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WW2 years

 

1962

Chapron, Henri (France) special stretched convertible sedan on Cadillac Series 75 chassis for King Hassan of Morocco]; car believed to be still in the royal automobile stables in Marrakech.

 

Derham (USA) Special custom 4-door Park Avenue sedan featuring a padded roof  and small rear window. According to enthusiast, Jim Jordan of Oklahoma City, one of these Park Avenue sedans was modified for the Rockefeller family in 1962; as payment, it is said that they traded in two 1956 Cadillac limousines [for $1,900 each] and a 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham [(#548) for $3,200]. Note that the price of a regular Park Avenue sedan, in 1962, was a tad over $5,600. Late Extra (Sept. 2014): Glenn Nieberle wrote: On your website I noticed 40 year old pictures of a one-off DERHAM Special Custom 4-door Cadillac PARK AVENUE sedan that was commissioned by the ROCKEFELLER family back in 1962 [B&W photos, above] ... This car still drives like a CADILLAC and is all original as [when] it came from GM and DERHAM in 1962.

    
 Photos by the late Gene Babow, taken at a car meet in the USA in the early 70s

     
Color photos above: © 2014 and courtesy Glenn Nieberle

 

Fisher Body (USA) Factory prototype 4-door convertible sedan, labeled project #1560. It appears to be based on the 1962 Series 60 Special sedan; if you look closely at the last photo (top in fully open position) you may just make out the Fleetwood crown and crest emblem above the skeg, close to the opening seam of the front door. This car was unknown to me until it was featured in an article by Bob Morrow in the CLC Self-Starter for July, 2008. Good reading! Nice pics. (copied below)!  The car unfortunately never made it into production and I assume it was later crushed, as were most prototypes and show cars, which were usually not made up as fully roadworthy vehicles.

    
Left: top in fully raised position, ready to be opened up
Right: rear portion of top begins to fold upwards, as on the '53 Eldorado; the metal panel
covering the top storage compartment raises also (not seen here); a similar panel was
used on the production '53 Eldorado and on the custom Cadillac "rain cars" of 1958

         
Left:  Front portion of top raises off the winsdhield, almost vertically; note the individually styled seats for four;
Center: top starts to fold down with a scissor-like action; this top mechanism did not go into production until 1971
Right: entire top has disappeared into the well behind the rear seat back; metal panel returns to closed position

[Unknown, USA] station wagon [photos]

    
The above two images are from an unknown source


This image of the same car (?) was sent by a French friend and Cadillac admirer, Christophe Barat;
he has heard that the car may have been used as a people hauler by a film studio in the USA

 

[Unknown, USA] Custom Le Mans hard-top for regular Series 62 or Eldorado convertible

      
Photos:  from original product folder

    

[Unknown, Finland] Custom low-rider coupe

Photo: © and courtesy Cadillac Club of   Finland, CCOF

 

[Unknown, possibly from Scandinavia] Custom low-rider convertible coupe

 

[Unknown, USA ???]  Custom El Camino type pick up truck on Cadillac chassis.

[ Photo:  Internet, 9/2001 ]

 

[Unknown, USA ???]  Chopped sedan.

 

 

[Unknown, USA ???]  Here's another El Camino type pick up, apparently in need of restoration

         
[ Photos:  © 2008 and courtesy Hyman Ltd., auctioneers ]

 

[Unknown, USA ???]  Custom hearse on 1962 Cadillac commercial chassis.

 

[Unknown, USA ???]  This limousine, photographed in the Imperial Palace collection in Las Vegas, probably came from Texas ...by the look of those long horms!

 

[Unknown, USA ???]  Some serious work went into creating this interesting conversion.

    

 

[Unknown, USA ???]  Again, this creation required a great deal of custom body work.

[ Photo:  Internet ]

 

[Unknown, USA ???]  We owe these two station wagon proposals to a skilled PhotoShop artist in the CLC

 

1963

Fisher/Fleetwood (???) (USA) Special Cadillac Eldorado Colt convertible coupe

Fisher/Fleetwood (???) (USA) There were possibly three Eldorado coupes built in 1963 on the Series 62-63 chassis (perhaps the chassis listed in Hendry's book). One SS member, Elliot Fried, apparently bought one (photo, SS, 5/90, p.13)

Fisher/Fleetwood (???) (USA) The Stallion, prototype of '67 Eldorado. (CA, 12/91, p.24).

