1976
American Specialty Corp - ASC (USA)
Shortly after the introduction by Cadillac of the all-new 1976 4-door Seville,
this company, better known for its sun-roof conversions, planned to build a limited
production 2-door version to be named Charisma. They were projecting completion
of five cars monthly beginning in September 1975, climbing to 25 per month by January.
Actual production figures unknown. I never actually saw one until the 2-owner car car
below was advertised for sale on e-Bay in August 2001 and again in February 2002. There
was enormous interest in the car, even though it was anticipated to sell at almost double
the original price of the Seville. Several months production were pre-sold, and
they were accepting orders well into Spring and Summer of 1976. The car was to be sold
through Cadillac dealers. But only 5 cars are said to have been built in all. Two or
three of them were sold through Cadillac agencies and the remaining two or three were
shipped to Saudi Arabia (...who would have guessed?). Not even the San Remo
convertible Seville matched the quality and elegance of the Charisma.
The car below was owned originally by Robert Vlasic of Vlasic Foods (pickles, etc.); it
has a custom "V" medallion on the quarter panels, indicating the car's
ownership. The second owner purchased it in 1979. The vendor has had it since 1979.
 
 
[additional photos (repaint)? - 76SvlChar...]
Baker, Dick and Tony (see Custom
Coach, below)
Coach Design Group (Westlake
Village, California, USA) A Database user from Oklahoma City, OK, asked in
January 2005: Anyone have any info or literature on 1977-78 Eldorado
"Majorica" [Mallorca ?] edition with T-Tops and filled in Quarter windows? I am
told that approximately 40 were built by the Coach Design Group of California, makers of
the Seville San Remo. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Jim Jordan. Jim
wrote again to say that he had got a '76 "Majorca" and knew of a yellow
'77 model from Scottsdale, AZ [see "Dream Cars" for 1977]. He said these
conversions were unusual and very well done. The cars feature large, solid metal
T-Tops (not the small glass Hurst units) that are cut to the contours of the windshield
frame. The rear quarter windows are filled in solid, yet the cars do not have vinyl
roofs. They feature a chrome band over the top that runs out to the front of the
hood, similar to Biarritz trim, and are engraved "Majorca". Etymological
note: although pronounced MA-JOR-KA by Anglo-Saxons, the correct spelling of the
Mediterranean island located off the Spanish coast is in fact "Mallorca"
and is pronounced MA-YORK-AH [the closest pronunciation of the Spanish vowel,
"LL" corresponds approximately to the Angklo-Saxon "Y"]. It bugs me
when I hear American peudo-linguists attempting to put on a foreign accent to pronounce
Anglicised words like Parmesan (the Italian cheese from Parma, which is correctly
pronounced PAR-MAY-ZAN); many try to impress by pronouncing it PAR-MEE-JAN, in an attempt
to mimic the correct Italian pronunciation, PAR-ME-GEE-ANO; note that the adjectival
forms, "parmigianO" and "parmigianA"
are perfectly correct when used to describe an Italian dish made or covered with grated
Parmesan... Ok, so now let's get back to our CADDY-JACKS.
[ no images ]
Cadillac Motor Car Division of GM
(USA) Rare, but not as rare as the majority of cars in this section, here are some
views of one of the final 200 "last" Cadillac convertibles delivered by the
factory in 1976. The "last" factory convertible turned out to be untrue ...as
the factory built another (short) run in 1984-85.
 
 
Each of the last 200 cars carried a brass plaque like
this one
Center City Cadillac
(Philadelphia, USA) Custom Calais coupe.
 
 
Center City Cadillac took a base Calais with
cloth seats, put some extra padding on the roof
and had side scripts made up for what they called it: the St. Moritz
[Cadillac Motor Car Division, GM, showed their own St. Moritz custom
Eldorado in 1955!]
Custom Coach, Lima, OH (USA) Father
and son team, Dick and Tony Baker sent me in 2007 a CD-ROM of photos of many of the
conversions he and his late father, Dick Baker, did on the Cadillac chassis. Many of the
pics are digital copies of Polaroids, hence the mediocre image quality.
  
[ Photos: © 1976 and courtesy Tony Baker ]
Fisher Body [Cadillac]
(USA) - unless disproved by that company - Custom Eldorado convertible with added
rumble seat. This one is owned by Tom Astor, a well-known "Country" singer in
Germany. Enthusiast, Ingo Marx, who kindly supplied the photos wrote: The
rumble seat car is a 1976 special conversion for 8 passengers. These conversions were
carried out by Fisher Body in a limited edition of about 10 cars. They were so rare that
even many Cadillac workers didn´t know about them. We [Müller & Hensel]
sold the only one in Europe several years ago. This car was not a Bicentennial model, but
it was provided with a similar style. It is still in service. Well, Ingo, this
is news to me. I sure would be interested to hear from anyone at Cadillac who can
confirm that these conversions were done by the Fisher Body Co..
 
