Jalopnik
Since it's been nearly a month since we last saw a 1950s Detroit DOTS car, and even longer since our most recent DOTS Cadillac, today we're going to look at two-and-a-half tons of Cadillac style: a 1957 Sedan de Ville. This car lives on the island's east side, quite close to the '72 Mercedes 280SEL, and it's parked on a busy street every day. No garage for this survivor!
The '59 Cadillac is the one everyone thinks of when they imagine a hyper-ornamented befinned Cad, but the '57 was no slouch in the Tons-O-Chrome department. Check out this space-age taillight and bumper treatment!
The twin-blade hood ornament is a winner, too. You got a 300-horse 365 under the hood of this baby.
The fins were to get bigger every year until '59, and then shrink as the 60s progressed. They're still somewhat restrained here.
Later front-wheel-drive Eldorados had a variation on the side-trim theme you see here. This is the car driven by mid-level mob attorneys back in the day, although it's likely many of them would have selected the Coupe de Ville.
Comments
TWO hood ornaments! Clearly, this car means Serious Business, 50's-style (i.e., you have a steak and double martini for breakfast, cooked by a woman that never leaves the house or stops smoking in front of the kids).
What a grand, optimistic era.
really nothing like an old caddy, the only way to see the world from the comfort of your couch
If this were a BMW, would the rear window treatment be considered a Hofmeister kink? In a related question, who gives a shit? This Caddy is simply awesome.
Okay, shenanigans...People are just driving their cars to Alameda and parking them there so Mur will take their pix. There is no way one city has this much awesome....
Hitting pedestrians would be droll in this thing.
By the time they reached your windscreen, they'd be filleted.
That is one classy car; always liked the chubby-looking '57's.
Here's an idea for some entrepreneurial type; The Murilee Martin DOTS Motor Tour. "Coming up on the right is the 1957 Cadillac Sedan deVille featured in December of 2007..." I'd pay money for that!
It'd be great for us non-Cafilornee types who only see machines like this all spiffed up in car shows. I'll be sure to wear my floral print shirt, a funky hat and heavy sunscreen on the nose.
Beautiful car, just sad to see second rate body work and paint.
Lovely! I've never seen one of these actually being used. Man, sometimes I wish I lived in California. Sometimes.
BTW, I love the lighting in these photos - looks like they were taken during a fresh, crisp, 6:30am :)
Can I vote this for my Project Car.
Wow, I guarantee that if you pulled up to a valet park they would put this in front next to the Ferrari and the Rollers. Style like this is cheesy but classy at the same time. Makes you wonder what happened, I mean why are Ford and GM designing such vanilla these days when they have cars like this as a history lesson.
Bring back the full on, throw-away-the-body-dies annual model change!
If America is ever going to beat back the invading hordes, we need to give people a good reason to bail out of their perfectly good three year old cars. The crappy quality strategy worked for a while, but it didn't have legs.
Let's hot wire this one and skeedaddle to Vegas. See you at the Desert Inn, baby.
Not hard to see why Geof Darrow and Frank Miller really dig these machines.
Being from the East Coast of Canada, I still find it hard to believe spider webs like that can accumulate like that on a car kept outside!
@TinaChow: Yes, and bring back the tail fins.
This is the holy temple of stylin' and class! I want one.
This is a great find. A little known fact, these fins were forward facing, and quite restrained. The 58 model reverted to backward facing fins, to make the car actually look longer. I liked the single headlamp look of the 57 better than the quad headlamp look for 58. This is a proper DOTS car...
I'm really digging the twin front directionals...do they both work? Or does this S.S. America have honest-to-god foglamps built in?
A good friend in school had one about this vintage, it had the fuel filler in the drivers tail light.
When they put a 3 ton weight limit on a local bridge needing repairs, we could not legally drive it over the bridge anymore!! This thing weighed something like 7800 lbs!!
But, man what a sweet ride.
If had this car, I'd drive it wearing a pork pie hat, I'd be smoking constantly, I'd carry my money in a roll, not a wallet, beaner on the outs and I'd be all, "whatta you drivin'... a Lexus? Forget about it
It's all about the Dagmars.... We need to bring back Dagmars....
The Jimi Hendrix song "Highway Chile" makes reference to the antagonist owning a Cadillac, and this is exactly what I picture. But there's a line "Ain't seen a bed in so long, it's a sin" - this thing is a rolling bed, it's a suite on wheels.
@FastGTI: I don't think it's cheesy and I'm not a 1950s fan at all. This car oozes Americana from every weld, crease and panel gap. It's the national culture put on wheels.
@Dr.Danger: I agree as well. The new-body-every-year thing was great, and helped make sure your neighbors know you have the newest car. Ah, America.
@Vintage Racer: Please, let's be professional here: the preferred term is "Giant Chrome Boobs." It's too bad they got toned down in favor of tail fins.
