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 [photos by the late Gene Babow taken
at a car meet in the U.S.in the early seventies]. 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.
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]
[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, USA ???] Custom El Camino
type pick up truck on Cadillac chassis.
[ Photo: Internet, 9/2001 ]
[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 ???] 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] 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
?
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 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; 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] I assume these campers to have been built on the
Cadillac commercial chassis for 1964.
Victor Auto Service, Inc. (USA) station wagon conversion.
Nice:
