed me on business principle to have to sell something at such a loss, but it wasn’t my money that had been wasted on it. And when I ran into the Seville’s former owner at a business function and told him the price for what I’d sold it for, he literally almost cried. I would have paid you more for it than that! Oh, how I loved that car! Nice to know someone did. It hadn’t occurred to me to call him and offer it to him. Oh well. I was just so happy to see that damn blue Seville drive down my gravel driveway, and me not in it. Good riddance!
You get a pass on owning this car, because you kind of inherited it against your will.
Nice exposition on why this car was a 100% miss.
Back in the day, I found the bustle-back Seville to be quirky, but looking at it now, the design is rather smart and unique (if one doesn’t consider the Lincoln Continental clone); it has held-up really well.
OTOH, the cookie cutter design was just an outward manifestation of the rudderless malaise, vanilla design, organizational confusion and the sea of dysfunction and dissipation that the good ship GM had been steered into under Roger Smith…
Even though the signs of this were rampant, the GM folks, mired in denial or(and) arrogance, lashed out at the competition for their jelly bean designs, the unions for everything, the Japanese for closed-markets and “stealing” market-share all the while failing to remember the maxim: “there is nothing wrong with any car company that good product can’t fix”…
Same here; The gen 1 and 2 Sevilles have grown on me with time, as they have genuine character and reflect their times, in a good way. I know i’ll never feel that about these, no matter how many decades go by.
I can sort of appreciate the gen. 2 Seville as long as I don’t take it too seriously. (Same goes for cars like the Aztek and Zimmer Quicksilver.) Two-tone paint helps as well. But please, no landau roofs or “brougham-y” touches like fake spare tires! Those work on a Fleetwood or such, but clash with the bustle back theme.
I found the generation 1 very original and somewhat timeless until… GM thoroughly flogged it’s formal style and watered it down for the next 15 years in various other car lines. If I bought a 1976 Seville, and looked at the 1980 Buick Century sedan for the first time… I would have been royally p*ssed at GM.
I found the generation 2 was a step backwards into the baroque past. Reminiscent of the 1930s style designs various British carmakers were doing in the 1950s. I.E. The Star Sapphire. It very much became a gaudier, stuffier old guy’s car.
In fact, I suspect the generation 2 significantly polarized the BMW/Mercedes crowd and announced to the world… we WANT Ted Knight to be be our potential spokesman. I found it more faux luxury crass than classic.
Funny – but I remember thinking at the time that the rear end of the early 80’s Seville was channeling 1930’s Mercedes design! Which struck me as an odd marketing choice.
It looks like the mutant offspring of a prewar roadster and a Citation.
Seems like half-past forever since I’ve seen one of these. Hope it stays that way.
In my area, there is only one that I see regularly…it has been sitting for at least ten years.
On the other hand, I still see the ’85-’93 Deville regularly. For some reason, those always look like they’ve been in a few accidents – or was the fit and finish really that bad from the factory? The paint is always inevitably peeling as well.
Holy odd proportions! The best-looking sibling of this Seville, by far, was the Toronado.
The 1986 300E MSRP was $34,700. $10,000 resale of a $30,000 car represents a 67% depreciation rate after one year. That’s still absurdly high, unless you consider how little was had for $30K a year earlier. I had a customer about 7 years ago that had picked up his father’s few year old, 20K mile Cadillac DeVille for $9,000. That was the amount offered by the Cadillac dealer as a trade in value on a new one. His father bought another Cadillac and he bought the old one for the appraised value. That DeVille would have been over $50K new, and it wasn’t that different from the DTS they were trying to trade it in on. The people that still buy American cars are going to continue to buy American cars. They just get bitter at people that don’t have the urge to repeatedly overpay for an inferior product and take a bath on resale. Anyone that learns from experience has moved on.
You realize no one pays MSRP for a Cadillac, right?
I saw the bill for this one… it was well over $30k, with taxes and license. Update: I just realized we’re talking about the DTS in CJ’s comment.
MSRP was around $37k base. So….they clearly didn’t pay MSRP, especially if that included tax & license.
Eh, no…the base price of a 1986 Seville was around $26K not $37K.
The Cadillac dealer in my area is already selling 2013 ATSs for $10,000 under sticker right now. I know it’s to clear inventory of 2013s, but you’d never see Mercedes, or any other foreign luxury marque do that.
Exactly. They can’t get rid of ATS, while the CLA are flying off the lot. The more things change, the more they stay the same… 🙂
The real irony is that he ATS is to the CLA that the W116 was to the first generation Seville. The CLA couldn’t be a more pedestrian approach to a compact luxury car, It’s design breaks no ground whatsoever(unlike the 75 Seville) and really it’s no better than the SeVille in it’s period conventional layout either(fwd/transverse engined Mercedes???). The ATS at least is front engine/rear drive, sharing nothing with it’s GM stablemates.
Actually it’s not the same at all. The ATS is arguably the better car compared to the CLA. At the very least it is competitive in all aspects.
Do you have sales numbers to back up your claim? I’d be curious to know what they are.
I know Daimler and Hyundai-Kia have been collaborating since the Chrysler years – is the CLA built on the Elantra/Forte platform? Because from the reviews I’ve read, it probably would be a better car if it was…
Daimler did some collaboration with H-K in some cases back in DCX days. Since then though they’re working with Renault. Twingo and smart share. Some Infiniti and MB share. I think that the CLA is derived from A-class, but not 100% sure.
Phil – the CLA is in short supply globally, you would have to wait months (3+) if you want to buy one in Australia.
John…globally short supplies do not necessarily equate to better sales in the US, which is Cadillac’s main market.
I would say they do – they all come from the same factory and if the US sales go well there are fewer cars available for other markets.
probably a dealership issue. My mother’s companion had leased a C-class and wanted to get a CTS when the lease ended. Walked into the Caddy dealership and said he was just standing there. At the Merc dealer they treat you well and made everything so easy for him to get another car that he ended up with another C-Class. I think I told this story once, but m uncle bought one of the Olds diesels after the 2nd gas crisis and upon picking the car up noticed a dent or a scratch. He went up to a mechanic and was like “look at this” and the mechanic replied “you’re not buying a Mercedes.”
Naw…that same old tired Mercedes Benz winter event ad with Santy Claus is actually asking customers to pay MORE for the privilege of owning an reichswagon……right.
$329 for a CLA or $329 for an Accord EX, yup no one is discounting anything,
From Edmunds.com, from a Mercedes buyer:
“For all those out there who would like to squeeze into a 2014 E350 Cab, I got a discount of (without haggling) $9500 on a $65k car. I stumbled upon this when looking to price leftover 2013 Cabriolets. NOT worth pursuing 2013’s for leasing given no support and low residual. ”
$9K off on a $65K car, if that’s not a discount then I don’t know what is…..
Dealers I’ve talked too say that they have no problem getting rid of the ATS, I see tons of them on the road here every day.
But nevermind, sorry to interrupt the GM hate fest, please continue with your regularly scheduled biases and misconceptions……
I’m not saying that other luxury brands won’t easily come way down to an interested buyer. But the Germans don’t discount all of a certain model then advertise it to everyone and their brother.
Jump to 1:25
Actually no, you said you “would never see” Mercedes offering a car for $10,000 off sticker and it took about 2 seconds of searching to prove that your statement was bs. Much less “any other foreign marque”
Don’t back pedal now that your statement has been show as crap.
In fact the statement I found was talking about $9500 off on a 2014 Mercedes, not even a 2013.
Thank you.
Also, none of the switch gear on this vintage Seville is shared with a Celebrity, its not even the same parts. If were going to talk shit about a car, lets at least get the facts straight.
I was talking about 1991 Seville starting at $36-37k (if my memory serves me right), not 1986 (I didn’t read the article, and don’t care that I didn’t). No one pays MSRP for Cadillac was my point (hello Escalade!).
I have no problem with the Seville; however, I am a GM fan (and wasn’t hating). I do think they missed the mark on the ATS. 2003 CTS anyone? They sit and sit on lots. CLA flies off the lot.
Like someone else mentioned, no heated seats standard on the ATS? Wtf? They’re standard on a HYUNDAI ELANTRA. That’s PATHETIC, GM!
to Claude: heated seats are not standard on an Elantra GLS. They are part of an optional package.
Actually, they are not even available on an $16K Elantra GLS from what I see on the site, they are “standard” on the higher end Limited model, which isn’t really “standard on an Elantra” you have to go up to the $21K Limited model.