[ Photos: Internet, courtesy Ingo Marx,
German Funeral Car Archives ]
Fleetwood (USA) Production
for the Talisman option package was as follows: 1974: 1898 units, 1975: 1238
units, 1976: 1200 units. Pricing for 1975 was $1,788 above the base price of $10,414, and
$1,813 above the $10,935 base price in 1976. A car thus outfitted was
offered for sale in NJ in September 1996 [SS, 9/1196, p.19-20]
Fleetwood (USA) Special "bicentennial" Eldorado
convertible; although many more than 10 were built, still it is an interesting collectors'
item, being a regular production 1976 Fleetwood Eldorado with custom interior trim, as
seen here:
 
Formal Coach Corporation (USA) Aside from
this conversion on Eldorado chassis, illustrated below, FCC, a relatively unknown
coach-builder, also did a pick-up conversion on the Cadillac chassis
Milan Convertible Co. [or Milan
Coach Builders ?] (Simi Valley, CA, or 5830 Los Virgenes, Calabasas, CA, USA)
Offered conversion kits costing $1495 allowing conversion of Seville to 2-door Milan
Roadster Convertible (1976 through 1979); kit included instruction manual and all
parts needed.
Moloney (USA) Stretched model on the
Cadillac Seville chassis. The photo, below, was found on the Internet.
 
 
The owner of this Moloney
conversion, who lives in Lancaster PA, informed me (April 2004) that this is
a 1976 model. Only that year had the clear (white) lenses on the turn-signal/parkinglights
below the headlights
Trivia:
According to a Wall Street Journal article about Earle Moloney, published circa 1977, one
Middle-Eastern sheik ran up a tab of 1.4 million dollars with his company for 18 stretched
Cadillacs and a dozen customized Eldorados, plus a few MBs.
Tomaso of America, Inc. (USA) the Seville Tomaso
coupe
Traditional Coachworks (USA) Custom
Cadillac pick-ups. One of these was sold at a Kruse auction in Fort Worth, TX [lot #354],
in April 2000. It was bid up to $2,700. The ad said that only 240 were ever
built.
This one is getting ready to be restored
[ Photos: © and courtesy of Steve Crum, owner ]
This one is already restored
 
Illustrations from manufacturer's brochure
These two rows: more survivors
Traditional Coachworks (USA) Custom
Cadillac estate wagons
 
A reported 50 units were built but I cannot guarantee
the reliability of that figure
[ Photos (above two rows): from contemporary product
brochure ]
 
 
  
 
 
Three rows immediately above: a trio of rare
survivors
 
A similar wagon to those illustrated in the preceding
five rows
was on display at the CLC Grand National, Detroit, 2002 (bottom row)
[ Last three photos: © 2002, J. Scott Harris ]
 
This Castilian wagon was offered for sale on
eBay in January, 2004
[Unknown,
USA] Castilian special-bodied station wagon. Very similar to preceding
car. Photo SSA89, p.32
[Unknown, USA] Another custom wagon
on Cadillac chassis. This one was for sale on the Internet, "as is", in April,
2002.
 
[ Photos: Internet, 4/2002 ]
This one (in much better
shape) was offered for
sale in the CLC Self Starter classifieds in March, 2003
[Unknown, USA]
customized Eldorado convertible, found for
sale on the Internet in March 2001, with this description: This
beautiful, one of a kind collectors piece features a louvered hood and fenders, ground
effects 360 degrees around the car's lower portion. Remote controlled (electric) doors,
dual French style antennas, custom grille, with dual exhaust extensions, complete with
ORIGINAL El Dorado wheels. This piece of machinery offers a custom luxurious button
tufted, white with navy blue piping, interior not to mention the perfect dash
console. The trunk space is fully upholstered, matching the interior seats,
including a spare tire cover. Adding to the back of the car is a spoiler, which most
certainly does everything but spoil the car's unique style, is fashioned to add a sporty
zest...
To each his own!
 
  
[Unknown, USA]
Painted Firethorn (or was it Mandarin Orange?), with white leather trim throughout,
this rumble seat convertible was advertised for sale in an older issue of Collectible
Automobile. It was said to be "one of five built with electric rumble
seat". It had a reported 16K miles and was priced at $20K.
 