The '57 looked kinda sporty.
I'd love to do a Tatra style 21st century upgrade to this... todays technology, 1957 glamma.
If todays Caddies packed anywhere near the style of these behemoths, Maybach would never have bothered trying.
Wonderful car. My folks had a couple of 55 and 56 Cadillacs around 1964/65. They were great cars, and very advanced for the day. That car probably has automatic dimming headlights and a signal seeking AM radio, among other things.
Also, that's not just a taillight and bumper treatment, I'm pretty sure that louvered opening below the lights is the exhaust outlet. The 55s had a round opening, the 56s an oval, and the 57s went to the louver.
@Paul Y: We're almost getting to the "new styling every year" stage again. Cars remained essentially the same for years in the 70s/80s/90s, but it seems that the lifespan of car models/styles nowadays is getting very short again. Probably more due to short attention span.
@Rust-MyEnemy: I saw something similar at a car show a few years back... '53 Eldorado sedan with a late model Northstar engine. Super sweet.
I'd like to know where that guy lives. 'Cause he's the first person I want to talk to after I win the lottery.
The 57 Caddy is a beautiful vehicle, looks like the owner would at least wash it.
let's see...this car...a .45 spittin' Thompson...an Australian 100-meter free-styler (is Leisel Jones available?)and i could run off to Oklahoma and rob banks.
Thanks for bringing back the awesome and washing the bad Renault taste away.
@newfmike: The spiderwebs are the result of the no-rain-whatsoever period we get here from about March through November. If you don't wash your car- and this Cad's owner seldom does- you get lots of spiderwebs.
@scottydawg: All right, but if I can find a Le Car it's going to be here!
FLB nailed it. This car IS America.
And yeah, bring back the Dagmars!
Once you see a face in the taillights and bumper louvers (exhaust outlet?) you can't go back to nt seeing it.
@jimmythefly: was just about to write that.. those taillights remind me of Roger Rabbit.
@LTDScott: That's a 1958 model. Also appears to be a 4 door hardtop, not a sedan. Very classy.
@squablow: Yup, I typoed.
@LTDScott: on the year that is. I realize it's a 4-door hardtop. I'm too used to 4-door = sedan. I think it had a brushed stainless roof too.
Beautiful car.
@LTDScott: That's a very limited production '57 Eldorado, not a standard Caddy. Different body, lower, shorter, and it cost more than twice as much.
Just Freaking Awesome! Real amateur car pRon!
@LTDScott: New pants, please....
Wow. Just, wow.
That's absolutely beautiful. This is why I keep saying that Cadillac should be sparing no expense and competing squarely with Rolls-Royce.
@LTDScott: That's the super-limited production Eldorado Brougham, which absolutely screams for a JFG nomination. *hint*hint* If you still aren't feeling it, Loverman, you could always pit it against the Continental Mark II in a '50s American über-luxury car cage match, where the winner receives a spot in the JFG.
That being said, if I was a dragon, I'd still bang that '57 Sedan deVille (or any other '57 Cad, for that matter) in a heartbeat.
Being a Dragon, I can't resist a nice set of Dagmars.
@TomAnderson: I would second that nomination.... And the Mark II. I did send in a rather lengthy diatribe on 5 others, including the Dual Ghia, The Nash Healey, The Kaiser Darrin, The BMW 507, AND the Chrysler Turbine.... any body's favorite in this bunch?
@jimmythefly:
I saw that too!
This is probably my favorite Caddy ever. It is just so beautiful. There are quite a few for sale on the intrawebs.
And for you youngsters out there, if you study the face, you'll see why the '57 chevy was called the "baby caddy" or sometimes "poor man's caddy."
Gorgeous piece of luxury right there. The chrome alone weighs more than a Honda Fit probably. And that's how it damn should be!
Did someone say in a previous DOTS that the cobwebs/spiderwebs are literally a daily occurrence out in that area, or am I just getting paranoid about spiders?
I'll take it. Just as it is.
@KingRoyale: The spiders are everywhere. More every day. Watching us.
@Murilee Martin:
My current worst spider experience was when I lifted the radiator cap on my Mustang after pulling the car out of winter storage, only to find a spider nest in the open crevice, which proceeded to explode into some 50 baby spiders when I went to crush it. That was exciting.
Between spiders and Jeff Goldblum, I may develop some sort of being watched complex.
@KingRoyale: I'll be having nightmares now. Ta.
@TinaChow:
You nailed it, Tina!
Sputnik was in space, we had to get to the moon.
Who cares if there's only rocks and dust there!
As for the "throw away the dyes" strategy, if you look at Ford's re-creation of the '57 T-Bird 50 years later, it's a bit of a stretch to say they realized a good design and were better late than never.