Again, if you’re going to talk smack about a car, at least have the correct facts.
Lol. I was referring to the Limited model which would be closer to the ATS in terms of luxury, not the GLS (which, yes, they are actually available on). The Limited comes with heated standard front AND rear seats. Not standard on ATS. Pathetic. Not smack, truth. GM needs to learn a thing or two on packaging. I’m a fan of GM from day one. It is what it is. ATS is unwanted.
“Standard on a $21k Hyundai”, how’s that verbiage? Pretty sad that a $21k Hyundai has standard heated seats and CADILLAC doesn’t. FAIL.
Ok, since you insist on being 12 years old, I guess that’s the route were going to have to go.
Here is the link to Hyundai’s site where it lists NA for heated seats on the GLS.
https://www.hyundaiusa.com/elantra/features.aspx
Also, a 320i doesn’t have standard heated seats, in fact, it doesn’t even have standard POWER seats. In fact, heated seats aren’t even standard on the more expensive 328, you have to buy a $950 “Cold Weather” package. Heated seats aren’t standard on a $35K C-class sedan either. Or on a $33K A4, that requires a cold weather package too!!
LOLFAILOMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!!
Feel stupid already? Cause I could go on and on and on…..
Throwing in features on a cheap car is not a new thing, a cheap shitty car with heated seats is just that.
Carmine! Jeez. Cadillac was/is “The Standard of the World”. $21k Hyundai (Limited) has standard heated seats, 4 of them; Cadillac 0. [The heated seats are in the Preferred Package on the base GLS model, yes they are]. Come up the Great White North in that ATS, you’ll be begging for that “cheap shitty car with heated seats”. I hold Cadillac to a standard, don’t you?
They aren’t standard on a Mercedes, BMW or Audi, yet somehow Cadillac is failure because it does not have them standard either, doesn’t that sound a bit stupid and hypocritical?
Who cares if Hyundai has them its STILL a Hyundai. Good for them. If all you want is heated seats, I’m sure you could probably find them in an even cheaper car than the Elantra.
Man up and stop crying about the heated seats or move out of a god forsaken frozen sh*thole.
Carmine,
Does an ATS even weigh a ton?
What dealership is this? I’m in your area and can’t find any deal like that.
According to trocar you can expect to get almost 8K off an 2013 ATS.
However, you can expect to get 9500 off a 2014 Acura TL and $13000.00 off a 2014 RLX (their brand new flagship)…
Yes – the ’86-’91 Sevilles do look odd and like most of the era’s GM products, when it was almost good or good, the axe fell. In retrospect, the design is no more goofy (or painfully generic) than most so-called ‘premium’ Asian cars of the same period (or even later – do you hear that Nissan-rebadged-to-Infiniti?) . . . . however, Cadillac seems to be turning the corner with the new ATS and CTS . . .
Insofar as Acura, don’t get me started on those ugly-ass, Pokémon styled, origami-gone-meth looks. How under the skin, as Hondas, their exterior sheet metal and trim looks so friggin’ idiotic is beyond me. Proof IS in the pudding . . . . Acura was forced to ‘tone down’ their bird-beak, can opener, character line drawn by a 3-year old styling for ’11, ’12 and ’13 and even with that, they’re STILL dog-ass ugly.
Acura will ‘bribe you’ with deep discounts and cash on the hood . . . and cutting edge mechanicals . . . for 2005, anyway (in a ’13 and ’14 car). At least the new ATS and CTS are up-to-date and can give the Benzes a run for the money (and I own a Benz). . . . .
This is GM of 2014 . . . . not the hubris, half-assed years of 1979-2009.
Now let’s be reasonable here – Cadillac transaction prices have been headed up nicely. And the cars are quite worthy o their competition.
Cadillac sins no more.
No, they just get bitter when people try to pass off arrogant and generalizing personal opinion as fact.
“They just get bitter at people that don’t have the urge to repeatedly overpay for an inferior product and take a bath on resale.”
Who’s talking about buying new?
The lesson I’ve learned from this Deadly Sins Series is, it isn’t wise for the consumer to pledge allegiance to a specific carmaker. As a child, I was a big Chrysler fan, but having bought a winner and a couple money pits from them, I’ve learned than it’s wise to consider all automotive options. Sure, you can have sentimental leanings, and cheer for certain makers. But when you put your money down, the best car for you should be the biggest factor. I feel bad for the buyers and fans that stuck with GM through thick and thin. But GM and other car makers will only get better by accepting the tough lessons and learning from these mistakes. Afterall Volkswagen and Toyota rose from the ashes after WW2. This Seville bit GM hard in the butt, but it’s a lesson they likely needed. Taking customer loyalty for granted is any carmaker’s biggest sin.
The thing is, there aren’t many lemons out there today, and there aren’t any makes that are head and shoulders above their competitors. Not like it was in the 80’s.
A lot of loyalty was determined by the dealers available as well. The town I grew up in didn’t have a Mercedes dealer within 150 miles, making them a rather foolish purchase.
I agree that you should buy the car that’s best for you. I found that means trusting my own opinion and buying what I like. Not what some magazine or sales chart tells me I should like.
Hmmm, I’m not sure about no lemons today. I do think some manufacturers have dramatically better long term reputations than others. If I was keeping a car for 7-10 years. I’d buy a Toyota or Honda over a Kia, Mazda or most other makes. I knew people that bought Mercedes, back in the 1970s, and they were 80 miles from the closest dealer. Someone would have to be blind to not see that these Sevilles were looking more and more like lesser GM brands. Buying a car because you have fond memories from 20 years ago as a teenager is foolhardy. Lots of information was out there in the 80s about the Big Threes struggles to get competitive.
Caveat emptor would apply here, I would say.
Who is buying a car based on 20 year old memories? Not me. Perhaps the people who don’t consider domestics (or Kias) because of stories like Paul’s?
I’ve owned 00’s era Hondas and Toyotas, and frankly they weren’t all they were reputed to be. However that doesn’t mean I won’t consider them in the future.
I’ve got a toe in the business again. The separation between Toyota and Detroit is a gulf now. German cars are no longer what they once were, not even remotely, but buying a Ford, GM or Fiat product is inviting hardship. Honda is losing the plot as it tries to cater to mass hysteria about the climate scam, but Toyota still does most things right far more often than anyone else. Ford is an absolute disaster. GM builds quite a few lemons that require exorcists to rectify. You can get a GM product that will serve you well during its lease period, but you can also get one that costs you weeks of struggling with area reps and lost mobility. I see it all the time.
Hasn’t this been posted before? We get it, we get it; you found it to be a POS. How about you compare that big Benz to a full-sized DeVille? You can thank the environmentalists (yourself?) for these little crappers GM distributed.
Do you perhaps mean the full-size, rear-wheel-drive Brougham? By 1986, the DeVille was also on GM’s full-size front-wheel-drive chassis, and would not have acquitted itself any better against a Mercedes-Benz than this Seville did.
The Brougham definitely had “old school” appeal, but it was pretty gutless with the Cadillac V-8. The Oldsmobile and Chevrolet V-8s used later did give it more pep, but also helped to cement the idea that a Cadillac was basically a better-trimmed Chevrolet.
Blaming the environmentalists won’t fly here. As the article notes, Ford was under the gun to meet the exact same regulations as GM was, but the Taurus and Sable were better cars in every way than this Seville.
Ford had another brush with bankruptcy in 1980-81, so it wasn’t exactly flush with cash when it developed the Taurus and Sable. It literally bet the farm on those cars. Almost 30 years later, they still look much better than this Seville.
Great comparisons Paul. I never noticed how identical the Seville was to the Cutlass Calais. I’ve always found these cars interesting, but would never have wanted to own one.
I’m definitely have a preference for foreign luxury cars, as Cadillac (and who else, Lincoln maybe, Buick?) doesn’t compare. They have improved in recent years, but
I still feel like Cadillacs’ interiors “[look] and [feel] like it could have been borrowed from any of GM’s cheaper cars”. Plus, while their “Art & Science” sharp styling looks good when new, within several years it looks much more outdated than competitors. People can say what they want about Mercedes’ today, but they’re still very nice, and I aspire to own one of my own someday.
With all the lengthening to other cars, I’m surprised that GM never made any serious design enhancements on this Seville. Probably they knew it was a lost cause and put all their effort in its successor.