Fisher/Fleetwood (USA) Prototype XP-825 that gave rise to the production, front-wheel-drive Eldorado in 1967.  This prototype was first shown to management in 1963. Features that did not make it into production include the knock-off wire wheels and front fennder similated air vents [photo below, right].

    
[ Photo:  Dave Holls collection - cropped for the Cadillac Database ]

 

Fisher/Fleetwood (USA) The late Dave Holls supplied this photo of a special Cadillac Eldorado coupe prepared for a GM Board of Directors meeting. The custom wheels never made it into production.

 

Fisher/Fleetwood (USA) [???] This is a still from a promotional movie clip advertising the City of Detroit.  In it, you get a brief glimpse of this, apparently customized 1963 Eldorado.  The '63 still had wheel skirts in tne rear; this car does not.  Can anyone identify the venue or the car?

[ Still shot capture by CML member, Frank Perch ]

 

Rivera (USA)  Makers of the Esquire removable convertible hardtop for all 1961, 1962 and 1963 GM convertible models.  Here it is shown in place on a 1963 Eldorado. These tops were Available in black, white, gold and silver.

 

[Unknown, USA] station wagon, SSA, 1981, p.34. I have an advertising sheet by Ridings Cadillac of 1501 Long Beach, CA, manufacturers of custom coachwork, which features a color photo of such a wagon, described as a Cadillac Fleetwood Estate Wagon; it appears to have been built on the Fleetwood Sixty-Special chassis. The car is gold-brown in color. 

 

[Unknown, USA] another station wagon, SSA, 1981, p.34. It is similar to the car illustrated above but with a more angular upper edge of the rear window:

    

 

[Unknown, USA] Artist's impression of a hearse or ambulance body on commercial chassis, converted  into a wood-paneled station wagon (the artist's name is illegible)

1963 custom Cadillac "Surfin' Wagon"

 

[Unknown, USA] Pretty 1963 coupe with added Continental kit [photo, French car meet, Castelsarrasin]

[Unknown, USA] This snippet of information was drawn from a message in the Cadillac Mailing List (CML) moderated by my friend Rik Gruwez of Belgium:  the 1963 Cadillac Chateau [never heard of it until now, 10/2000] is a limited model Coupe De Ville with brushed and bright stainless steel around the vinyl top, with a piece of stainless steel along the rocker panel.  Also the top appears to resemble that of a Fleetwood.

[Unknown, USA] This car was described as the Cadillac Florentine [which was indeed a Cadillac show car of 1964 - see photos under "1964", below).  In my opinion, however, someone simply chopped a '63 coupe with the intention of possibly conning un unsuspecting enthusiast into buying "the" Cadillac Florentine show car!  From the condition of the car, I assume there were no buyers.

 

[Unknown, USA]

Unidentified Eldorado with custom Continental kit

 

[Unknown, USA]

 

[Unknown, USA] I do find some crazy stuff for this section, right ?

    

 

[Unknown, USA] Here's another way for some Cadillac fans to express themselves.

 

[Unknown, USA] This is a regular 1963 Eldorado with a rem0vable hard-top.

 

 

1963-1964, SIA64, p.24-29.

1963-1964, Illustrated below is an early sixties Cadillac town car proposal from Bill Mitchell's styling team; it is vaguely reminiscent of the first front-wheel-drive Eldorado of 1967. It is interesting to read what the four major U.S. automobile stylists of the time (Gene Bordinat, Elwood P. Engel, Dick Teague and Cadillac's own Bill Mitchell) had to say, in the Fall of 1962, about the anticipated evolution in the design of mass-production passenger cars. The article by Diana Bartley is exceptionlly well written and documented. ESQ 9/92, p.122.

.

1963-1964 V12s & V16s for the Sixties, SIA 1/1981, p.24-29.; photo ELD, p.72

La Salle proposal with sixteen-cylinder power plant

Cadillac Vee-sixteen proposal

 

1964

Derham (USA):   [The following text is copied from an Internet website devote to Derham coachwork]:  Al Garthwaite Jr., former president of Conshohocken PA's Lee Tire and Rubber Company, bought the Derham building and the business in 1964. At that time J.H Grotz was Enos’ right-hand man and the pair continued to do an occasional restoration although the bulk of their business was now in armoring Cadillac and Lincoln limousines using half inch bulletproof laminated Fiberglas. The Fiberglas completely surround­ing the passenger compartment coupled with its 1½ ” bulletproof glass windows, produces a vehicle capable of withstanding any known assault weapon short of a tank. Derham charged from $10,000-$20,000 for the armored conversions which was added to the cost of the donor vehicle. Derham’s classic vehicle restorations averaged somewhat over $10,000 each. No firm price could be quoted beforehand, since until the work was started there’s no way of telling what problems may be encountered, or what body parts needed to be hand-made. As late as 1967 they continued to advertise their restoration and classic car sales services in Antique Automobile magazine.

