Posted on 09/22/2009 2:56:20 AM PDT by Daffynition
Finding a 1956 Cadillac Coupe de Ville and a '55 convertible together is a dream come true
A lot of what happens in life depends on a combination of good luck and being in the right place at the right time. So it goes with the hunt of for classic cars. For me, it seems every year the moon and stars line up perfectly and the car gods agree that it's my turn. So it came to pass this summer with a 1955 Cadillac convertible. A mechanic friend was told about an old Cadillac convertible he heard about that was stored in a North Vancouver garage for 20 years.
After burning up the phone lines, I located the daughter of the owner of the car - a woman I'll just refer to as Patti. She said her father had left the car in her garage years before and moved to Vancouver Island. It was in her way and she needed the space. A site visit was arranged and what I saw in that garage knocked my socks off: Not one great Caddie, but two. The red 1955 Cadillac convertible was alongside a pale green and white 1956 Cadillac Coupe de Ville.
Patti explained that her father had bought the cars in the U.S. in the 1980s and stored them in her garage. But what was supposed to be temporary stretched out over two decades and the cars never moved. Telephone contact was made with Patti's father, negotiations concluded with a meeting arranged to exchange money for title.
But the big challenge was getting the huge red convertible out of the jammed garage which led out to a sharp turn in Patti's backyard and then up a hill between trees that had grown quite large and fat over the years.
Bring in Rick the tow truck driver. He backed down the hill on the grass putting the truck's rear end perpendicular to the Caddie's rear end. Rick then hooked his cable through the sling lift so the cable was on a 90 degree angle to his truck. Once attached to the Caddie, Rick skillfully extracted the car straight out of the garage. He then lifted the car and dragged it up the hill.
The Caddie had been restored with new red paint and new leather upholstery before being stored. It was covered in dust and needed a good cleanup. Within a half hour of being brought to my shop, a new battery had been installed, points filed, fresh gas added and the Caddie was purring like a kitten with all the power options going up and down including the top.
And so it was the year previous. I had never seen a 1958 Oldsmobile 98 convertible before the occasion that I went to Vancouver Island to pick up a 1966 Thunderbird that I had purchased during a very weak moment. The car was in a mobile home park outside Nanaimo. As I was driving down between the mobile homes, I looked into a garage and spotted what I knew to be the front fender of a 1950s GM car. A closer look revealed that it was an ultra rare 1958 Olds 98 convertible sitting in there with the top down all covered in dust.
The owner explained he had purchased his' dream car' in Idaho and restored the car in Medicine Hat, Alberta before moving to Nanaimo, he brought the car with him. But he had injured himself falling off a roof and the car remained unused. I started visiting him regularly during business trips to Vancouver Island and eventually reached an agreement to purchase the huge convertible.
The old car hobby runs largely on emotion. We have connections to the cars we loved when we were young. Growing up during that era when those cars were new, I was the first in the showrooms to see what the car designers had come up with for the new model year. What a privilege it is to now own some of those very special convertibles that were the dreamboats of yesteryear. And there is always the dream about what could be coming next.
Alyn Edwards is a classic car enthusiast and partner in Peak Communicators - a Vancouver public relations agency.
good read and pics..thanks
as an 18 year old kid in chicago... i got to drive one of those 56 cads once...caught the fever and since 78 i have owned 4 cads... it’s good to hear my 5 year old granddaughter say, can we go in your cadillac, grandpa?
S-w-e-e-t!
Three tone Roadmaster. I learned how to drive in that beastie starting at age 12. Sat on phone directories.
WONDERFUL image!
We considered it a privilege to wash and wax it too!
When I was a child, I knew of every old car within a 20 mile radius, or so it seemed. I was obsessed. I can’t imagine how many people I annoyed by knocking on their door and asking them if the ‘52 Ford sedan with a limb crushing the roof was for sale, or if the ‘66 Nova was all original and how much he wanted for it.
About 5-6 years ago I was back in my home state...and drove around some of my old paths I used to cover on two wheels...just to see what the car situation was like. Still obsessed, obviously. Out of the literally hundreds I knew of, only a few where still there.
I could have been richer than Gates if my parents had listened to me when I told them to buy these 200 dollar running flathead Fords, or the 1200 dollar, all original, complete in every way with no rust, one owner 1970 1/2 Z/28 Camaro. Gold with black rally stripes.....beeeyoootiful, I swear I still have dreams about that car.
Nothing smells better than the interior of an old car.
I love your story. Who knows. You may find your dream ride one day!
Your story brings back a memory of my looking for my first car, had a few hundred dollars saved up from my after school job of pumping gas, and my best friend and I found ourselves in Laurel Maryland one afternoon when there used to be a used car lot literally in the median area of U.S. 1 where SR 198 crossed, and we wandered around that lot and what I saw had my mind racing (pun intended), it was a nearly new looking 1970 Ford Torino fastback, not the GT or Cobra editions but just a plain aquamarine-green 2-door with a godawful black and white PLAID interior (ARGH) but I could overlook that for what was under the hood, it was a 429 V-8 w/4 speed, I suspect the first owner ordered it that way to escape the higher insurance rates that a GT or Cobra would cost them.
In any event, I talked my Dad into stopping by that car lot with me and the salesman, looking extra cheesy that day (thanks bub!), came up with the keys and said “here, take a listen to how smooth this runs” and he started that big 429 up, and it was smooth, but it had a *rumble* to the exhaust note that said “I will eat Chevrolets and Mopars for breakfast” and it was only $1600.
I said “how about it Dad? I’ll pay you back in installments!” And my Dad got that ‘look’ on his face I had seen before, he shook his head ‘no’ and growled at me, “Son, you would get yourself killed in this thing, uh uh”
Thus ended that particular dream, but in retrospect: I know Dad was right, that was too much car for a 16 year old kid and I’m glad he loved me enough to say “No”.
Thanks FRiend, I think the saddest day of my young life was when Dad traded in that ‘51 Buick on a new car, a 1961 Ford Ranch Wagon, it was a rare 2-door wagon, nothing fancy but he was looking for reliability and it gave us 11+ years with nothing but routine maintenance.
My wife stalledher dad’s new 56 Roadmaster on the railroad tracks and got it cut in half.
Her remark to the cops and ambulance was “don’t tell my father”!
Oh that car is SWEET!
Your comment about sitting on phone directories reminded me of the ‘car seat’ my Dad constructed while we had that ‘51 Buick, it was nothing but a wooden crate that he upholstered with fabric and foam padding, it looked quite stylish and I sat on that thing in the middle of the back seat (so I could see where we were going instead of being down below the window line unable to see), nobody worried too much about ‘safety’ and ‘crash tests’ and all of that noise in those days, that’s because there was a higher quality of driver on the road, on average. They weren’t wasting time talking on the phone, or ‘texting’ or any of this ‘new’ damn silliness that ends up killing people.
That car took us to Texas one summer. Dad thought he might set up his thriving New England business in the Lone Star state ...... so off we went off exploring.
When we got down there, a lot of the cars had large oval stickers on the back window. The stickers said “MADE IN TEXAS BY TEXANS”
Partly out of sheer boredom I’m sure, my brother and I made an sign and put it on our back window: “MADE IN BOSTON BY YANKEES.”
I’m sure that endeared us to the locals! LOL
The car that ended up being my first car was a 1963 Ford Galaxie Fastback, got it from the second owner and coincidentally it had been assembled at the FoMoCo Dallas plant.
Best car I ever had. Archer had the NX-01 Enterprise, Kirk had the NCC-1701 Enterprise, Picard had the Star Gazer, and I had the Galaxie. ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.