We sometimes forget that you could still get enormous freakin' Detroit land yachts well into the Malaise Era, gas lines and Middle East unrest be damned. This 1978 Cadillac Eldorado is an excellent example of such a car; the '77 Continental we saw a few months back is another.
This car looks big as an aircraft carrier next to just about everything else on the street; the gigantic Malaise Bumpers just make it even bigger.
Dig that Caddy style, baby! Thing is, by '78 your Eldo came with a 180-horse 425 engine (you could get 190 horses with the fuel-injection option... but you were really better off with the computer Q-Jet).
Best of all, you could get the Eldo with T-Tops! Damn, if ever there was a must-have option, this was it! And who knows, maybe these don't even leak.
Pretty close to 5,000 pounds here, which seems a bit much for an engine with less power than a lot of modern-day minivan mills.
But when all is said and done, it's still a proper Cadillac, from the era when Cadillacs were marketed to rich old men who fire their employees just to see the look of dismay on their faces. Not like now, when GM tries to focus-group Cadillac into respectability in younger demographics.
A trailer hitch in a huge front-wheel-drive car? Might be a challenge getting a big boat up a seaweed-coated ramp...
Did this Caddy zig? Hell no!
DISCUSSION
My girlfriend's dad had a red convertible with white leather. He took us to the junior prom in it. All three in the front seat, sliding from one side to the other as THEREDCAR mentioned earlier.
This car, the 70's Mercury Marquis (I like them better than the Continental) and the Olds 98 are some of my favorite cars. Honorable mention for the Chrysler Imperial.
The size, the excess, cigarette lighters, ashtrays, mirrors and interior/marker lights every freaking where. I just love 'em. Cars like that, they just traded them in when the ashtrays got full.