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Miscellaneous Cadillac Stuff
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The Pink Lady
Full Restoration

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1960 Cadillac Series 64 Eldorado Biarritz
Style 6467, only 1285 units built

 

MY60Q.JPG (8159 bytes)
Photo taken in Portland Oregon, after we had a new
(white) convertible top installed (the original was black)

my60a.jpg (11917 bytes)
This is the view that greeted us when we unlocked and opened
the shipping container at the port of Antwerp, in Belgium
[ laying across the rear deck is a new windshield  for another client]

my60f.jpg (13294 bytes)
This is the interior of the trunk of this "totally rust free" car;
after we removed the trunk liner you coiuld see, through the rust

holes in the body, the white sheet we had spread out under the car.

 

Was I going to ship it back to Portland, Oregon, just for THAT "minor inconvenience"?

my60d.jpg (9729 bytes)
Non-original wreath and crest on rear fenders
[ these were correct on 1963 and 1964 models ]

 

Restoration

my60c.jpg (18399 bytes)
The "before"  picture

my60e.jpg (14928 bytes)    MY60I2.JPG (14300 bytes)
The "during" pictures
(Left) not visible in this low-resolution image, the former holes for the lateral fender spear

of a regular Series 62 or de Ville model; also barely visible, the new metal welded
above the rear wheel well - obviously the car had been in a collision or was rusted through

(Right) The Pink Lady in primer at the Langiano body shop in Reconvilliers, Switzerland

    my60h.jpg (11588 bytes)    my60g.jpg (8532 bytes)
According to the body tag, the car originally had the rare, bucket seats; obviously, someone removed them and replaced
them with a vinyl-covered bench seat from another model (not even a Cadillac) before I bought the car; the leather on
the rear seat had no tears and only minor cracking, but the pleats were "flattened" and brittle to the touch (left);
new leather in the correct texture and design was used to cover the seats, front and rear (right)

my60m.jpg (9827 bytes)    my60l.jpg (10121 bytes)
(Left) on stripping the car for paint and removing the inner door panels,
we discovered the car's original color: Siena Rose (code #98);
(Right) the original door panels were saved; only the armrest was restored

my60n.jpg (14571 bytes)
The restored dash pad and instrument panel

my60p.jpg (12590 bytes)    my60b.jpg (12032 bytes)
The "after" pictures
The newly restored Pink Lady in all her splendor
Note the absence of the hard boot cover
That will be for someone else to purchase!

 

But the dream had to end

60luxauc.jpg (7712 bytes)
Owing to a legal dispute with my employers, that took 10 years to be "resolved", we decided we had to
sell the car (the "Pink Lady"), our home ("El Dorado"), our boat ("Gita's Ark"),  and to move to the

USA on retirement in 1999; as it happened, a settlement out of court was agreed in 1996; we could have kept
the car, the house, the boat... but in the face of uncertainty, right up to late 1995, we had sold everything in the interim!

 

 

Compared to today's prices (and moreso to the prices this model was fetching in the late eighties), at "only"  $5,000 she was a cheap set of wheels, back in 1983, when we bought her "sight unseen" from a less-than-scrupulous vendor in Portland, Oregon (I notice, by the way, that he still advertises his business, twenty years later, on the Internet and in the popular auto hobby publications).

Soon after her arrival in Switzerland and before putting any more money into her, we tried to sell the (not yet)   Pink Lady while she was still painted powder blue.  There were no takers; that front seat with a different design to the rear one seemed to put off most potential buyers!

Finally, we decided on a full restoration, hoping to cash-in on the super-Cadillac boom market in gthe late eigthies.  She was bid up to a comfortable five-figure amount, both at a semi-private auction in Geneva and, later, at a Kruse auction in Luxembourg.  We rejected these bids.

Finally, we sold her to a private collector in Zürich, Switzerland, right off the back of the car-hauler that was bringing her home to Geneva after the failed Luxembourg auction. In fact the buyer had attended the auction, followed the hauler home and saved himself the Kruse commission by buying the car directly from me.

 

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© 2003, Yann Saunders
[ Background image: The 1960 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz (catalog illustration) ]