It’s funny, but I find the fully round wheel well arches on the Seville look more Oldsmobile-like. While the slightly squared wheel wells on the Olds, look very Cadillac like. This Seville looks very much like an Olds.
Without starting from scratch, I can’t see how they could save the styling on this generation.
It does look very Oldsmobile. I could easily see it as an alternative design to the ’85-’90 Ninety-Eight.
Bingo. Not that it would look that great as an Olds. I thought the 1982 A-Bodies pretty much owned this formal squared up look… and GM needed to move on. But they really blew it with the N-Bodies and afterwards IMO.
Suddenly it was like Body by Fisher-Price… most of their models adopted this very bland style.
I would love to do some more reading about GM on the inside during this era. The styling issue strikes me as huge. The Taurus’ shape still looks modern today, but most of the stuff from GM in those years, well far from it.
GM was so used to setting the styles that I think they really didn’t look too much at what others were doing. Also, their systems and processes had become much more insular and dysfunctional than they had been 20 or even 10 years earlier. It is hard to make the kind of cars that the engineers or the individual stylists want to make when every design had to pass through multiple layers of management, with multiple changes and tweaks to satisfy the tastes of guys who had never driven anything but a GM car for most of their adult lives.
Some may argue that this is not a DS, but the market spoke convincingly back then. Not only did Cadillac lose huge swaths of its market to MB, Audi and BMW, it lost quite a lot to Lincoln too, even though Lincoln suffered from quite a few of the same things that these cars did (like the cheap interior pieces that were shared with much lower level Fords). The late 80s Continental turned out to be quite a turd for long term ownership (and a V6 Lincoln made me want to cry), but I remember quite a lot of them around back when new. I suspect that many were bought by former Cadillac owners.
It’s funny I saw a late-80s Continental yesterday. One of those sightings that makes you realize you haven’t seen another in probably years.
The story behind these cars is even more interesting than the cars themselves.
The front-wheel-drive Continentals had their own, serious issues, but they at least LOOKED like luxury cars at the time. Unfortunately, over the long run, those Continentals sold a fair number of Lexuses, too.
The STS version of this generation is kind of interesting to me. I also like vertical rear windows, and overall the styling doesn’t bother me that much although it certainly isn’t imposing.
As bad as you thought the build quality was on your Seville, I guarantee you that what was unleashed on poor N-body owners was worse.
Knowing the way GM builds cars, someone with a ’91 Seville STS will declare it the best vehicle they ever owned while your ’86 was awful.
Still like the Gen. 1 Seville a lot.
I’m happy! A Seville article on my birthday!
Happy Birthday! Can’t you just feel the love?
+1!
I’m a car snob. Everything I’ve owned has either been “good” or “interesting.” This includes a w124, a w126, plenty of modern German “driving machines” and their Japanese imitators (and the Korean one, too), mild oddities like the Subaru SVX, loaves of white bread like the Accord…
(Btw, the thing that makes me happy about posting this list here at CC is that so many of my fellow commenters will have FAR more interesting histories than me!)
…but this Seville is The One That Got Away.
When I was in high school, I met my parents’ rather strict criteria for academic performance, and heavens be praised, they rewarded me with a car. Or rather, a budget to buy/maintain a car. Though my taste is eclectic, I have ALWAYS, ALWAYS loved Cadillacs. When I first saw a ’59 Eldorado Biarritz, those tailfins bowled me over. It embodied everything good and beautiful like no other material object: it was power, technology, prosperity, optimism…. the design hypnotized me exactly as it was supposed to. (Even though the design was about four decades old by the time I was in high school, it still seemed like a better “future” than any concept car I had seen before or since.)
So when I see any Cadillac, the brilliant halo of that Eldorado Biarritz still glows… for some Cadillacs it’s as bright as chrome on a summer day, and for others… it’s quite a bit dimmer. But I can always see it.
Back to my story.
So I had a budget, and when it came to “real” cars my parents taught me to worship at the altar of Consumer Reports. In those pre-internet days, I scoured classifieds and walked the lots. I had settled on a 1992 Subaru Legacy sedan. Automatic transmission, front-wheel drive (how did I ever find one of those???), baby blue. A de-quirked Subaru–surely the least remarkable Japanese car to reach our shores.
But in the back of the lot, I saw it: a Cadillac Seville. (Same color and wheels as our CC car!) For one-third the price of the Subaru. I told myself, surely the money I can save by buying this Cadillac can keep it running for as long as I need. I strained to make the Cadillac seem like a sensible choice–never mind the brake warning, check engine light, and various other failing bits.
Well, the story has a boring end: I made the practical choice and bought the Subaru. Aside from the occasional axle boot, it gave years of trouble-free service to me and my younger brother.
But… I never stopped thinking about that Cadillac.
Today my tastes have changed. I still love classic Cadillacs, but I can’t imagine giving precious driveway space to one of these fwd midgets, even if they wear the crest and wreath.
Still, a sparkling-blue Seville sends me back to the moment when a piece of that brilliant dream from 1959 nearly came true for me. It was just a ghost-image of the original, but it still become solid in my hands when I test-drove that sputtering Cadillac.
When I looked at the first pic in this post, I could see the halo again. It seems like I’m the only one… it’s very, very faint, but it’s there.
I get it and you’re not the only one 🙂
the Seville’s roof line is so abrupt and truncated, with the base of its C Pillar arriving way too far ahead of the rear wheel center line, making it look like a short-bed crew-cab pickup
Or maybe a Landcrab.
All it needs to complete the look is a vinyl applique on the trunk lid!
I wonder – I’d imagine a number of Cadillac buyers who were soured by the “craptastic” offerings of the mid- to late-’80s switched over to Chrysler Fifth Avenues, which were a much older design than the aforementioned generation of Seville. Heck, their platform dated back to the 1976 Aspen/Volare.
Also – and I know many on here would agree with me – the Fifth Avenue’s old carbureted 318-cid V-8 and 3-speed TorqueFlite was a much more reliable drivetrain than the Cadillac HT 4100.
Doubtful. IIRC, the Fifth Avenue was a significantly cheaper car and didn’t have the cache of a Cadillac. The 1988 Lincoln Continental seemed to sell well, but I’d guess most of the intended market went to european brands.
Those Fifth Avenues were dogs and the build quality wasn’t good. My Grandparents had one. I’ve never been inside one of these Sevilles, but I doubt it was a worse car. I could be wrong of course.
I doubt that this Seville was more reliable or better built than a Chrysler Fifth Avenue of that era.
This excellent article focuses on the styling of the cars, but, at the time, they were also considered to be quality disasters. GM, under Roger Smith, spent a ton of money to automate its factories in the early 1980s. GM was convinced that the secret to Toyota’s high quality and reliability was more advanced factories.
The plant that built this Seville – I believe it was the brand-new “Poletown” plant in Detroit – was supposed to be GM’s showcase for advanced automation.
Unfortunately, GM didn’t do a great job of implementing that automation. Even more importantly, GM missed the key point of Toyota’s success – it involved more effective management of the WORKERS, not a heavy reliance on automation. Toyota used automation to improve conditions for the workers and help them do their jobs more effectively. GM wanted the machines to “automate the a**holes away.” Big difference.
The result was an all-new car being assembled in a brand-new factory by disenchanted workers and machines that weren’t working as they should. Needless to say, quality was a disaster, as was the reliability. After the successive disasters of the Oldsmobile Diesel, variable-displacement V-8 and HT 4100 engine, these cars were the final straw for many Cadillac loyalists.
At least the Fifth Avenue was powered by proven mechanicals, and the basic design had been on the market for years, so the bugs were worked out of it.
And, as hard as it is to accept, by the mid-1980s, most Cadillac customers weren’t that much wealthier or younger or even better educated than potential Fifth Avenue customers. The simple fact is that Cadillacs and the Fifth Avenue (and the Lincoln Town Car) were basically competing for the same conservative, aging customer base. And most of them would have been better served by a brand-new Town Car or Fifth Avenue in 1986.
I’d consider the 5th to be a worthy competitor to the departed B-body Buick/Olds at that point, after 1985 though it was a very dated and rather ungainly vehicle. Besides, its incredibly hard for the average person to pick out the difference between a base Diplomat and a loaded 5th avenue. Much like ’80s GM FWD products, the M bodies all looked almost exactly alike, at least the GM offerings had different dashes and door skins.
I’ve never considered Chrysler to be on the same level as Cadillac and Lincoln, more along the lines of Oldsmobile or Mercury. Imperial was more on par with Lincoln and Cadillac to me.
