(first posted 12/1//2014) The 1971-76 General Motors B- and C-body cars are very polarizing. You either love them or can’t stand them. I’m in the former camp, and especially when we’re talking the more prestigious C-body De Villes, Fleetwoods, Electras and Ninety-Eights. Of course, the style leader of these three mobile living rooms was the Coupe de Ville–and possibly one of the best model names ever.
Wait, you might say. What does he mean by the title? A 1959 Cadillac looks nothing like a 1976. Well, yes and no. While there are many, many differences between them, they both share a large, uncompromising look and size. But both could never be mistaken for anything but a Cadillac. And, with both cars, you were living large!
It was the last hurrah for excess–excess luxury, excess trim, excess lardage–you name it. The EPA and upcoming CAFE standards were going to quickly put the kibosh on that, and very soon.
But for one last year, 1976, you could get a big, and I mean BIG Coupe de Ville. BMW and Mercedes owners may have sniffed at such a parade float, but there were plenty of people who loved them too. 114,482 1976 Coupe de Villes were made, with a 130-inch wheelbase, a weigh-in of 5,025 pounds and a starting price of $9,067. Wire wheel covers–soon to dominate Cadillacs right up through the early 1990s–were a new optional extra.
They did not have the fastidious assembly and materials of, say a W116 Mercedes S-Class, but it also did not have the flop-sweat inducing price tag of the über Autobahn cruiser. And such colors! Several velours were offered, in addition to the optional Sierra Grain leather shown here.
A regular riot of colors were offered too–red, blue, green, tan, black, burnt orange, tan, mauve and white. And with white, you also had your choice of red, blue, green, tan or black trim–dash, carpet and seat belts.
So different from the “Rubbermaid” interior color choices of today’s cars–though some reds and browns are slowly making inroads in 2014-15 models. From the 1960s through the 1980s, one of the perks of buying a domestic luxury car was the extensive interior and exterior colors, including extra-cost metallic paints–Moondust on Lincolns, and Firemist on Cadillacs.
These were very attractive, and so comfy. True, there was no lumbar support, and the padded door panels utilized GM’s vaunted Insta-Split™ vinyl and Insta-Disintegrate™ foam padding, but they sure looked good new! And this well-preserved Crystal Blue Firemist Coupe, owned by my friend K.V. Dahl, shows every bit of why these cars were so successful in the 1970s.
Starting in 1977, the all-you-can-eat luxury lard domestic cars started dieting, with shrunken albeit attractive Cadillacs, Buicks and Oldsmobiles appearing in showrooms. The Chrysler New Yorker got a reprieve through the 1978 model year, and the Continental and Mark V through ’79, but all the biggies would fall in line, thanks to new rules, regulations, and buyer taste. But in 1976, you could still get a little 1959 Caddy in your ’76: Space, curb weight, gigantic engine, and in-your-face American luxury car style!
Related: CC Visits the Old Car Home
Not crazy on the wires, but that is sweet.
Wires were top of the line at the time. They look completely in place. What would you choose, 26s?
I prefer the base hubcaps. Clean, traditional, not so broughamy as the wire hubcaps which became almost mandatory on cadillacs in the 80’s.
I have 72 Oldsmobile hubcaps with Cadillac crests swapped on them on my 76 Coupe DeVille (same color too!)
That price tag just brought you a MB 240auto back then. A 450SEL was a whopping $21k?. All relative half the price, half the build quality Was the Caddy half the car of the 450sel?.
A friend of my brothers brought a 74 back from the US when he returned 2 door luxo barge, nice soft ride and all the fruit it was a bit softly sprung for any real speed on our poor quality roads but fine on the motorway didnt have any wheel covers though he probably threw them away, Fake wires look childish and are certainly out of place on a luxury offering.
Not in 1976 they weren’t. I was there.
Outside the Bizarro World of Brougham, fake wire covers have always been the absolute lamest way to dress up a steel wheel.
Different culture, mate. Seems weird to us, I know; seems prestigious to them.
So the clue wasn’t a swimming pool then Tom? 😉
Count me as a fan of the ’71-6 Caddies – albeit the ’71-3 where the body side lines merged into a point by the taillights is best IMHO. Love the strong yet simple styling, the squared-off front wheel arches, and the wheel spats. These things are the 1970s ultimate American car to me. I vastly prefer the sedans though – if Cadillac could make them pillarless, why the heck couldn’t the offer roll-down windows for the CdV?! Not that fussed on the interior design, but the colour-coordinated belts and dash really stood out before I read the accompanying words.
I’ll echo my countryman Bryce and our near-neighbour Don in that fake wire wheels covers are the height of naffness. But then again I hate real wire wheels on anything other than old Jaguars anyway.
But wheels aside, here’s to excess luxury, excess trim, and excess lardage!
+1 on the sedan. One of the few cars that I think the 4 door is much better looking than the coupe. That holds for all the mid 70’s GM fullsizers that still offered a true hardtop on the sedan but not the coupe. Hardtops rock!
Well you’re most likely not familiar with the film, but I just can’t resist ) It seems Danila Bagrov’s car is finally found ! ))
1:05:20 to 1:06:55
Better known movie, lesser quality image.
My fave is Corey Haim’s Caddie in Licence To Drive! Of course it’s a 72/3 and a sedan, but still…!
What about Guido the Killer Pimps 75 Coupe DeVille in Risky Business?
Heard of the movie but haven’t seen it. Suspect I now need to find it…!
Classic 80s movie, although it required serious suspension of disbelief when the Coupe deVille managed to hang in there through the corners with the Porsche 928.
HAHA!
Yeah, though it is fun to watch, and I do love me some early “phone dial” wheeled 928 action, especially in brown!
Maybe Guido was a more experienced driver compared to Joel?
Eternal pimp mobile.
But you simply gotta love´em for all their splendor.
I kind of like these big “Chevrolets” 🙂
But I’ve only driven one once. Who was best in the terms of ride comfort and quietness between the Continental Town Car and the Fleetwood (DeVille)? I have lately driven a Town Car from 75, and I have to say it impressed me very much in the NVH-section…
Lincoln was the leader in quiet, smooth ride in the 70s. Cadillac was pretty good, and Imperial lagged behind, lacking the isolation from the road that the others gave you.
It’s true, you’re less isolated from the road when attached to it than when your Mark-a-Lounger de Ville slides into a ditch. :p
Torsion bars for the win!
