Well, I stumbled on something kind'a cool this weekend.

[Thumper]

While perusing some sites regarding collectible Cadillacs, I came across a site listing their opinion of the top-10 most desirable models. In the mid-70's, I worked with my dad building Cadillac conversions and built Cadillac station wagons from the Fleetwood Brougham chassis (Castilion Estate Wagon) and pick-up trucks from the Coupe de Ville chassis (Mirage). These cars were only sold new, through Cadillac dealers. Here's the top-10 list of most collectible Cadillacs (I've added their description under the listing). I don't know how these are ranked as far as desirability is concerned, as they appear to be in order of production year.

Best of All Time List:

1930 V16
1937 Cadillac Sixteen Custom Phaeton 5859
1940 Series 62
1946 Fleetwood Series 75
1953 Eldorado Convertible
1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham
1959 de Ville Series
1965 Fleetwood Sixty Special Brougham
1975-76 Cadillac Mirage*
1976 Eldorado Fleetwood Convertible

*Equipped with an 8.2 liter V8 engine, the Mirage earned a spot on the Top 10 Best Cadillacs of All Time List. Other features included a hidden, locking storage area w/spare tire, and even a “golf-bag” door on some vehicles!

We only built these cars for two years. 1977 was the year that GM started downsizing their cars and we really couldn't afford the retooling costs, so we closed the doors. I'm very proud of our effort and there's a huge following of fans & collectors these days. I occasionally get contacted by some who are seeking information or in the process of restoration. Our first (prototype) was a '74 model and was purchased by Evel Knievel, who later bought a '76 model to add to his "fleet". I know the '74 is in his museum (not sure about the '76). They could be seen in his movie "Viva Knievel". Many others bought these cars, Dean Martin, Wayne Newton, Sammy Davis Jr, etc. ..... a long list. I personally delivered one to Gene Autry at his house. He, his wife (Ina Mae) and I sat on the patio in his back yard b/s'ing for an hour or more. We also built a Stutz Convertible that is now in the Peterson Museum in L.A. We built an Eldorado pick-up prototype that was sold when we closed the business, but I lost track of it. The last time I was able to track it down, a private owner had it in Dallas (or Houston maybe?).

Here are a few pics including one of our (tri-fold) dealer brochures.

cadillac brochure 1.jpg mirage brochure 2.jpg

Here's a pic of a Mirage that the owner takes to car shows.

mirage 4.jpg mirage 3.jpg

mirage 2.jpg mirage 1.jpg

This is the first Mirage ever built ('74 prototype) and this is a pic of the car in Evel's museum.

mirage evel 1.jpg mirage evel 2.jpg

mirage evel 3.jpg

This is a pic of the Eldorado pick-up (prototype) which was last known to be in Texas. We never went into production with this car and this is the only one we ever built. These aren't the best pics, but they're the only one's I have.

eldo pick up 2.jpg eldo pick up 1.jpg


When I worked in Beverly Hills, I saw Sammy Davis Jr. driving his Castilian on Sunset Blvd. almost every day. His was all black and I remember still adding the finishing touches to it as it was being driven out of the shop by a couple casino employees who were in a rush to get back to Las Vergas. The casino was going to present it as a gift to Sammy that very night. This pic is Dean Martin's '76 Castilian Estate Wagon. Notice the lic. plate. (the estate sold it a few years back, not sure who bought it)


Castilian Dean Martin 1.jpg castilian dean martin 4.jpg

Castilian dean martin 2.jpg Castilion dean martin 3.jpg

castilian dean martin 3.jpg


I spent every spare hour as a kid growing up, accompanying him to the shop to build race cars, including for NASCAR. I couldn't tell you how many nights I spent sleeping on a pile of race tires while he worked. Anyway, the above article brought back some fond memories of old times. Dad moved on to building stretch limousines (Lincolns and Cadillacs) as well as Camaro, Firebird, Toyota and Datsun convertibles. A true workaholic, he was still at it until the day he died. I sure miss him.

[johnboy]

Pretty cool, Jim!

[Thumper]

Thanks John. I was scheduled to get out of the military in 1975 and my dad was the Service Manager at the Cadillac dealer in Beverly Hills at the time. I was considering re-enlisting, but my dad begged me to come home and help him start up a business building Cadillac pick-up trucks. WTF??? I told him I thought he had rocks in his head! I went ahead and left the military and returned home, then immediately went to work with him. The biggest compliment I ever heard was from people looking at the cars and saying they had no idea Cadillac built pick-ups and station wagons. There were other companies doing similar builds, but it was immediately obvious when looking at them, they were custom builds. Ours actually looked like factory built models and were exclusively sold only through Cadillac dealers. If someone contacted us to ask about a purchase, we'd refer them to their local dealer who could order one for them. It added quite a bit of legitimacy to the quality of the build. I'm proud of what we accomplished. Dad always loved customizing cars, but he was a perfectionist and hated anything that LOOKED non-factory. He wan't in to gluing on every stupid chrome doo-dad off the shelves at Wally World or Pep Boys.

When I was a senior in H/S, he and I started building my little street racer. Dad and I always loved "sleepers" .... cars that were FAST, but nobody THOUGHT they'd be fast. I bought a '65 Corvair off a used car lot for a few hundred bucks and we went to work on it. I made my "beer money" with it while in college ... racing on the street. Not politically correct these days, but common then. In those days, if the cops stopped you, they'd look at your car, ask questions about the performance, then tell you to go home and stay off the street! If you happened to be drinking, they'd make you pour your beer out before telling you to go home. Simpler times back then.

Anyway, we finished this car right when I graduated high school. I drove it to the track and turned a 10.65 ET in STREET TRIM. It had a top end of 187 mph (yes, I hit that on the Interstate late one night). I drove it that summer and to college. THEN, the powers that be, decided to come out with the draft lottery and my ass was headed to Vietnam! I only drove the car 17 months, then stored it at my parent's house to await my return from the military. That was in Memphis. They eventually moved to Tulsa and dad towed the car there. THEN ... they were going to move to Los Angeles. Dad wrote me and asked if he could sell the car as it was too much trouble transporting it to L.A. I agreed and he sold it to a Chevy dealer in Tulsa (don't know which one). The dealer wanted it to put on their showroom floor to draw in some looky-loo's. I never saw the car after that and have always wondered if it still exists.

During the build, Dad was adamant about keeping it as stock looking as possible. It had a roll bar, but we made sure it was nearly invisible (especially at night, when most of my racing was done). I'd get a kick out of the jerks who'd laugh at me saying big tires and racing stripes won't make a racecar out of a Corvair! I'd tell them for a couple hundred bucks, they can make a fool out of me! Once the money was on the line, I'd crank it up and watch the fillings rattle out of their teeth! (Dad built/blueprinted the engine and there was nothing on the street that could touch it ... yet it was my daily driver).

I've posted these pics before ... a few times ... but I'm feeling nostalgic and missing my dad and the good times we had working on projects together. This car looked stock, especially at night. I wish I had better pics, but I never was one for taking pics for some reason. These were taken in the parking lot where I worked.

corv8-3.jpg corv8-2.jpg corv8-1.jpg

corv8-4.jpg corv8-6.jpg

At a glance, nobody realized the back seat was missing! This is what was attached to the go-pedal and where all the action took place!

corv8-5.jpg

[BarryBobPosthole]

Kribbs in his ride ‘back in the day’.
BKB

IMG_3455.jpg

[Chicken Dinner]

That’s pretty cool. But, that mirage looks a little too much like a hearse for my taste.


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[Thumper]

Ha! The Mirage is the pick-up. People would see it from the front quarter, yet not realize it had a pick-up bed. They’d think it was a coupe, hence the name Mirage. The year after we ended production, Mitsubishi contacted us to ask permission to use the name. We told them we had no copyright on the name, so they used it for the Mitsubishi Mirage starting in 1988.

If you were in the car design business, you’d realize the difference between a wagon and a hearse. The hearse has a large, squared off back section with a huge, side-opening door. They normally had landau bars on the pillar posts. Station Wagons were still common in those days, so the difference was obvious during that era. To you young whipper-snappers accustomed to mini-vans and SUV’s, it probably would look like a hearse.

The rear seats also folded down to make a large cargo area and there was an area of the rear floor that opened to expose a secure storage area, including jack and spare tire.

There were competitors making similar wagons, but they simply cut the rear off of GM wagons from a salvage yard and welded it on. The roof lines, window shapes/lines didn’t match and really looked like crap to anybody who knew what they were looking at. Ours were all hand made parts and the body lines flowed like a custom designed unit, instead of a Frankenstein unit cobbled together with existing, non-matching parts.

There were also competitors making the Caddie trucks with El Camino type beds. Again, ill-fitting to the trained eye. Our “trucks” were also hand-made with no salvaged parts. We were the only builder authorized to be sold through Cadillac dealers and were fully warranted by the dealer.


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[johnboy]

Now I got this song running through my head:

I got a '69 Chevy with a three-ninety-six
Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor
She's waiting tonight down in the parking lot
Outside the 7-Eleven store
Me and my partner Sonny built her straight out of scratch
And he rides with me from town to town
We only run for the money, got no strings attached
We shut 'em up and then we shut 'em down

You know how the rest goes.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Great tune!I’m a big fan of Emmy Lou’s cover offthat song!
BKB

[Bwana]

Cool stuff Jim!

[Thumper]

I've been digging through old paperwork trying to get stuff organized and just ran across a note that John Wayne and Elvis also had one of the station wagons. I was talking to my step-mom in California just last month and she told me there are some boxes in her garage marked "Traditional Coach Works Misc" in her garage, but she has no idea what's in them. She has cancer and has been given just weeks to live, I few days after talking with her, I called repeatedly to arrange possibly shipping or picking up the boxes, but could only get voicemail. I talked with my step-brother and he said she took a sudden downturn and is in hospice. I'm told she's pretty much "out of it" and has been given just days to live. I'm now working with the step-brother to rescue this paperwork. He knows nothing about it and these cars were built before he and his twin brother were even born, It may be just trash, or it could be a gold mine of information, I have no idea, but I'm currently trying to get everything I have, gathered into one place to preserve the history of our work. I guess I'm the only one left to accomplish this and I'm not getting any younger.

I just found a wagon that had been listed for sale on-line. It sold, but I don't know what it went for. Considering it's in it's original form and has had no restoration work, it looks pretty good for an almost 50 year old car. I wish I had the money to buy one (wagon AND truck), but have no clue what I'd do with them. Nobody in my family is into cars these days. I guess dad and I were the end of the car nut era as far as our family is concerned. Makes me kind'a sad, but at least I have the memories.

castilian wagon sale 1.jpg castilian wagon sale 2.jpg castilian wagon sale 3.jpg

[Hombre]

Very cool Thump, who knew you were so handy! I would have guessed handsy but not handy..

[BarryBobPosthole]

It pays to be handy if you can’t be handsome.
~ Red Green