How many times are you going to reprint articles on Gm products from the 80’s looking alike? Seen it enough already…Totally disagree with the Gen 1 Seville being a deadly sin and comparing it with an LS 400….The world was totally different…
You also sonveniently leave out the gen 4 and 5 Sevilles….Great cars for their time…and undeniably lookers!
Agreeeeeeeeeeeeeed. Step outside the photo booth, and you’ll see the cars aren’t the same. See the size difference.
Anywho, I was perusing the archives the other day and noticed VERY FEW 80s PONTIACS stories. There’s your assignment, publisher/editor/author/photographer.
80s Pontiacs? Even if they’re Deadly Sins? Hang on a bit….
No no no, that’s okay Paul. No need to dig around 😀
Wait, this ISN’T an 80s Pontiac? lol
There’s a difference between requesting new and interesting Curbside Classic stories and demanding them. Then you have folks whining about the current stories.
The authors who come up with this fantastic stuff didn’t have to, so how about a little more R-E-S-P-E-C-T?
Agreed. Paul as even asked some of these bitchers to submit their own entries….but evidently they prefer to act like children trashing someone else’s house.
Agreeing to disagree is not that difficult. My driveway is packed full of Deadly Sins yet this remains my favorite site on the internet.
what makes this site interesting is exactly that it will do articles on crapyastic cars…all the “great” cars have been written about and photographed to death. I really don’t need to see another feature on another GTO or Porsche.. ..
“High-earning professionals on the coasts, the key trendsetting demographic for this segment of the market, shrugged off the Seville, and Mercedes laughed all the way to the Bundesbank, unlike when the LS400 appeared.”
Paul, Paul, Paul the Seville was very popular on the west coast with exactly the kinds of people who were flocking to Mercedes. My parents’ friends were these people and had the cars.
Of course the Seville didn’t take people out of Mercedes, the sales of that brand and its models were too new. But it sure as heck intercepted a ton of folks who would have otherwise bought German or British.
Of all the pics in your article, which was excellent as usual, there is only one that doesn’t look like anything else and that’s the yellow Seville. The first Seville drove pretty darn good too.
The ’92 Seville was a great car as well and I consider the CTS to be its spiritual successor. Where is the Lexus LS today? Answer: Completely forgotten.
Perhaps I should have added the word “Younger” to high-earning professional. The folks that were buying Sevilles in LA were a generation older than I was, or at least a half generation. Which is exactly why Seville sales skewed old.The median Seville buyer was 64; four years older than the median Cadillac buyer. These folks were not my generation.
My Dad was barely 40, Mom in her late 30s when gen 1 Seville came out. Their friends were similar ages. Not terribly young but not old. It wasn’t until the 80s that we saw younger people with that kind of money, that’s when the term “yuppy” entered our lexicon.
In 1975 the Seville was the most expensive domestic car. The only cars priced higher were S-class, Rolls and maybe Ferrari. As price goes up so does median age — true now and even truer then. It’s not like the similarly priced 280E or 530i was selling to 30 somethings, they were older too. The 3-series got younger buyers, sure, but the cars were a lot less expensive than the Seville.
As for the sales volume it wasn’t a “decent” seller for its price it was an outstanding seller. Name one car more expensive than the Seville that out sold it.
I suspect younger Californians “got” the Seville more than folks did in other parts of the country. The median age out here certainly wasn’t 64.
Seriously? The first gen (and subsequent) LS400 is forgotten? Tell that to Europe. Sheesh.
Mike the LS hasn’t been a threat to the Europeans for at least 10 years. It’s fallen off the radar for customers too, Toyota sold just 8,000 last year. Cadillac consistently sells 50,000 CTSs a year. The only Lexus that comes close to that is the ES which is a much less expensive car.
Without looking up the demos I would say it’s a pretty safe bet those CTS buyers are a lot younger than ES buyers and more likely to cross-shop cars like the Mercedes E and BMW 5. It’s like Cadillac and Lexus have switched places since 1990.
The LS sells in better numbers than the 7series BMW, the A8 Audi, and the Jaguar XJ. Those are three of the four sedans in its price class. If you include the Porsche and Maserati as full sized luxury sedans then it beats them too. It might not strike fear into the S-class any longer, but it has not been forgotten.
Living in coastal San Diego, I see plenty of Lexus LS460s, but only the occasional CTS. Which is nice. There are probably more E350s than the others combined, but that’s because they’re two thirds the price of the former and twice the car as the latter.
The Europeans aren’t worried about Lexus they are worried about Tesla. The Model S has taken a big chunk out of 7-series and Panamera sales. Nationally it outsells the Lexus, Porsche and Audi combined. In coastal LA it outsells all of those plus the Mercedes and BMW.
Of course Tesla sales are 100% conquest.
The LS runs neck and neck with the slow selling 7-series which isn’t saying much when you consider how much larger the LS owner base is (from their earlier discount pricing) and the loyalty older folks have towards their cars. If I had access to the data I would bet the Lexus LS has the fewest conquests sales in the set you mentioned, it’s just old people buying over and over again.
Again like Cadillac used to be.
To me, this is an uncontested Deadly Sin. One of GM’s worst, actually. When Paul wrote the Gen 1 Seville Deadly Sin, I argued that at least in New Orleans in the 1970s, it was still right on target and did well for both Cadillac and the Seville’s owners. It was an era-appropriate package that began to move toward the future without scaring off the owner base, and it worked like a charm. Subsequent Sevilles lost the plot. Gen 2, while striking, was over-the-top in a Las Vegas glitzy way and felt out of place with where the market was going. GM undoubtedly knew this and resolved to take the Seville back to more conservative roots. But in this case, the cure was far worse than the disease. This Gen 3 car is just horrible in so many ways. It couldn’t compete at all with any of the upscale imported brands–never mind Mercedes, the new-for-1986 Acura Legend trumped it as well. To make matters even worse, it couldn’t even attract domestic luxury car loyalists, since it didn’t seem at all special or expensive. One of my Pop’s good friends owned and enjoyed a Gen 1 Seville before going to imports. When the 1986 Seville came out, he test drove one just to see (I think secretly wanting to go back to Cadillac, since for his generation the brand still had a lot of cache), but pronounced (loudly and frequently) that it was the biggest piece of s**t he’d ever driven. That sort of negative word-of-mouth, in the upscale neighborhoods where these buyers live, is a fate worse than death. No wonder sales plunged.
I personally love old Cadillacs, and feel they represent America at its most brash and bold. High quality, aggressive, striking, statement cars. Transferring that ethos to smaller cars is no doubt tough. Some 25 years after this horrid Seville, Cadillac still hasn’t reclaimed its former position in the market. While I wish I could feign interest in the new Cadillacs today, and say that they are “back,” I really don’t think that they are. I love the Elmiraj concept car currently on the show circuit–that is a “real” Cadillac and I hope they build something like it. Once they do, then over time they can shrink and de-content the package (a la Mercedes) to pull in less-well-heeled luxury car prospects. The ATS and CTS (alphanumeric BS, a Cadillac should have a NAME) trying to outdrive BMW (and succeeding based on what I’ve read, though probably more due to BMW’s stumbles), well, that just doesn’t really represent what a Cadillac should stand for. The Gen 1 Seville, while far from perfect, was at least a step in the right direction. It started to redefine what a Cadillac could be, while still being a statement car, both in style and cost. Gen 2 went backward. Gen 3 just plunged off the cliff. From the bottom of that chasm, there was just no way the much improved Gen 4 could ever regain the needed credibility. Too little, too late, and the damage to GM’s biggest profit engine was profound. Such a shame, and such a Deadly Sin, this Seville absolutely killed the golden goose and drove stubby, poorly styled nails through its coffin.
+1! I love the last line.
Yeah, seems like the ’86-’91 Cadillac Seville should be much higher than #21 on the list of GM Deadly Sins. While it was bad enough when GM mucked-up various lower tier cars, the profit margins were much thinner on those. While those vehicles had an impact on GM’s downward spiral, it was nothing like when GM started fouling-up the high-end, big-money cars, particularly the Cadillac division. That’s when the shrinking market share really began hurting the company.
Want proof? Just look at Chrysler. After the Falcon fizzled when the Mustang was introduced, and Chrysler got the A-body’s styling corrected, Chrysler ‘owned’ the compact segment. But those were relatively meager profits compared to the larger/higher-tier cars, markets where Chrysler always lagged far behind GM and Ford.