Ok, thanks :). That’s what i thought, I have to say the Lincoln was outstanding when it came to comfort on good and bad roads. The Cadillac was good.
Since you (probably) live in the US, who was the best of the new B/C -body vs the old B/C body in terms of quietness and ride comfort?
I have to say that the 1977 Buick Riviera (B-body) I used as a daily driver impressed me when I got it, but after driving the Lincoln, I’m unsure how good it realy was..
I find that the Cadillac is extremely smooth, but it still has some road feel, which is nice, the Lincolns are very smooth, but they completely lack any type of road feel, making it feel like you’re driving via a video feed in your living room. I’ve never driven an Imperial, but I did have a 1977 New Yorker Brougham which essentially was an Imperial, and it did have a similar nice mixture of isolated ride and road feel like the Cadillac. The Lincolns were just too isolated for me.
I agree. I thought that in the 1970s the ride of the Cadillac was superior.
Yes. You can actually push a 75-76 Cadillac a little bit and it wants to respond. It feels good to drive, not like it’s trying to mush the outer front tire into the pavement in the most moderate of turns. By the way, I found that the next generation (I had a 77 and an 80) didn’t really handle better.
Also, with judicious use of the right foot you can get 12-15 MPG out of a 75-76 Caddy. A contemporary Lincoln might never get into the double digits.
Wasn’t Chevrolet on the B-Body?
Chevrolet’s were, and for 2 years in the 70’s, the Riviera was a B-body too, before it returned to the FWD E-body in 1979.
To me, the last of the truly classy Cadillacs was the 1958, the final iteration of a line of good looking, flashy yet with a touch of subtle, going back to the 1950 model, with small fins and a manageable size. Starting with the 1959’s, Cadillac went to massive excess, only backing off slightly in the mid 60’s. I can easily understand why Mercedes and BMW started closing in around that time.
Obviously, I’m no fan of the 71-76’s. Big, porky and cheap. With vinyl roofs (eech!).
+1
Well the 76 DeVille’s (coupe or sedan) was 231 inches long. This was due to the bumper standards. The 72’s were a couple of inches shorter. The 59’s were 225 inches long (matching the Buick Electra 225). However, the 54 Coupe de Ville was 223.4 inches long, the 57 was 221, and the 58 was 222. Perhaps the big change for 59 is that the DeVille becomes a series of its own rather than part of the series 62s.
I don’t see that Cadillac suddenly become huge in 1959. I think Cadillac’s were big cars throughout the 50s. Wheelbase increased during the 50’s, so that by the mid 50’s the wheelbase is 129 inches.
I wish I could have showed this car to the used car salesman who thought my Highlander was big…
I’ve heard the term “boat” thrown around to describe cars that are no where near “boat” status, people just don’t know what a “big” car really is anymore.
The thing I can’t get over with these cars is the cheesiness of the interior detailing. I like some of the color schemes and I don’t mind the laid back lounge-like ambiance (although with luxury cars of this era, I’m sometimes painfully reminded that a soft seat is not necessarily a comfortable one). But the impression of richness falls off sharply on closer inspection. It’s like you can see the profit margins.
Yes, real luxury cars do not use what looks like woodgrain contact paper on the door panels. Even sadder is the fact that the woodgrain contact paper was the highest quality part of the door panels.
I would also point out that “real luxury cars” don’t use Pinto steering wheels and F100 wiper and headlight knobs, but I’ll probably get flamed for being biased again….
Its a shame Cadillac couldn’t up their standards to something like this Mark IV interior, here we have 2 different fake woodgrain contact papers, because Ford took the trouble to send expeditionary teams to the deepest fake tree forests in the Amazon to harvest different sheets of fake wood for their finest.
I will hand it to them the fake wood makes the Granada spec Philco radio look a little better….nah, not really
Arguing about which of these once-proud true luxury cars had the worse wood-grain contact-paper is…sad. But it’s true; both of them really were rather pathetic in such critical details. It’s exactly the kind of thing that turned off way to many buyers after they might have ridden in someone’s Mercedes.
For an increasing number of upscale buyers, this was just not acceptable.
Though I will point out that both Cadillac and Lincoln tried to move back to real wood as soon as possible, real wood disappeared from Cadillac around 1969 and returned in 1986, Lincoln started offering real wood again on the Fox Continentals.
Real wood is a give or take its mostly a decorative piece really, someone could have been as equally impressed by the wood in someones Jaguar, but they probably would have been disappointed with everything else, it one part of the equation, would I rather have real wood or really good air conditioning?
Having spent a load of time in a 1979 Cadillac and a 1979 Mk V, the Lincoln has a better interior, but not by a whole lot. Lots of it is parts bin Ford, but the Lincoln has much better brakes than the Cadillac.
In the Whale Whopper generation, both cars were just astoundingly enormous. There weren’t a lot around on the coast because they were too hard to park. The rick folks here clued in on MB stuff long before this point, by 1965 all the snooty horsie types had them, or Volvos. My uncle had a 1973 Sedan DeVille and it was a very cool car. It actually felt fairly safe to drive if you kept it down below 75 mph. Above that, the front end would lift off the road and go all squirrelly. But set the cruise at 75 and the 472 would haul it up Pikes Peak.
The Lincoln Whale Whopper handled so badly I thought they were dangerous. I drove around a 1977 Town Car for a few days and it was gutless, had prodigious thirst and was very hard to drive because it was so soft and the brakes weren’t good. However, the interior was much nicer then the Caddy.
So, it’s really a toss up, guys. Besides, they are just old cars.
The ’74 interior was cheesier. Fake roses? That’s not contact paper…?
Why didn’t the US industry use real wood laminate ala Jaguar and MB. Booth sold in the US so nothing to do with safety reg?. So tacky and days so why bother?.
LOL at that shifter! It looks like a chopstick in someones hair.
I think we can all agree the Caddy’s interior was a lot nicer than the Mark IV’s. It’s true about the contact paper on the doors but please note the vinyl inserts which were floating like “islands”. It was a very impressive look.
Other nice touches included the crooked shift lever snaking through the tight space and the door lock knob right in the middle of the door. That fascinated me as a kid.
Someone mentioned the arc shape of the dash and I agree that was attractive. It gave the interior a modern feeling.
For the record it wasn’t me who said these weren’t solid cars, that was just about the doors. The ’74 road the same as my granddad’s ’70 SDV and I was very used to that.
It was the details that were still really nice in the Cadillacs, even with the fake wood, there were crests and Cadillac scripts all over the interior like little easter eggs, the crooked shifter you mentioned, the courtesy lights in the doors, the rear door handles on the Eldorados, the wreathed knobs on the headlight and radio controls, not to mention that a Cadillac of this era was still all Cadillac.
I believe there were Cadillac crests on the ash tray lids in the doors too, weren’t there?
Yes, there were, and the lighters were wreathed like the headlight and radio control knobs.
Agreed, the interiors on these Cadillacs tend to make me an Oldsmobile 98 guy, it seemed like you got a better interior for a better price.
But, I’ll give the ’76 Cadillac some credit, the dash seems cleaned up compared to some earlier and Fleetwood iterations.
I’ve come around to appreciate Olds’ interior quality from the mid 60s on, especially the 98 LS and Regency. For some reason they weren’t as popular around my part of suburban Pittsburgh as Electras and especially Cadillacs.
I’ve always found the grained faux wood on the 74-76s particularly egregious – Cadillac, and GM overall we’re much better at faking wood both before and after these cars. And the rectangular headlights weren’t as well integrated as the senior Buicks and Oldsmobiles.
But as Tom notes, they were the last of their kind, and it’s good to see a well cared-for example.
The ’74s were weird–fake roses on the door handles and a whole string of them on the dash.
Agreed. The Olds 98 LS and Regency interiors were far superior to the Cadillac interiors of those years. They sold a lot more of those Electras and DeVilles as company cars than they did the Olds 98s.
They actually toned down the ’75s and ’76s–the ’74s were garish. Fake wood everywhere. Even the door handles with scroll designs.
Agreed–I love, absolutely love, the color scheme of the interior. White leather with blue dash/carpets is always a beautiful look. But the details do let it down, like the too-similar-to-a-Chevy dash, the fake wood, and the fact that it feels built to a (low) price. Ze Germans, on the other hand, knew how to build a high-quality interior, but would consider white leather and bright blue carpets/dash to be ein bisschen verruckt…
As a kid sitting in these at the auto show, I remember thinking that the “wood grain” contact paper used on the doors looked cheap and cheesy. If you looked closely, you could see the wrinkles where it was glued to the door (at least this was hidden when the door was closed).
The 71 to 76 Cadillac’s were, IMHO, the ultimate in American luxury.
Back in Bensonhurst (a neighborhood in Brooklyn NY), these cars were everywhere. While most of them had leather interiors, on occasion you would see a 1974 to 1976 DeVille with the nifty and sporty plaid cloth interior. When equipped with the plaid interior,these DeVille’s sported such elegant exterior colors as orange, or green. I don’t recall the actual name Cadillac gave the orange, but the green was called Persian Lime. And of course, the interior matched the exterior color. I loved how the use of that plaid cloth was everywhere… seats, door panel pillows, backs of the front seats, and the assist straps.
The dashboard of the 74 to 76 model was so clean and elegant. If you look at the panel that housed the speedometer, it was actually shaped like the Caddy crest. The 74 speedo featured a silver background, while the 75 and 76 went back to black.
You mean this stuff? 1970 Maverick called, he wants his seat fabric back.
That’s the Calais interior. The DeVille had much nicer plaid seats !!! I believe even the Eldorado offered them. Also, you were able to get the matching pillow and lap robe. Imagine that !!!
The Eldo did offer plaid upholstured seats,but I only saw two or three. The Calais plaid interior was pretty cool. There was a white `76 Calais coupe with a grill cap, hood ornament, landau top and blue plaid interior near my house in Brooklyn. It was a Potemkin Cadillac “special”, and it was nice. Balmer Cadillac in Bay Ridge also offered dealer made specials on the Calais and De Ville coupes too.
I had a family friend whose Mom had a 1976 Calais. The interior would fit right in a BelAir.
Yeah, Caddies were always popular in `Da Hurst. Remember when the neighborhood youths would cruise up and down 86th.St in their Caddies on Friday and Saturday nights? Remember even in the coldest weather, they would have the driver`s window open and blast disco music or the soundtrack from “Saturday Nighty Fever”? Brooklyn`s equivalent to Detroit`s Woodward Av. BTW, remember the drag races they used to have on 2nd. Av by Bush Terminal? No Caddies there,but some pretty hot-and fast machines until the police shut it down by giving out heavy fines and impounding their vehicles. Ditto for Fountain Av. Memories!
“…on occasion you would see a 1974 to 1976 DeVille with the nifty and sporty plaid cloth interior.”
Wow does that bring back memories. My friend Robert had a dad who was a doctor and they were well off. The mom had at her disposal every day a brand-new 1974 Coupe DeVille with the orange plaid cloth AND a brand-new 1974 Lincoln 2-door, dark brown metallic with a matching dark brown cloth, which was more like panty hose material.
She was much younger than the dad and liked to go by Shelley, not Mrs. W. She was pretty chatty for a mom. Wondering what possessed them to buy two guzzlers in the middle of a gas crisis, I asked her how they dealt with odd & even days (gas rationing). She said “silly boy the Cadillac is odd, the Lincoln even!”
I couldn’t wait to take a ride in both and over the course of that summer I did. I was in the middle of my hate American cars phase and riding in the CDV was a let down. I mean nothing stood out except of course for the plaid. it was summer and we were wearing shorts and I remember the cloth feeling like sandpaper.
But that Lincoln, oh my. First off there was the quietness. In ’74 Ford was at the top of its game for this stuff and with the cloth interior it was just incredible. Then there was that new car smell. No one did it better than Ford in the 70s. It not only smelled good it made you feel good like there was a morphine mist in the air. The seat cloth felt like silk sheets.
I popped the “which is faster?” question on her one day and it was the Lincoln. They were having drivability issues with it though, which struck me as odd on a brand-new car. The Cadillac she said ran perfectly.
The orange you’re thinking of was called Mandarin. It was part of the special firemist colors that were offered for 1974, Mandarin, Persian Lime and Cranberry, which was a purple-dark red color.
I like the 5000 pounds, the 130 inches of wheelbase and the 500 cubic inches. In almost every other way, this car was a disappointment.
The 59 Cad was at least made from high quality materials. These were a cynical pimping of Cadillac’s reputation to sell an inferior car. If these had the structural integrity of the following generation, they would have been pretty good.
That Lincoln gained so much ground on Cadillac in the 70s says almost more about Cadillac than about Lincoln, especially given Cadillac’s tradition of insanely high owner loyalty.
Point taken, but don’t forget that a lot of those high-quality interior components were things like protruding metal knobs and such.
Materials technology being what it was, safer items did superficially appear to be made more cheaply. That’s just the way it was. I came of age in the mid-70s when the plastic interior thing was going full force. I remember looking at the dash in my mom’s 66 Mustang and just shaking my head at the gruesome possibilities, yet I drove it every day. Was it a chance for the factories to cheap-out by changing interior components to plastic in the name of “safety”, or were they genuinely interested in promoting their customers well being?, which just happened to augment the bottom line.
I think that they simply complying with safety standards. Had the big three been serious about their customers well being in a crash, the bodies would have been designed with more structural rigidity. For GM this did not occur until the 1995 Buick Riviera and Olds Aurora.
It’s all relative, in 1959 there must have been some old timer who thought the new models were cheaply made and gaudy compared to the Cadillac’s of his day…and he’d be right. But, the 59 was safer and so you would have to conclude the ’76 was safer than the ’59…and I guess a little more gaudy too. But, I can’t dis this Coupe de Ville, there are nicer examples out there, but it’s big, powerful and probably a joy to drive on a Sunday afternoon.
This is true, especially with the “pre-1948 only” Classic Car Club of America.
I always wondered how Cadillac managed to get such a massive engine or 500 cubes down to only 190 HP. Even with lowered compression and upcoming emission regulations they surely could have at least crested the 200 HP mark. Judging by all the Cadillac designed engines that came after- 425 with 180 HP, 368 with 145-150 HP for 1980 and only 140 for 1981 and then 125 for the 4.1 liter V8 in 1982 it would seem that Cadillac designed engines did not respond well to emissions requirements or Cadillac was underrating them.
None of the engines of that time responded well to the stopgap emissions equipment they had to make use of.
That 500ci mill was saddled with a 2.5″ single exhaust and (I believe) a single Catylitic Converter as well. Not exactly breathable.
It wasn’t about horsepower with those engines though, it was about getting enough torque to move in a smooth, quiet fashion.
I think all of GM’s 75-76 models had single catalytic converters. With the carburetor the 500 CID engine produced 360 lb-ft of torque, which was quite good. The 500 CID was never really designed to run a high speed, with even the 1970 Eldorado engine limited to about 4500 RPM’s. I really think that Cadillac limited the power output to make the fuel consumption reasonable. The Lincoln 430 in the late 50’s had a lot of power and was very thirsty.
Cats were expensive at the time, relatively speaking, I don’t think any car had true dual exhaust with 2 cats in the early years that they were required.
Quite a few mid-70s big Fords (LTD-Marquis-Torino-Elite-LTD-II etc) had dual cats, I remember seeing dual Y-pipes, a cat on each one, then down to a single exhaust. As for Mopar, well there’s this: If I see right, certain models had 3 of them.
They all had single cats, and it was the pellet style, super restrictive.
I have a 77 Chevelle with the factory cat still on it, and when I run a ‘test’ pipe in place of it, that 145hp 305 really wakes up, probably gains about 20hp according to the seat of the pants feel, mileage improves by 2mpg as well.
These engines were all about low end torque anyway, which was exactly what buyers wanted, too. The early 1960’s cars with the 390 were castigated for being too rough, so big displacement, low-revving motors were to be the way of the future from Cadillac. Even the early, high compression 472’s really didn’t rev that high, and their power figures were gross, and mostly fictional. It’s the 360 lb/ft, most of it right off idle, that make these cars seem powerful.
People only seem to fixate on the hp number and not the torque, yes, 190hp at 3600rpm, whatever, lets talk about the 360lb-ft of torque at a diesel like 2000 rpm.
Even a better indicator, look at the numbers that are being put down, in a 1975 Motor Trend “domestics vs imports” road test, a 5290lb 190hp 500 cid Eldorado put down 0-60 numbers of 10.9 and 17.60 through the quarter 78.19 mph.
By comparison, in the same test, the “uber alles” 4200lb 450SE made 180hp and 220lb-ft or torque from a 4.5 SOHC V8 that was pretty big dimensionally, the 450SE put down 0-60 times 11.1 and 17.55 through the quarter at 79.9 mph.
The Eldorado was the fastest to 60, it matched the 3395lb BMW 3.0 sedan. So the 190hp number only really tells part of the story.
Even 11sec 0-60 mph time was not to bad in the day. Torques was more important for a stress free long distance haul perhaps pulling a trailer. Did you really need 350hph when you could only do 55?.
@T – And all the owners/drivers wore burgundy or lime green leisure suits with white patent leather shoes and belts. The Caddies matched their ensembles, no doubt! Hilarious, and don’t forget their comb-overs and wives with their bouffants. Shades of Good Fellas….
And don`t forget the driver`s initials on the driver side door,his wife-girlfriend or lover`s initials on the passenger side door, the pinstriping on the hood and trunk, the disco mirror ball hanging on the rear view mirror, and last, but certainly not least, the small chrome plated naked lady holding a drink on the trunk lid or rear mudflaps.
It’s incredible how simple looking the dashboard and instrument panel are – so far removed from today’s enclosed cockpit-style entertainment thrones.
All the information you need comes from warning lights. No backup camera required to see out the back. You can adjust any of the controls without taking your eyes off the road. That’s luxury to me.
Utterly ridiculous needing a backup camera to see what’s going on behind you when backing out of a parking spot. How is that ‘progress’?
Nice ’76 Coupe. Somebody’s been kind to the aging beastie!
Such a fanastic car. For me these will always be what a Cadillac should look like. Yes interior detail was cheaply done but the endless range of bright optimistic colours and the sheer unapologetic size mark it as the pinnacle of the Great American Automobile.
Joe, the low output was because smoothness was paramount. They didn’t even put dual exhaust on those 500s.
I’m a fan of the Buicks. Love the 71-73 Riviera.
My ’71 Buick Rivera Gran Sport was/is STILL my “Reference Standard” for many automotive comparisons.
I used to know an engineer for the RF&P Railroad who bought one of these new and loved it. He liked his cars as big as he could get ’em so that when he climbed out of the loco cab, he didn’t have to adjust very much. These cars are a guilty pleasure for me, at least to look at, especially in such a vivid color. I sure wouldn’t want feed that 500 cubic inch V-8.