[ no images ]

 

Fisher/Fleetwood (???) (USA) Special Cadillac Florentine coupe [seen photos GM Styling library 9/94 - '64 negative dated 8.4.65 shows '64 coupe w/ blank rear quarters]; car was shown in 1964/65 at the New York's World Fair in GM's Futurama Pavilion at Flushing Meadows; the Florentine was the first Cadillac show car since the 1959 Cyclone; it was a custom 2-door hardtop with formal roofline, narrow rear quarter window that retracted into the upper rear roof quarters [like the 1960 Eldorado Brougham]; the metal roof had a vinyl-suede roof covering; the bucket seats featured high backs and were upholstered in embroidered leather; car had full rear wheel openings and wire wheels as well as fewer body trim parts and glass-hooded headlights; all exterior hardware was removed, including the door handles; photo ELD, p.74, McC p.356

        

    

Fisher/Fleetwood (USA) Special Cadillac Eldorado coupe prepared for a GM Board of Directors meeting. The custom wheels never made it into production.

 

[Unknown, USA]  custom-built El Camino type open pick up. I got the detailed information about it, below, from its present owner, Greg Mullally, from Las Vegas.  He found the car quietly rotting away in Boulder City, NV sometime in 1987; it had come there from Utah. When Greg got it, the canvas top was ripped to shreds and the red wool interior was mildewed and smelled awful. The paint was a white pearl with roses painted all over it; it was chipped, cracked and cratered. Over the next few years Greg tore the car apart and rebuilt it, ultimately getting the car back into the condition that you see in the pictures, below. His car looks similar to [but is NOT] the one photographed in the book Cadillac, by Stephen Salmieri [next car down], although a slice of Greg's car does appear just left of that one. Greg's car began its life as a regular De Ville Series convertible, painted white with a blue interior. Greg is currently rewiring the car and has installed a remote CD changer; he hopes to show the car at the Grand National, 2002.

     

    
[ Photos:  courtesy and © Greg Mullally ]

[Unknown, USA] Wild, custom-built El Camino type open pick up with huge, gold trumpet horns mounted atop LH and RH front fenders and special alloy rims [color photo, below???].  Could this be the car mentioned in a  For Sale ad that I saw in 2000-2001? That as said, inter alia, that  ...numerous attempts have been made over the years to build Cadillac pick-up trucks like this one, but most of them ended up looking like the imaginary car in the Johnny Cash song, One Piece at a Time.  This one, however, has crisp, clean, flowing lines; it looks like it was done in the GM Styling Studios as a prototype.  It looks good from any angle.

[ This photo:  from the book, Cadillac by Stephen Salmieri (cropped image) ]

 

[Unknown, USA] April Fool's custom 1964 Cadillac.  In the April 2007 issue of the Self Starter magazine, this item was described as a special one-of, custom job from Cadillac's own skunk works.  Yeah, right!

                  
[ Photos: courtesy CLC Self Starter ]

 

[Unknown, USA] Wild, custom-built low-rider a la "pimp my ride".

         

    

         

 

[Unknown, USA] Mild [not "wild"] custom with "big wheels".

   

 

[Unknown, USA] A "looks very long" Coupe de Ville

 

 

[Unknown, USA] A Long ... long coupe

[ Photo: Internet ]

 

[Unknown, USA] A Long ... long... long (stretched) limousine

[ Photo: Internet ]

 

 

[Unknown, USA] "Impossible" De Ville convertible, with a "swimming pool" in lieu of the rear passenger area!

 

[Unknown, USA] I assume these campers to have been built on the Cadillac commercial chassis for 1964.

    

 

[Unknown, USA] Interesting (removable?) hard-top on the 1964 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. A similar hard-top like this one is featured also in the above section for 1962.  

    

 

Victor Auto Service, Inc. (USA) station wagon conversion.   Nice:

 

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WW2 years