Funny how this Gen is slammed yet the next is praised even though the chassis is all carry over.
The styling makes a difference, the 1992 Seville was everything this car wasn’t one of the best looking cars in the world at the time, in my opinion. Chuck Jordan was the head of GM Styling at the time, and this was one of his best works. Its amazing, that all the sins of the 1986 Seville were corrected.
There was a lot of talk, from people that were in GM Styling at the time that the 1986 Seville and Eldorado were designed that if they were going to err on size, they WANTED to err on the side of smallness, they didn’t want the cars to “look inefficient” regardless of what the MPG figures actually were.
The styling of the 1992 Seville was superb. It was the high water mark for GM sedans, as far as I’m concerned. I had use of one briefly when they first came out. The remote self-opening and closing trunk lid dazzled the patrons at the grocery store. The back seat cushion was barely off the floor though, and that really hurt it as a big luxury sedan. Also, the early adopters like the ambulance chaser that owned the one I drove were stuck with the old pushrod engine. Hindsight says that may have been the one to get in light of the Northstar’s legendary design defects, but it wasn’t very satisfying at the time. GM.
I’ll gladly take a 1992 Seville or Eldorado, due to their sleek modern styling WITHOUT that troublesome Northstar engine.
Well, I actually like the looks of this generation of Seville. I’ve never sat behind the wheel of one, much less driven one, but the style is certainly no worse than contemporary BMWs.
Possibly because we never got the cookie cutter N bodies here, to me it looks distinctive and understated, and compared to the monochrome-and-spoiler look that plagued Mercedes of this era it actually looks classy!
Of course I can’t comment on the quality or value for money of these when new as I have no personal experience of them,but….
Imagine if this had been sold at a loss like the LS 400 was when launched, sold as a Cimmaron instead. Might it have been the car that that struck a winning blow for Cadillac?
Recently, I drove an ’87 Eldorado (if I’m not mistaken, Eldorado and Seville were closely related), with Touring suspension. It’s a used car up for sale and I’m thinking about buying it (but the owner wants 3500 Euros and he still needs to shave off at least a grand), but never mind that.
I just wanted to say that your description of how the Seville rides was exactly how I experienced when driving the said Eldorado, except for two things:
– I rather enjoyed the overall characteristics of the riding quality, I loved the ‘jet-smooth ride’
– I disagree with your observation “zero appetite for anything higher than 70” – I took it to a motorway and got it up to cca 80 mph (130 kilometres per hour) – the maximum speed allowed by law, and everything was smooth, quiet, just lovely. I felt it could easily go faster than that if it were allowed.
Mercedes Benz deadly sin… Trying to be something it wasn’t. There was a time that Mercedes Benz tried to emulate the “Standard of the World” by incorporating “finlets” on their stodgy boring sedans in a desperate attempt to stay relevant. They didn’t fool anyone and looked silly, but that was a long time ago and should be brought up as often as possible
I have no opinion of the car, but I did chuckle my way through the article, as it seemed carefully calibrated to raise Carmine’s blood pressure. Take your meds, buddy! 🙂
In 80s Pine Tree Land, the target demo for this car was more likely to drive a Saab or Volvo than a Benz or a Seville. I wonder what the Saab owners drive today?
http://blog.polk.com/blog/blog-posts-by-bashar-cholagh/saab-story-v2
Thank you Janke, that was interesting. Many Saab types bought VWs, as I suspected, but they also bought Cadillacs at a rate that even exceeded Volvo “conquests”. Thought-provoking stuff.
Efficiency is not all about aerodynamics. Weight is also important for efficiency, and shorter cars are lighter, all other things being equal. Plus they look more efficient, which is just as important to the type of people who buy cars based on the prestige of the brand.
I actually thought these looked fine at the time. Had I known what they cost, perhaps my opinion would be different. But you have to remember there were a lot of people who were not fans of the jelly bean Fords. In fact, looking at the pictures above, I can find all sorts of ugly cues on the Fords. The odd wheel openings on the back, the sweep of the windows, plastic cladding, etc. “But the porpotions are better”. Well, OK, but they are not great either. That blunt rear end manages to look jacked up and droopy at the same time, depending on what line your eye follows and what angle you look at it. They were not paragons of quality and reliability by any measure either. I happen to like the Fords, especially the Sable. I’m just demonstrating how easy it is to pick apart just about any car from the 80’s. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
” there were a lot of people who were not fans of the jelly bean Fords”
Then why did GM market share drop so much?
The jelly bean cars were controversial at the time. Their style and porportions eventually ended up prevailing, but that doesn’t mean there was unanimous adoration for them in 1985 or that they didn’t have awkward styling elements of their own.
My 2nd classic was a first generation Seville that was one of the first ones off the line in 1975. I purchased it from a little old lady in Beverly Hills and had it shipped to CT. Finished in Phoenician Ivory with matching leather interior it had every available option for 76. Granny even had a CD changer mounted in the trunk. It was a tank-all doors, hood, and trunk closed with one hand motion..it was great to drive and transported 4 adults in full Cadillac luxury. It’s Nova roots started showing up when I drove it on a car trip..being 6’2 I had to strattle the steering column due to lack of leg room and ended up bow legged when I arrived at my destination. I sold it a year later to a guy from West Hollywood and shipped it back to CA where it resides to this day. Like Paul had said earlier..it’s shame GM didn’t spend a little more time on the Seville and really made it a luxury sedan import fighter..
Trip back in time to spring 1980
Auto Media
“Gas will go to $5 a gallon by 1985!”
“Detroit has to downsize or they will die!”
“As soon as all cars are FWD, we will all be saved!”
“Exterior styling is out of style, only MPG matters!”
GM HQ
“All our cars will be FWD and box shaped by 1984!”
…
GM HQ
“Excellent. All of our competitors are gonna have egg on their face when they get a load of our 1986 lineup. We’ll certainly bury Ford this time!”
+1 Your rebuttal says it very well, if sarcastically. Ford read and reacted to the same headlines. But took a more… creative approach to the issues facing the auto industry. Beyond, what was GM thinking… My question is, did they think the public would love these cars?
This Seville shared with nearly every other GM car of its time a styling problem that I haven’t seen mentioned here: the fact that the front wheels are tucked back right next to the door. It seems impossible to me for such a car to look well-proportioned. Looking at the Seville and the Mercedes accentuates this.
It’s one thing to blame this on front-wheel-drive, but even third and fourth-generation Camaros and Firebirds suffered from this.
Great observation that’s why I said all of the cars look alike in this post except for the yellow Seville (and arguably the RWD Mercedes).
But the Mercedes don’t really catch your eye either and there’s a reason for that.
I think everyone knows that GM lengthened the wheelbase when they turned the Nova into the Seville. Most people assume that the extra inches went behind the driver, for more rear seat legroom. That’s true but GM also put a few inches in front of the driver to give the Seville the longest possible dash to axle ratio. That’s what catches your eye.
They did the same on the C-body in ’77 but only for Cadillac. The 98 and Electra got the extra inches behind the driver, compared to the B-body, but not in front to push that front wheel more forward.
This is a really big deal in car design and Cadillac couldn’t use that as a differentiator after ’85 when most of the GM sedans went FWD. They brought the long dash to axle ratio back with the CTS and ATS and look where Cadillac is now.
Wrong. The additional three inches in wheelbase that the gen1 Seville got was added to the rear, not the front, because the Nova’s rear leg room was woefully inadequate. We’ve gone over this before…
Look at the Nova of that era, its front wheels are plenty far forward enough.
I dunno Paul looks to me like the Seville got some extra in front too but could be wrong on that, may just be the brilliant styling. In any event the dash to axle ratio on the yellow Seville is where it needed to be.
For sure the C/D-body Cadillacs got the extra WB in front, no doubt to give those cars more of a Seville look. The front end and roof changes in 1980 completed the transformation. The CTS has influenced the Cadillac line up in the same way. All lessons learned from the first Seville.
Paul’s right . . . the X stretch for Seville was for the rear . . . .
It was a pretty big tear up of the Nova platform to get to the new Seville. We’ve all read that the wheelbase was made longer for better rear sear leg room. But there’s also a difference in front, at a minimum a more forward vertical cut line between the front door and fender. It’s almost as if they pushed the cabin rearward and then made up for that with more WB for the rear seat. This may be it. It would lengthen the dash to axle by pushing the dash back. On the C/D they did that by pushing the wheel forward.