This is a ridiculous, gigantic car with doors that weigh more than a Smart, but I still like it. Do the ’71-’76 models lack the patented disintegrating plastic of the ’77-up Cadillacs that would leave the taillights hanging out in midair at the end of the fins? I don’t seem to see that as often on this generation.
They disintegrate on the 1975-1976 ones too.
Among the C Body big coupes, I tend to ignore the ’74 and up cars as they were no longer true two door hardtops, and the exterior details are a little nicer on the pre Federalized bumpers.
This is nice, but if I were on the hunt for a ’71-’76 Coupe DeVille, I’d get a ’72.
I don’t recall the “insta-split” door panel issues on my friend’s 1971 Buick Electra Limited?
Perhaps he just didn’t have it long enough?
Or did the more-conservative-but-still-classy Buick models use different materials?
I think it was a bigger problem in cold climates. Those pillowy vinyl areas would crack when people pushed on them to open those heavy doors in cold weather.
I agree about the interior, the 71-72 was more understated, but then I am biased since we had a ’72.
The 74-76 were over the top with the circular woodgrain sticker/trim on the steering wheel, and the plaid fabrics. But, still like them.
The 77-80 were a lot classier, and “more like it”. For the 80’s, too bad Caddy couldn’t keep their 425/368, and instead had the awful 4100, due to gas crisis.
Agree. A ’77-78 Coupe/Sedan de Ville, with the still potent 425 V8 engine; was/still is on my “wish list”.
The 4.1 engine ruined Cadillac, IMO, and sold more than a few Lincoln Town Cars.
Tom,
please crate this up and ship over to England. Paul has my address:-)
Roger, if you decide to come over to buy it, let me know. I’ll pick you up at the airport.
amazing that we once had a country where regular people could have something that extravagant, isn’t it?
Yes very amazing. It was funny the only thing that stood out for me in a 19-foot long 2-door that weighed 5,000 lbs. was the seat cloth. Big cars were everywhere back then. What made a Cadillac or Lincoln seem not much more special than the rest was the door closing sound. Even brand new those thick, frameless, hardtop doors sounded like crap. In the 70s Detroit didn’t have a premium 4-door with window frames until the Seville. My granddad’s ’78 SDV had them too and those doors sounded fanatasic. Lots of wow in the 77+ including ride, handling and quietness.
Does the Cadillac Fleetwood Seventy-Five Limousine count?
I would say “no” because the 75 was a low volume specialty model but the rules are pretty soft around here — if you want it to count it counts 🙂
BTW that’s a great shot of the contact paper wood trim on the edge of the open door.
Actually the Fleetwood limo is a weird mix of both, since the rear doors are full framed and extend into the roof, but the front doors are hardtops doors with no window frames.
Yup for the sole purpose of aiding ingress/egress to the rear seat. Those are “limo” or “aircraft” style door frames which were popular in the 80s and 90s. If I’m not mistaken the aero T-Bird and Mark VII were the first mass-market cars to use those.
One problem with them was that thieves/vandals could wedge their fingers into the gap at the top and bend the frame enough to get inside the car. Honda did a great job using this kind of door design to improve closing sound. The Accord and Legend doors were nearly silent when you closed them.
Audi went way in the other direction with their tight and flush window frames.
My folks had a 75 Lincoln Mark & a 78 Lincoln Mark, the 75 had electronic issues and the car would go dead a lot & wouldn’t crank so when he traded for the new 78 ford announced a recall for the stalling problem of the 75. I loved the 78 it was beautiful & quiet, I learned to drive on it & hated when my folks traded it in 86. My uncle owned a 76 coupe Deville which I now own, I love it also, the ride, the attention it gets but I will say that the Lincolns were the better car. I’m looking for a mark III or V or a 78-79 Lincoln tow car preferably collectors series.
Give me the 1976 Cadillac Coupe De Ville D’Elegance any day of the week.
Love it, love it, love it. . . All the way down to the big 5-mph bumpers. My fave of this era is probably the ’74, still having retained round headlights and a large eggcrate grille. Eleven years ago, I was driving along HWY 2 through the town of Startup in early winter, about to go for a hike in the snow when I spotted a yellow ’75 Coupe DeVille with brown leather interior. One of the opera windows was broken out, and beneath the other one, some of the typical rust was beginning to take hold below the half vinyl roof. It was not through the metal, however. Aside from those two ailments, it ran very nicely and was still pretty cherry. Ended up buying it for $300 and always got a kick out of rockin’ to Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker on the 8-track tape player. We found a new quarter window and repaired the rust on the one side; man, that thing was a BOAT. It liked cruising in a straight line very much, as if riding on a magic carpet, and wasn’t happy merging through tight city traffic. I thought the clamshell wagons handled a lot better when it came to steering. A collector later bought it, right about the time I had to go and save yet another endangered station wagon from the derby (one project at a time was all I could afford). Hopefully, that car is still out there being appreciated by someone.
I have never driven one of these but I just know it would have a smooth, velvety drivetrain and a suspension consisting of a marshmallow in each corner to guarantee a wafting, floaty ride with virtually no road feel or body control. Inside, kitsch is on display to a dimension hitherto unseen on any car outside of the USA. All that said, I love the thing! Wish I had one, even if just to look at it. This is the product of an era when the USA still had the confidence to build what they wanted and to hell with what anyone else thought. In my view, this individually was to be applauded and has been lost now that US “premium” cars look like pale imitations of vastly superior German cars. These Caddy’s and the same-period Lincoln’s are worthy of preservation!
I do like the dashboard of the 74-76 better than that of the 71-73. I always found it very odd how the wiper/washer switch was attached to the drivers door panel and made to look like part of the dashboard pad. It was weird how when you opened the door, the wiper/washer switch was with it.
Also, the DeVille’s emblem lost it’s V for 71,, and gained those little point shield things on the taillamps and between the headlights. I was very happy that the V returned for 72, but those shield things remained.
The 71 Calais had “Cadillac” script on the front fenders, while the truck lid had “Calais” script. I believe that was the only year it had that. Don’t know why,…
And.. when the 71-76 Calais was ordered with the cloth seats, vinyl was used between the seats and on the front armrest. This was also the case on the Eldorado, but the DeVille and Fleetwood Brougham when ordered with cloth, had leather between the seat and on the armrests (front and rear).
The 1977-79 DeVille, when ordered with cloth, used vinyl between the seats and on the armrest. Not sure about later models.
I guess you can say I like to take notice of the little details LOL
I always thought that the wiper and washer in the door was odd too, though it doesn’t start with the 1971 cars, the 1969-1970 Cadillacs have it too.
The designer of that “wiper-washer on the door” thing must have found his way into the Corvette studio, because I remember it being one of the oddities of the 1984-1989 Corvettes.
A bit overdone–but that was how it was at the time. Lots of roses–enough for a rose garden! 🙂
I love these big, and distinctive Cadillacs as well. As far as I am concerned, Cadillacs no longer exist, it’s just a name on another generic jellybean car. The EPA, CAFE, CARB, and DOT are to blame for destroying American cars. In other words, the govt. The really sad fact is, these cars are just as good as far as gas mileage as today’s large SUVs (Suburban, Expedition, Armada, etc) and crew cab pickups, if not better. For the same gas cost, you could drive something with style instead of a huge square box. And for icing on the cake, these cars came as 2 door models. I guess you could claim that they didn’t have much utility, but almost every one of those huge SUVs and crew cab pickups I see have nobody but the driver in them, so they are not being driven for their utility.
Having never experienced a Coupe DeVille until my recent ’76 test drive, I’ll admit I’m now confirmed as not being crazy about the 2 doors (such that I wouldn’t even bother looking at a Town Coupe going forward), I can see it being really annoying having to get out every time you have to let someone out of the back, and even with the grab handles it wasn’t that easy to just get back there, despite the ample leg room once you were.
But, they still had some utility. First, as you mention, with a 500 cube V8 and carburetion AND 40 years of use they get the same mileage as new SUVs. I mean, that’s just sad. Second, I’m guessing these have, properly equipped, similar or better towing capacity than many SUVs. If the L05 (350) powered ’93 Fleetwood can tow a 7,000 lb trailer, can one of these tow a 10,000 lb trailer? If so that puts it in Ford Excursion league. It also has a huge trunk. So, pretty much, you’re driving an SUV that’s less likely to roll over. If it had airbags, there’d be virtually no progress from then to now, whatsoever.
Weren’t some of the first air bags a rare option from Cadillac in the 70’s? So maybe there hasn’t been any progress at all…
Yes, air bags were an option for ’70s Caddy’s. I have a 1974 Cadillac showroom booklet and there is a SRS offered. They called it a ‘Supplemental Restraint System’.
If you’ve ever seen the 1976 movie MOVIING VIOLATION an air bag is prominently featured at the end of a car chase. The police deputy smashes his ’75 or ’76 Chevy Caprice into a brick wall and an air bag deploys from the steering wheel. The deputy is shaken up but is otherwise ok and says “Man, if it weren’t for that bag I’d have bought it”.
The fuel economy of these cars was atrocious, and you’d be lucky to break 10 mpg even on a flat highway. A modern, large SUV can easily do double that and give you and infinitely more capable, comfortable, cleaner and safer vehicle. Have you even driven one? I had a Nissan Armada rental a while back and the thing was formidable and it got 20 mpg.
The catch is you can go get a huge great sled for fractions of what a new Armada costs, but now many guys do it? Well, not many, since an old Cadillac like this just isn’t up to modern traffic or speeds. A nice weekend car, but not a daily driver.
Every credible person I’ve met claims to have gotten 10/14 with these. Armada is not as big. How would an Escalade, Yukon, or Excursion do.
I was not proposing actually using a ’76 Coupe DeVille as a viable alternative to daily driving a new Armada, just agreeing they are basically just as efficient, and except off roading can mostly do the same stuff so how much have we really progressed.
I have driven an Expedition and a Yukon; both had voracious appetites probably because they are Sedan DeVilles on stilts.
Love it. I love the way cars like this drive, handle, look, the whole shebang. Absolutely gorgeous.
When I was a teenager, one of my neighbors…an older fellow…bought a 7 year old 1975 Coupe DeVille….It was the light baby blue color with white half vinyl top. He used to pay me to wash and wax the car and amoral the interior.
The car rode nice with the 500 carbureted V8 but I recall that the driver had to feather the throttle to get the car moving from a stop until it was fully warmed up…otherwise the engine would bog down and want to stall…
The car had rust issues along the strip of beltline moulding on both sides of the car…..I assume that the moulding was screwed into the body. ..because at several spots right along the moulding, on both sides of the car the paint blistered up and rust spots formed beneath the moulding strips ….I assume that the rust started at the screw holes and spread outward from there.
Wow.. Absolutely LOVE the 71-76 Caddy’s. I’ll take any model, but the Fleetwood Talisman would be on the top of my list. I especially like the one with the 4 seats… Such a big car to only seat 4. Got to love Caddy in the 70’s.
Several of our neighbors had these cars, but the majority of them were Sedan de Ville’s.
In my eyes, I always like the first year of a new body style, but in this case, I really think Caddy nailed the design for ’76. The car was so classy and elegant. I’d seen a few Coupe de Ville’s without Cabriolet roofs, and I have to say, they look so much bigger without the padded vinyl, but they also look sleek.
I always remember how those huge door pull straps on the 71 and 72 Coupe de Ville’s always seemed to break. The 73 and 74 had smaller pull straps, and the 75 and 76 had the classy handles. The low end Calais always used the straps.
Never saw a Calais in our neighborhood. In fact, I never actually seen a Calais in person until I started going to car shows. A local dealer has an all Caddy show every fall, and that’s where I saw my first Calais. It was a 71 with absolutely no options. The poor original owner prolly took a lot of heat for buying a car like that HA HA
FINALLY got to drive one recently. (’76 Coupe DeVille), and came away enormously impressed. Maybe I found a good one (though frankly it wasn’t in perfect shape, a little rust, the usual filler panel rot) but the complaints about the body integrity seemed misplaced based on my experience. It was smooth, quiet, and didn’t rattle or squeak. The leather smelled wonderful. No cracks in the dash and the so-called contact paper wood trim seemed nice to me, it was intact on the steering wheel, dash, and elsewhere. The vinyl on the drivers door had a small tear, nothing you couldn’t fix with a patch up kit. All the power stuff worked. The ashtrays had real metal doors unlike the plasticwood on top of plastic chrome in my Buick or black plastic in my Fleetwood.
Most surprising: the handling. I was expecting an unruly, wallowing barge and I think the thing cornered damned well for its size. It was just smooth and very nice all around. I loved piloting it, a gentle nudge on the gas and there you are at 40, with faint noises in the distance one used to call “bumps”. I was expecting it to drive and feel so much bigger and was surprised by how easily I adjusted to it having driven to see it in my ’93 Fleetwood Brougham. Not much of an effort at all to adjust.
Still have yet to try a similar vintage Continental but I no longer find the claims that these were POSes to be credible, otherwise this spotty one shouldve been in worse shape. I think these are getting unfairly maligned now. Also, loved the engine accessibility. I thought a tune up was easy on the ’77 but shucks you could do the plugs on the 500 in 10 minutes.
I passed on the car. In the end it wasn’t the minor issues that I wouldn’t have minded slowly fixing. Rather, I realized I want the Sedan. After 1 box Panther and 2 downsized RWD C Bodies, I’m incurably a 4 door man.
Sounds like a great experience. As for the body integrity, I wonder if the coupe could be stiffer due to shorter unsupported spans. The 4 door is a hardtop with a stubby half B pillar. The 74-76 coupe had a full B pillar for more structural support.
Perhaps my biggest problem with these is having owned a 63 Fleetwood Sixty, which came across to me as a much higher quality car, despite its advanced age.
That could be and after writing this I wondered if the bad experiences with these could be connected to 4 door hardtops.
By the way I’m not saying it was perfect, and the comments about them being rust prone are spot on. And yeah, that ripped vinyl on the doors probably shouldve been leather if this waas really “The Standard of the World”. I just think it’s getting a bad rap. The ’77 may have made better use of a smaller space but other than the rust and plastic filler issues, which I’d expected, I was pleasantly surprised. Also, underneath was solid. But Cadillacs are controversial here.
Still looking forward to test driving a 460 Continental.
The ’71-’76 full size GM cars had the best looking instrument panels of the full size classic era. I love the way these panel designs arc around the driver and passenger. The only drawback is that these crash pads were prone to premature cracking. The ’71-73 Buick Riviera had one of the neatest looking interiors of the era. When GM released its down sized full sizers in ’77 the instrument panels were flat and not all that striking. An omen that was a GM gaffe you decades to come.
I still like the Cadillac dash 1977 and up, and the Pontiac and Buick dash is still pretty nice too, though they are a lot flatter, I always get a laugh from the drivers side a/c controls on the Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile and Chevrolets from 71-76.
Yeah, I laughed too on my test drive. Everyone becomes a backseater with that climate control system, even the front passengers have to request the driver turn up the heat or a/c! “My car, my climate!”
Can you imagine that today? Consumer Reports would take up pitchforks and torches and march on the GM building.
And yet I think the design of that dash was very ergonomically sound. I also liked having the high beams on the floor, again, you don’t have to take your hands off the wheel or eyes off the road to operate them. Warning lights are huge and at eye level. Climate control wheel is safer than the systems on my ’87 or ’93, just spin the wheel without taking your eyes off the road. Switches for the antenna and rear defroster, no groping around for buttons in the middle of the console.
I liked the arc in the panel designs too. But the arc disappeared on the 74 to 76 Caddys, and it disappeared from the Buick’s and Oldsmobile’s on the 75 and 76 models. These flatter dashboards were just as nice, though. I especially liked the Oldsmobile with it’s flood lighting of the controls.
I found an interesting artcle in Hemmings comparing a 76 Cadillac Sedan de Ville and a 75 Imperial. In the pictures the Caddy’s interior looks pretty nice but the Imperial’s looks like total debauchery. http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2007/10/01/hmn_feature13.html
Tough to imagine people in their 60s and 70s who grew up with the giant showboats of the 1940s-1960s being forced to painfully downsize from something like that to something as puny and cramped as the ’77 Coupe deVille.
1958 Coupe de Ville 221 inches long, 1977 Coupe de Ville 221 inches.
Having owned an ’87 and ’93 version of the downsized C-Body Cadillac (plus a ’77 Buick C-Body) I’d definitely not call them cramped in any way.
After 6-7 years, as the rest of the models became even smaller, they soon seemed fairly big, and an 18.5 footer is still a big car.
After trying out a ’76, on the limited basis of that experience I give the ’77+ models plaudits for
(a) achieving the same interior space except shoulder room in a smaller package…however I disagree with the claims they were MORE spacious than their predecessors, didn’t seem so. But you did seem to get just as much space.
(b) better corrosion protection. Unbelievably better.
(c) better handling although the ’76 was not nearly the meandering barge I had been anticipating. I’m not going to say it “handles” in a spirited manner, but I drove it on twisty back roads without ever feeling it was out of my control. Still, I probably could have gone 15 mph faster on the same roads in my ’77 and felt just as if not more comfortable
(d) In many ways these just went back to the size Cadillac had been before the huge upsizing that took place between 1965-76. They were still pretty big cars. Given that they sold so well, many other people must have felt the really big ones were kind of unmanageable too, and must have welcomed the increased fuel economy. Even the magazines (David E. Davis) raved about the downsized version’s operation and handling.
i would also give the ’77+ plaudits for proportion and overall styling. The old man bloat was gone, while they kept the hood and front part of the WB the same. Even if the hood was a tad shorter than the ’76 on down, as a percentage of the OAL it was longer.
Nothing beats a long hood with the front wheels pushed way forward, especially if the car is relatively short. That’s one reason the Seville looked so gorgeous.
I drove a 1977 Sedan DeVille from Saskatoon to Victoria last year, right over the Rockies. What you say about this generation really true: the “downsized” cars were better than the Whales in every possible metric. They were simply a better design, benefiting from more development. Car design, like any other machine, improve with time and it is rarely the other way around.
The 1977 cars drove quite well for their day.
I think it was more of a sarcastic comment, but I do point it out to people that seem to think that the 1976 cars were the “end of an era”, which they were to certain extent, but the 1977 cars were a return to sanity, still big enough, where were cars going to go after this? Would it have reached the level where Cadillacs were 7000lb 700cid monster cars?
I’ve read that, prior to the first fuel crunch, GM was planning V-8s in the 550-600 cubic-inch range for Buick, Cadillac and Oldsmobile. Whether is true or a rumor gone wild, I do not know.
Well when the Cadillac 472 was designed back in 1964-1968, it was made to be able to go to 600cid or so from what recall reading.
Yeah I love the big ones for their sheer excess but one can hardly call the following generation “little” and there was really nowhere to go but down. I only wish they had kept the distinctions between the Fleetwood and DeVille in terms of the length and interior room, and also by some reports the 75 was never quite the same either and faced some decontenting.