[ Photos: Collectible Automobile, Cars
for Sale ]
[Unknown, USA] Cadillac Eldorado
El Deora; this, again, was no "custom" job like those of the
independent coach builders of the twenties and thirties. It was simply a stock Cadillac
Eldorado with various pieces of additional trim like the fancy radiator grill, padded
saddle top, opera windows and faux continental kit. Enthusiast Tim Stephens of Belgium wrote, in May
2003: There is (in Sydney, I think now) a
triple-white El Deora on a 1975 Eldorado chassis ...a hideous monstrosity
imported by the Deen family (you've heard of them, no doubt) in the late 1970s. It
has the RR grille, bug-eye headlamp treatment, faux-continental bump in the trunk, vile
red "fur" for the headlining which looks like shag carpet upside-down, and is
right-hand-drive and registered. I last saw it at the 25th Anniversary of the CLSCA,
in Sydney, in 1995 driven by a hippie! I did not waste film on it! Well said,
Tim!
 
 
[Unknown, USA] special-bodied
station wagon on Eldorado chassis [see photo]
[Unknown, USA] special-bodied
station wagon [photo] - one of these crossed the auction block at Auburn, Indiana,
September 1997. It was said to be a conversion of a Cadillac 60 Special.
[Unknown, USA] convertible coupe on
shortened Cadillac Seville chassis. This photo, below, was found on the
Internet
[Unknown, USA] customized Seville
El Camino type pick-up truck
[Unknown, USA] Here's another El
Camino type pick-up truck on the 1976 Seville chassis, apparently built for
stuntman, Evel Knievel
  
This ID plate is attached to the LH side of the
tailgate
[Unknown, USA] customized 8-wheel 1975-76 Eldorado
T-top. Possibly in Brisbane, Australia. Was for sale with this description: The
world's first 4-axle, twin steer Cadillac Eldorado Birritz [sic]. Great
promotional vehicle. Brisbane motor auction late February [what year?], Ph (07) 3268 2800,
Information line 0416 334 737.
[Unknown, USA] This westernized 1975 Eldorado
was the (favorite) car of Nudie, the man who dressed the Hollywood stars
[Unknown, USA] This
photograph is reproduced courtesy of Jim Eccleston of the Cadillac Mailing List
(CML); like the Nudie car, this Eldorado too sports a pair of longhorns and
two large trumpet horns.
[Unknown, USA] Mirage
pick-up truck (now you see it, now you don't?)
 
[ Photos, above two rows: Internet, 2/2001 ]
 
 
This Mirage pick-up was on display during the CLC
Grand National, Detroit, 2002
[Photos, above three rows: © 2002, J. Scott Harris ]
 
This one was offered for sale on eBay, in March 2004
[Unknown, USA] Here's
another similar looking pick-up truck on the 1976 Cadillac Eldorado chassis. This one was
for sale on e-Bay in April, 2003.
 
[ Photos: Internet, 2003 ]
[Unknown, USA] Sligfhgtly
customized [shortened] Cadillac Seville
 
[Unknown, USA] In addition to
being highly customized, Iwould rank these three jobs as "pimpmobiles".
They appear to be all from the same customizer. Does anybody recognize them. They
were featured in an issue of Playboy in the mid-seventies.
 
[Unknown, USA]
"1977-59" custom coupe. The pictures say it all.
 
[ Photos: Internet 9/2001 ]
[Unknown, USA] Custom Eldorado
convertible, offered for sale on the Internet in April, 2002. The VIN identified it
as a 1975 model and it was advertised as a Special Biarritz Custom Edition. In outward appearance it looks like an Eldorado model from 1977-78
(Cadillac did not make a convertible in those two years) but the hood lettering is from a
1978, tail-lights from 1977-78, steering wheel from 1985 and interior apparently from the Custom
Biarritz coupe of 1977-78. I would call it the Cadillac Hodge-Podge.
 
Whatizzit ??? Vendor claims it was custom made for
Frank Sinatra, the interior alone is reported to have
cost $10,000! Yeah, right, like ol' Blue Eyes would order an expensive custom job
on a used car ?!?! In any case,
I saw this car for sale a few months earlier and THAT vendor's story was quite
different. Caveat emptor!
[Unknown, USA] Not sure
whether to list this converted limousine under "Dream Cars" or "Cadillac
Art".
 
[Unknown, USA] Same again.
"Car" or "rolling sculpture".
Wisco (USA) Customized
Eldorado El Clásico [frequently spelled erroneously as El Classico]; the
photos appear to depict a trimmed-up De Ville model and not an Eldorado.
  
 
Trivia: In the mid- to
late-seventies it was not uncommon for some major Cadillac dealers like Potamkin
in New York or Center City Cadillac
in Philadelphia, to dress up basic Cadillac models like the
bottom-line Calais (adding some special trim items like a Cabriolet
padded roof, a grille cap, script ID badges) and to sell them as custom jobs with such
fancy, French-sounding names like Régent, d'Etoile, d'Marchand,
etc. Those unfortunate de and d' prepositions are largely overworked in
the pseudo-French practised by many coach-builders in the USA.
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