The point is that a long dash to axle ratio is important enough that Cadillac took extra steps to play that up in the first Seville, at least visually. No such effort was made on the ’86 cars, in part, because of the limitations of FWD.
In fact, Paul IS right, this issue has been gone over several times here. In addition, I own one, (and there were several 70s/80s Novas in the family as well), I can tell you for a fact, the extra length IS in the back seat, not ahead of the front door.
Take a really good look at the space between the front door gap and the inside of the wheel openings… It’s a visual thing there, your eye may be fooled a bit from the 2 varying styles of wheel openings (round and squared-off), but the actual distance is the same, with a slight edge on the Cadillac in the b/s molding area due only to the rounded style opening curving forward more abruptly than the Nova’s squared style. The point is that the wheelbase difference is in the rear, not the front.
I won’t even get into weight-distribution, handling or ride… but personally just on pure styling alone, I can’t stand any car when it has a few inches up front after the door gap, but a mile ahead of the wheel-opening until the bumper, as was so common in the 80’s.
It looks so cheap and… just wrong.
Looking at those pics again I would say it’s a combination of the cut line between the door and fender going straight up on the Seville, the difference in the wheel openings (as you mentioned) and the stainless trim on the lower doors and rockers which draw your eye more horizontally.
What a set of tricks. I never thought of the Nova and a “long hood” car but always felt that way about the Seville, as if there could be a big block Caddy under there.
The dash to axle on the Seville must have looked special to others because speciality builders morphed it into all kinds of extremes, and it still looked like a Seville.
See Paul’s fun article on the phenomenon from his TTAC days. He didn’t like the gen 1 Seville any more back then!
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/09/clueless-classics-those-deadly-glamorous-seville-conversions/
There’s no doubt the short dash-to-axle-ratio(what an uncreative name for that design aspect) didn’t help matters much but I doubt it would look any better if the wheels were pulled forward any. There’s just too much awkwardness elsewhere and considering how much better the 92 looked with the same basic chassis, that area really doesn’t seem to stand out so bad
That area is critically important. Before 2005 Audi was handicapped with a short dash to axle because of its FWD platforms. The A6 in particular looked really stodgy compared to RWD competitors.
Audi went to work and developed a new more compact transmission that allowed the front wheels to move forward in their FWD platforms. Looking at Audis today its hard to tell they are FWD layout. This took a ton of work and investment and was done to improve styling and remain competitive. Today Audi sales are on a tear.
I agree with you though that pushing the front wheels forward on the ’86 GM cars wouldn’t have helped much. The detailing after Mitchell retired went downhill and they never found a worthy design language to replace the sheer look, at least not until the Art & Science theme came along. The ’92 Seville was an exception.
I also like these, and always did. I like a lot of the details of the exterior design, especially the crisp yet rounded hood and front fender lines. I know the rear wheels are pushed pretty far back, but aren’t wheels closer to the corners supposed to be a good thing? (I know the front overhang is long, but at least they made up for it in back!)
I’m much less enthusiastic about the interior, and I agree that it looked cheap, especially compared to the German competition. But I always liked the clean, compact exterior, especially on the STS version. Is it a “deadly sin”? Yes. But sin can be so interesting!
So, Claude . . . I imagine you look down on those you buy Cartier or Tiffany watches bragging out the ‘great features’ your Timex or Casio comes with . . . .
Never heard of passing down/reselling/trading an old Timex or Casio for a new one . . .
People do pass down Mercedes/BMW, or can resell or trade them at a higher price than the “value packed” Hyundai . . . .
But then, you probably prefer Payless Shoes or Florshiems, Clarks, Bostonians . . .
THE SEVILLE WAS NOT A NOVA
From “Car Lust” auto blog
“Originally, the Seville was to begin life as a modified Nova, and that’s where those rumors began. But in early development, the Cadillac design team decided that the Seville’s rear passenger floor area needed about three more inches of legroom than a four-door Nova body offered.
So new rear doors were crafted, the floorpan was changed, and extensive structural modifications were made. GM declared the Seville’s body shell as the K-Body, though it did share parts from the Nova’s X-Body and the Camaro/Firebird’s F-Body.”
From “Ate Up With Motor”
“To distinguish it from the Nova, the Seville’s platform received a new chassis designation, the K-body. Engineer Robert Burton, whom Bob Templin assigned to oversee the K-body project, used Fourier analysis to identify sources of noise, vibration, and harshness in the X-body structure, which Cadillac then made a valiant effort to mitigate. The front subframe was attached with six Isoflex rubber-bushed clamps rather than the Nova’s four, supplemented by two tiny hydraulic shock absorbers; another hydraulic damper was used to brace the sides of the driveshaft tunnel. Body bolts were held with epoxy resin, rather than conventional washers, and Teflon liners were placed between the leaves of the rear springs. It was far from elegant, Templin admitted, but it worked.”
From Wikapedia
“The rear-wheel drive K platform was based closely on the very similar 4th generation GM X platform, and 2nd generation F-bodies of the 1970s, all of which shared many components in common. The K platform stretched the X platform to 114.3 inch wheelbase, but also improved isolation from sources of structure borne vibration in the drivetrain and suspension. While automobiles built on these three platforms had different bodies, they shared the same unibody construction technology using a separable elastomer isolated front subframe assembly”
There it is, it won’t change what people want to believe the legend (rumor) is always more fun then the reality, but at least you know. Now, let’s talk about the Bentley which is nothing more then a Volkswagen 😉
Thanks Otto, for posting more facts. I often wonder how many people have even driven a Gen1 Seville at all… ever, let alone 3 decades on. Still tight, quiet, solid, smooth, balanced & comfortable. (Let alone the bonus looks and compliments it receives as more time passes). Timeless, classy & classic lines.
If I was a successful adult in those days, instead of a 12yo boy, I would have gladly paid top dollar for the opportunity to drive such a special car as it was for the times. I’m glad to own one now as I would have liked to then.
I really love everything about my 35yo 1979 Cadillac Seville.
edit: re: this post, Don’t get me started on the ’86. yikes.
Where I’m from everyone felt the same way about the Seville that you did. It wasn’t shrugged off. My impression was same as yours at your age.
Please post a pic of your car. Is your fuel injection working property or did you convert to a carb?
Hi calibrick, If you click on my avatar, there are some pics there. I was currently working on contrasting the interior until the cold really hit here, so stored away until spring now.
I work on the car myself, and do alot, inside and out, whatever is needed or that I may decide to do on my own. I am the 2nd owner, and the car has 37K Laramie Beige and Saddle Sierra Grain Leather.
Yes, I’m happy to say that I have the fuel injection system working flawlessly, just like new.
Thanks to Rock Auto, I replaced all of the injectors, o-rings and seals with new parts. (Critical to avoid car fires which several of these have met their demise from the high pressure fuel pumps and failed .10cent o-rings), I also stocked up a reserve box of NOS sensors, and efi system related parts for any future repair needs.
I happen to be a member of the CadillacLaSalle Club, and this summer, I met a local member who is a retired Electrical Engineer. He just so happens to be one of the only people in the world who collects, tears-down and repairs 1970’s Cadillac ECUs for the 1st Gen fuel-injection systems. He is a kind, intelligent and fascinating man. He even sends these out globally for European Cadillac fans.
For anyone interested, here is a link to his photobucket with tons of interesting and tech stuff on 70’s Cadillac EFI systems and the genius contraption he designed to emulate a running EFI Cadillac for testing. >> http://s93.photobucket.com/user/bcroe/library/?sort=6&page=1
Because of meeting Bruce, 35 years on, my EFI Seville runs like it just rolled off the line without me having to tear out the injection components and install a carb setup. I have a rebuilt ECU with his own designed MAP sensor, and have replaced the internal fuel pump relay with an external unit to stop the ECU from frying (the main cause of dead ecu’s & resulting carb conversions). I even have a 2nd back-up ECU in-case this one goes later on.
So, she should be good to go (EFI intact), for another 35 years 🙂
Apologies to anyone bothered by my off topic Gen1 post, but we are all real car fans here and I am happy to reply to a question from another car nut like me, or the rest of us. Hope everyone can relate and understand. Thanks, Mark~
Great pics, Mark. That was the color I was looking for when I happened upon mine. Looks like you’ve done some extensive work. I haven’t had to tackle anything major. Good info on the EFI.
Here’s mine 29K original miles
26K with Astroroof? Another rare find, you are lucky!
Sure, Mark, always nice to meet another “’79er” I was in college when the Seville first arrived. A neighbor bought one and I was smitten at first sight. My father, a life long Cadillac man hated it, he didn’t get it. That’s when I knew Cadillac nailed it. I remember having a “fantasy garage” that contained a Seville and a Corvette. To me, life couldn’t get better then that
I would def agree on the fantasy garage… as long as the Seville was a 1979 and the Corvette was a 1966 split-window coupe.
Of course, all these years on… there now would have to be at least 5 additional Cadillacs and a couple Lincolns (1976 Town Car & 1990 LSC) in there for me 🙂
” 1966 split-window coupe. ”
I’d pay good money to see one of those, lol
lol, sorry Otto…. on the Vette, meant 1963!
Otto: Thanks for that (familiar as it is), but who ever said that the Seville was a Nova? Not me.
My comment wasn’t directed at you per se, though it seems like any story about a Seville has to include a “Nova” reference, it’s directed at anyone who may not understand the difference between badge engineering and the actual engineering that went into the original Seville
I don’t see the big deal. Any story about a Mustang includes a Falcon(or Pinto, or Fairmont) reference. It’s a key part to their story, just as the Nova is to the Seville. If there wasn’t an X/F body to start from the Seville would have been a much different car. I agree that it’s inaccurate to call it a rebadged Nova but I don’t think I’ve seen any articles here make a flat out claim like that before either.
Holy smokes Mark that’s the nicest Seville I’ve seen since they were new. I have an ’86 Fleetwood Brougham in similar condition and color combo. I bought it when I couldn’t find a nice Seville like yours and love it. Tight as a drum. The only thing showing its age is the hood insulator which I see you replaced on yours.
Lots of guys here love the 70s Cadillacs and would be happy to read your post. I wish it came up when I was doing my research, I didn’t know about Bruce or that it was possible to keep the EFI running like new. Looking at the pics again your seat leather isn’t even torn, all the ones I looked at were.
What a beauty, thanks for the info!
calibrick,
I guess Cadillac got the leather from some serious high quality saddle-colored cows in 1979 🙂
In my Mom’s 1973 DeVille, the white leather was cracked to hell after just a couple years. I remember using liquid nurse’s white shoe polish (I think it was KIWI), on the seats whenever I detailed the car. It never did rub off on any clothes and it looked great to cover the black cracks.
So, I thought it was ‘white-leather thing’, but then in her 1983 Eldo Biarritz, the white leather was indestructible, of course, then…the motor was a TURD!
Now 35 yrs in the Seville, other than a few creases on the driver seat, the entire leather interior is like factory new.
BTW-Those hood insulations are on ebay, high-quality, precision OEM cut and cheap $$ Get one for the Fleetwood
This is the vendor i bought from with a link to your Fleetwood>>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/1980-1992-CADILLAC-FLEETWOOD-AND-BROUGHAM-HOOD-INSULATION-PAD-/330802996797?pt=Vintage_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&fits=Make%3ACadillac|Year%3A1986|Model%3AFleetwood&hash=item4d0565263d
Mark~
I remember this type of car back in TN during the 80s and 90s. Not just this one, but Eldos, Olds 98s, Buicks, Pontiacs…I couldn’t tell you much about which models they were, but they were always these downsized 4-doors with formal rooflines. Usually cranberry red, gunmetal grey, or navy blue….sometimes that off shit looking champagne color. Wire spoke hubcaps, thin whitewalls and usually some adult contemporary type of country station on the radio too. Always the same stodgy 50 something southern Baptist types that drove them too. When I worked for a small local grocery store from ’90-93 in high school I could pick out the customers that had cars such as this like clockwork every time!
The STS versions of the short bodies are actually pretty nice. I have a ’91 STS with the 4.9L and it still holds its own. Sure a new Accord V6 will eat it for lunch but the Accord doesn’t have full leather covered door panels and full leather seats, the best carpet ever put into a GM car and nevermind the Carpathian Elm burl throughout the interior. And the “oh s*@t” handles on the roof are leather covered as well. When I bought mine nearing six years ago, it still had the original “Computer Command Ride” struts–three settings, speed and g-force based–but it was still relatively soft overall with 84K on the clock. New Delcos last year really woke the handling up…it feels like a modern, firm-ish riding car with good handling and much of the nose-heavy feeling is gone as well. The 4.9L has proven fairly reliable (95K on it now), and as of Friday evening, is still faster than a 2000ish Tahoe. It still gets looks from people who know what it is and is really one of the most entertaining cars I’ve owned. It has its quirks…the turn signal indicator bongs like a chime instead of click-clacking, the cup holder isn’t the most useful, fuel door and trunk releases are inside the flip-up glove box, wipers are on the dash instead of a stalk, and with the moonroof, it’s really quite small on the inside. There’s a little bit of plasti-chrome on the inside, mainly around the door handles and window switches but it could be worse. And at least everything on the dash has padding, unlike a lot of newer cars. When I look back and think about the other cars I was looking at at the time I bought this, I have no regrets…I have a pretty rare weekend car that’s brimming with character and can still show its taillights to unsuspecting drivers. Of cars I’ve owned, it’s one of two or three that really make me smile, despite its flaws. And coming from me, a 39 year old guy who’s been obsessed with cars since I was 4 years old, I think that’s high praise.
Phone issues yesterday but here’s a pic of my ’91 STS
Sharp Car!
Reading this a few years after initial publication, the paragraph about the ergonomics stands out. No, Paul, it’s not just you at 6’3″ or whatnot that finds these cars uncomfortable; the flat and soft seats and butt on the floor seating position is uncomfortable at a compact 5’7″ too. I simply can’t understand how a committee could’ve purposely designed such awful seats in any car. I find them uncomfortable after about 10 mins. My friend’s 95 LeSabre, a car I really liked, was a no-go after a few miles behind the wheel. It was a car to enjoy from the rear seat only. And before we give the Taurus too much praise, it too had terrible front seats until 1996.
What the Seville did a good job of doing, perhaps, is selling GM’s cheaper cars. The cheapest Delta 88 or the more loaded versions of the N-bodies all had that soggy, smooth ride and easy torque, something the competing Japanese cars couldn’t really offer.
I drove a Civic halfway across the country, it was a miserable experience for that very reason. Legroom was fine. The seating position was terrible.
Also had that same problem with my 4Runner. Tacomas are the same. High floors make for an awkward driving position. Of course, in those cases it’s a compromise for off-road ability.
I had a 90 Riviera for a period of time. I did not find it to be a bad car for long trips. The back seat might have been a different story, but I don’t recall anyone riding back there. Usually I am alone.
I got to sit in this Seville earlier this year. In isolation it has American charm but a close look at the detailing gives away the game.,They are heavy and cramped. Having seen the Riviera (penultimate version) up close, it’s wierdly roomier and clearly better made.
Super article, thanks!
I’m curious about the E/K platform- the previous model used the UPP drive train that was unique to that platform, while the 1986 version went to the transverse layout.
How much of the E/K was shared with other models?
The A body Celebrities were an upgraded X-car and the U.S. J-cars like the Cimmarron shared a lot of X-car engineering too.
Did the E/K share much with these cars? How about their N-body doppelgängers?
The N-bodies were related to the FWD X/J/A cars.
The E/K cars were related to the 1985 transverse FWD C-bodies.
Thanks!
This car is not anywhere as ugly as and 85 deville. Still I think it should have been sold as a cimerron instead if a Seville. Cadillac should have kept the d bodies and the Seville and Eldorado and sold this as entry level car. They should have injected the 368 and used with 4 speed. The Seville after this was even worse looking and plain.
Blaming the poor average sales of the bustleback on its styling doesn’t seem supported by facts. It sold 40K units in its first year and last year. It had less sales drop from 1979 than the C-body.
It’s much more likely that its sales drop in the middle of its run was closely linked to a) general market conditions that reached a low point in 1982 and b) god-awful Cadillac engines. Styling is subjective, but those are objective facts.
uuuuummmmmmmmm, i actually like that seville. you dont see them anymore or the other gm look a likes,which to me means you have something that no one else has and dont have to pay a lot of $$$ for it. it’s hard for me to put cadillac down because when i was 13 i asked my mom what was the biggest car in the world at that time (1973) and she said……cadillac i looked up caddy and found that it was the top luxury car in the world at that time,i was hooked.
Am I the only one that sees potential in the oddity of this car’s rump being part of an attempt to keep some continuity with the second generation Seville’s bustle back?