I am near 70 and while I will say that I found the ATS a bit smallish, the current generation CTS is a very fine Cadillac and has a lot more style then this 76 slab sided de Ville. The 59 at least had the fins and some curves in the rear fenders.
It wasn’t puny! Once the old timers “got used to” the size, which in fact was about the same as cars before 1959, these “puny” cars were called ‘classic big American cars’!
When the FWD ’85 DeVilles came out, then one could call them ‘puny’, but no way to the 77-96.
I’m only 55, but I remember the mid ’70s Cadillacs well. They did have quality control issues, just like all other American cars of the day. But as far as everything else, I loved them. They were huge, posh, opulent, luxurious in the extreme. They did have a “floaty” ride compared to any newer car. They handled decently for what they were. New Cadilllacs are of better quality, but because of their small size, rough ride, and austere appearance, they still feel like a Toyota Corolla to me.
Mercedes has always been considered a luxury car, but even back in the ’70s, when they at least looked like a Mercedes, I never found anything luxurious about them. They were small, very plain, obviously very well built (unlike today) but there really wasn’t anything luxurious about them. At least not American style luxury. Even the new Cadillac Escalade, which I’m sure burns as much or more gas than a ’70s Coupe de Ville, lacks the luxury of those cars.
The irony here is that if you want a smooth ride, you get a Lexus ES350 or the RX350. These cars are top sellers in their respective segments.
Recently, in another website, someone who posts “Junkyard Finds” called a 1977 DeVille a ’76, and made fun of it as ‘boaty’. And, assumed the motor was a 500CI! I posted a terse correction, and so did others. At least here, mistakes are corrected post haste, there, maybe never.
I saw that too, and they never even fixed it, I mean really if you can’t tell the freaking difference between a 1976 and a 1977 Cadillac, then you have no business writing about cars, much less taking snide pot shots about said car, though that guys work has been going downhill since he left Jalopnik.
I thought these cars looked better with the rectangular headlights than the rounded headlights off of the 1974 full size Cadillacs, I’m glad I’m not the only one who prefers the sedans over the coupes on the 1974-76 C-cars, I also preferred the sedans over the coupes on the 1971-73 C-cars as well, the only thing what I wish the 1974-76 C-cars came with from the factory is a high compression big block engine without all the Emission control devices and the smog pumps.
These are the modern version of the ’30s Packards, 30 years later in the 1960s. Big old barges, but with attributes and charms unavailable in the newer cars of the day. Like the old Packards, these Cadillacs will increasingly be looked at as charmingly quaint and excessive, and will only get more appreciated over time.
Also, like the Packards, a group of us who were kids or very young adults when these Cadillacs were new, will carry the torch for them, until we are gone. These Cadillacs have evolved from new cars for old fogies, to the downscale homes and transportation of those at the short end of the economy, to now becoming something to collect or preserve.
This one looks like a very nice example of the breed.
The best sound to come out of the speakers in that
Caddy: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=faiwblIEvB8
It is a lot of car. I remember an uncle of one of my buddies, having a black Coupe and he was our ride to Comiskey to see the Sox. We would fill it with four across the back seat as he drove, smoking a cigar with the radio tuned to lounge music. He was a great guy. As a top student, the Sox used to give away tickets to us as a quarterly grade prize. Us geeks would all score tickets, and then do a run to Comiskey in the Cadillac.
It was a lot of car. Cruising down the Ryan was a silent experience. Just the soft tones of the Muzak and the sweet scents of Uncle John’s rich tobacco and the rest of us enjoying the ride and talking about the season. We’d do night games, so that we could see the Loop lit up the night along the Lake shore and it was better to see the fireworks launched off the scoreboards when one of the guys hit a home run. Chicago dogs, popcorn and good times.
That’s what I think about when I see these cars. Good times.
I had Opening Day Sox tickets for this year… that obviously did not happen.
But now you’ve got me really ready for a game at Comiskey. Hopefully soon.
None of this Guaranteed Rate Field crap!!
It WILL always be Comiskey Park!
I have fond memories of Disco Demolition Night in ’79
I’ve always thought there’s something ironic in calling such a large vehicle a Coupe de Ville. Same goes for Lincoln in the English translation.
With what cities are like now, and were back in the fifties for that matter, a true ‘coupe for the city’ should be smaller and more maneuverable – but of course that would have been unCadillac. And probably unAmerican back then too.
Attached is my ’76 SDV in the same colour, but with regular wheel caps.
Velour interior, instead of the leather….much more subdued!
That is one very nice looking car. Now while I like my smaller cars with manual transmissions, that handle great, and get great mpg, I do have a strong affinity to big cars like this.
Waitress: Sir would you like desert?
Me: I really don’t do desert with all that sugar and calories.
Waitress: We have an excellent cheesecake
Me: Make that two slices, please.
Most American (and Japanese) cars of that era had tacky-looking dashboards, with primitive instrumentation buried in an ocean of multi-coloured plastic padding. At least in the 1950s they had a certain modernistic style.
All a bit Mar-a-Lago on wheels. Fancy driving a tennis-court?
What a happy antidote to the miserable Sentra from yesterday. (Did I tell you I hated that comfortless, joyless, characterless, hateful stripper car?) Well I do.
I think the differences between the 59 and the 76 are very evident. The 59 was noticeably different from its corporate siblings but the 76 shares the same greenhouse and body and differs only in slight front and rear end detailing from its corporate siblings. The 59 is outre, one of a kind, and has a crazy confidence in its garishness that the conservative but conventionally handsome 76 does not have.
As several people remarked, the 59 had an absolute chrome festival art piece of a dashboard and interior appointments but the 76 had fake plastic contact paper and plastic not so fantastic.
When y’all are looking at that contact paper fake wood and pronouncing it tacky, (which it was in its unabashed fakeness) remember it was the 70s and EVERYTHING looked like this. People covered their houses in this fake wood. Your den looked like this. Your finished basement looked like this. Your office looked like this. Your kitchen cabinets looked like this. Every small appliance was covered in this stuff. Clock radios, television sets, stereos, toasters, everything.
Don’t forget video game consoles! I still have my Atari Pong and Breakout consoles, which like the later VCS/2600 had fake wood, even on the controllers. The simulated wood on the Ataris was more convincing than that in the Cadillacs.
The ’59 did use the same greenhouse and body as the other divisions though, and unlike in ’76, had front doors that were the same throughout the GM lineup, whether an Eldorado or a Biscayne or anything else save the Corvette.