Drinking Liberally's great friend, Horacio de la Iglesia sent us a link to some really beeyoutiful fotos of US coches from the 50's and 60's via billsretroworld.com Cadillacs are well represented and are a favorite of mine.It put me in mind of my favorite car that I ever owned so I thought I'd send him back a pic of an old flame, Wanda. It's from the brochure but the colors are exact.
Ok. '73 was not a classic year for Cadillac ...but it was the last true CdeV hardtop ...was among the longest they ever made (the famous '59 looked longer than anything you ever saw but that was due to the flowingest lines in history) ...and had the second biggest production engine ever made: 472 ci (the largest was the Cadillac 501.) It also coincided with the 1973 oil embargo and marked the end of an era as well as any other make and model. I haven't admired a Caddy since.
The sheer power of it all. Power everything: seats, windows, brakes, antenna, everything. And that engine. At 100mph, you could stomp on the accelerator and the raw torque would feel as if all 5000 lbs of her would take flight as smoothly and unimaginably as a 747 out of Ezeiza (the engine hood alone looked like small aircraft could take-off from it.)
I named her Wanda. I don't remember why exactly but it might have had something to do with Indiana license plates having the strange and prominent motto: "Wander" or it might have been from Neil Young's album with the Shocking Pinks. Memory fails me.
She was also variously known as The Millenium Falcon (similar dimensions) or The Exxon Valdez ...the latter not because she leaked oil, she did not, but rather because the Captain was often drunk and below decks.
It was fun translating her measurements into metric. It's probably easy for you to convert them back... except maybe for mph. Strain yer brain on that one! (no, it's not an error.)
4 comments:
I was so mad when the discontinued the Coupe Deville and only had sedans after. There is something cool about a big coupe!
I was lucky enough to have a 94 Sedan Deville (Councours) and was a great handling car for its size. Very comfortable...
Yeah, by that time they were feeling their way in a European sports sedan sort of direction while discarding all the evidence of the "Standard of Excellence."
It made me sick when they got rid of the rear passenger windows in '74 and went with those dopey "opera window" in the back!
My dream car of all time is/was the '52 convertible CdeV. Horacio's link shows a '53... virtually the same car. Mine would not be white, however. It would be some sort of deep butter color. Whoa!
Imagine this:
http://www.2009.yanquimike.com.ar/53cdv.jpg
this just in...
...a a more "real life" shot from Boing Boing today of the car that I so dearly love:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/27/street-photography.html
Damn, they look so good in black.
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