There is some potential that sharing a platform where all the other cars were developed as coupes only may have added to the ill proportions.
I count this among the confused mid 80s GM cars that tried to put modern cues and late ‘70s trim and sensibilities on the same car. It just didn’t work well. It’s like a generation of cars that should have been skipped over. The 1992 Seville would have pushed the leading edge of style in 1986, while being distinct from Ford’s jellybean approach to updating its cars. The ’92 version clearly worked from a sales standpoint, bringing sales in line with the success of the first and second generation Sevilles.
I still say the Seville failed like all of the other GM E-bodies because they were too radical of a departure for the typical GM luxury car buyer. They were just too small to be accepted without a chuckle. They were all somewhat bland and lost all of the presence that the previous cars had so much of. Plus, the smaller size equated to economy car status in most people’s minds – let alone a Cadillac Seville! Let’s face it, not only were these cars purchased for their looks but also for status which these totally lacked.
In late 1985 (Thanksgiving week – almost to the day today) my Mom had totaled her beloved ’79 Riviera, When we went to look at these new offerings from GM my parents didn’t give them a second glance. I recall my mother’s reaction – “That little thing is a Riviera? It’s homely!” Plus for the prices GM was asking for these newly downsized beauties they were hardly a bargain. Being so late in the model year there were only a few leftover Eldorados and Rivieras in the area. She saw a beautiful light beige Eldorado in the showroom of our local Caddy dealer and they quickly pulled it out of the showroom so she could drive it. I was psyched – I always wanted my parents to get a Cadillac. Well, we didn’t have to drive very far to see that she hated it. It was such a dog! Coming out of a 350 V-8 and going to the HT4100 was a joke. So we scratched the Eldorado off the list. Then we finally saw a new ’85 Riviera that she liked – it even had the suede interior. It was sold the next day when we went back to get it, so the dealer suggested she try the new ’86 Riviera. She drove it around the lot and hated it. I can remember her telling my Dad she didn’t like the way it looked, so why bother even moving further? Well, Mom got so fed up with the General she ended up getting a nice Cobalt Blue 1983 Jaguar XJ-6!
Yep, way too radical. When the Big Three had pushed “lower, wider, longer” as being the real marks of a true luxury car for so long, these truncated things looked like economy cars, even next to what came immediately before and certainly just a decade or so prior.
I’d gladly take this era of Seville as a “just for the hell of it” car but back then, I don’t think I could have pulled the trigger.
Exactly. Today they may be more accepted for what they are, but back then consumers had a certain image of a luxury car in their heads and these did nothing to fulfill that image. Better yet, these were the cars that were supposed to separate themselves from the deVilles and failed miserably at doing so. They were supposed to be a step up from the deVilles in prestige and uniqueness but sadly they just didn’t work.
I think back to the FWD deVilles/Fleetwoods – my Grandmother had one – and remember them selling quite well. Even though they did blend in with the Olds 98 and Buick Electra, they were very space efficient and much easier to handle than the huge RWD behemoths they replaced. It was as if consumers accepted them more than they did the E-bodies.
delerium75, you have the car, and the wheels, I was looking for recently. Can you post other pics, including maybe a straight-on side view, of your car ? This envelope excited my interest when new, and I haven’t seen an example for quite a while.
Any reason why those cast wheels don’t show up in any other pics on this thread ? Were they rarely ordered ? Was that a stock wheel on your model ?
Thanks — Steve
I have a 1991 Cadillac Seville but it looks like 1992 Seville, can someone tell me what happened. Also, my kid had a fender bender and I like to get some parts for it , where to look please. Or trade for a Motercycle.
Hey, I’m commenting on an old post! But why not.
In 2009(ish), I bought an ’89 Seville from a neighbor for cheap, as a third car/toy and to keep some miles off the ’03 Town & Country and and ’05 Taurus. It had 150,000 miles on it. It was a nice dark blue with a lighter blue roof. The roof was covered in that hideous fake convertible-looking junk. It was such an ugly car, like an ugly puppy, that you wanted to give it some love because you figured it needed it. I expected it to hate it
when I test drove it.
But I didn’t.
First I was surprised by how low it was. I was comparing it to my Taurus, which sits pretty low. It had a much more solid door feel. It had a nice “clunk”. The door glass was much thicker. The seat was flat and slippery but instantly comfortable. The ignition cylinder was typical GM crap. The shifter felt solid and it went into gear instantly and without a peep. It had better torque than I expected. It went down the road quietly. The road feel was nil, but the steering felt tight and utterly silent. I was surprised at how strong the trans felt. Just felt like it was a quality transmission. Firm and tight shifts. It got about the same mileage as the Taurus despite being a little quicker. The 4.5L V8 was pleasant sounding, though kinda wimpy for a V8. One of the rear calipers did not work, resulting in poor braking and a lot of pedal pressure necessary. I could not get it to work nor did any of the salvage yards have one. All the GM craptastic dash and trim was there and compared to the van and Taurus it was embarrassing. It had every dash notification the car ever put out in it’s memory since new, and it was quite a list. “Coolant Low”, “AC Pressure Low”. That kind of stuff. About 20 or so things in it’s life history. After using as a work car for about four months, and honestly dogging the s**t out of it for much of that, it started to have hesitation at low RPMs. It felt like clogged injectors. So since it was no longer fun, I sold it to a local shop for what I paid for it. No harm no foul.
I talked to the manager there some months later when I took the Ford in for AC work. He said the Cadillac needed all new injectors. Very expensive. He also said the current owner is having a recurring problem with the whole chip-in-the-key starting thing, whatever that’s called. So it has been needing some pricey stuff lately, but not for me. I sold it at the right time.
But just last year I saw it driving through the city. I couldn’t miss it’s ugly roof and gold trim. The whitewalls were no longer clean as I had kept them. I wanted to give the driver the extra gold trunk key I had kept as a souvenir, but it wasn’t on me. (It was the “Gold Edition”, whatever that was) So the car is still alive and being driven. I had used the little bottle of touch-up paint I bought in about a thousand places for all the tiny chips and was pleased to see it still looked good. I am oddly good at that kind of detailing. I still have the Taurus and it has become very rusty while the old Cadillac still seems to have none. At least none you can see. When I had it the underneath was freakishly corrosion-free. So Cadillac did a very good job at that anyway. That kind of rust-free longevity in Northwest Indiana is virtually unheard of. Though I must say my ’03 Avalon is also virtually clean underneath as well. But that is way newer and also a Toyota. The Cadillac was a surprise because I expected crap and it was somewhat better than that…
Since the former owner was so distraught, I assume you didn’t respond by snarking at his automotive taste. 🙂
I agree. The blue one pictures is from ’90-’91, where the front-end dimensions were finally in harmony with the rear. ’89 and before looked somewhat gawky.
As yes, those proportions stopped me in my tracks when I first noticed them: What IS that? That’s just wrong.
And the GM front heavy feel. A co-worker had an Olds Tornado Trofeo or something like that, and despite the big tires that thing cornered like a rock on a string. Very unsettling feeling.
I like seeing these reruns, as of last year Carmine was still screaming at the sky elsewhere about how biased against GM the whole world is. 😉
If there was any car I kind of forgot existed it was the third Gen Seville, I remember the stubby little Eldorado and it’s stubby little PLC platformmates, and I remember the FWD Deville’s just fine as well, despite seeing very few of any of them in recent years, but the 86 Seville is like a black hole in my automotive consciousness between the bustleback and 1992s.
I think the real problem with the Seville going into the Bustleback to some degree, is what was the purpose in its existence after the Deville downsized, exactly? The bustleback did gain FWD so I’ll give it a pass for novelty(though not nearly as novel as the UPP used to be) but the thing looks and es equipped the same as a Deville, with the most obvious difference being the bustleback trunk. By the 86 what was the appeal? What was the purpose but to pad the lineup? The Deville and Seville looked basically the same (stubby and ugly) had the same FWD powertrain, same basic interior theme, and seemingly the same buyer demographic, was it just to keep the Cadillac lineup “full”? Name one thing the 86 Seville does that a 86 Deville wouldn’t, or vice versa. This problem existed in both the fourth and fifth Gen too, all it seemed like was you got tailfins and skirts on the rear half of the de’ and a more euro flavored rear on the se’
I think some neighbors of mine traded their bustleback for one of these when they came out. They were nice people and they died too young, so I won’t say anything about their taste in cars.