My 1958 Cadillac Series 62 convertible: Right car, wrong time
“You’re the one who got me into the thing!” my friend hissed at me over mind-numbing Mai Tais at an LA dive. There was some debate over who had led whom astray, but we were actually celebrating, in a way, as we’d just sold a joint-project Cadillac during the 1979 oil crisis. After two years of toiling away on the 1958 Series 62 convertible and selling it for a small profit, we calculated that we’d earned $1.24 per hour on the car. Just enough to get us tipsy on rum. At that moment we hated life, hated each other, and most especially hated the car.
Even so, aboard that 19-foot land yacht we felt like royalty. Opulent throughout, the Cadillac apologized to no one for anything; it rode like a Diazepam dream and extended a middle finger of privilege better than any other car I’d known.
We found it on an LA side street in 1977. Once dazzling but now dented and dingy, it belonged to an elderly car salesman who barely shuffled to the door when we knocked. Clearly, it had been his favorite ride, yet now that he was on final approach, he sold it to us for $350.
That car sure was complex. Four power windows were not enough, for instance, so Cadillac included power vent windows, too. and 10 switches to power them all. Of course, not all of the switches worked. Further, the convertible’s hydraulic cylinders leaked fluid into the trunk, the electric clock worked sporadically, and the Delco Wonder Bar radio was reticent to locate stations.
As college students, we poured ourselves into restoring the Caddy with a Dutchman’s restraint. I sweated through installing an ill-fitting mail-order top and then sprayed the car Wimbledon White—a Ford color I liked—in a neighbor’s yard on a drizzly SoCal summer day. Soup cans may have gotten brazed over holes in the exhaust system, before we visited the barrio to have the torn leather upholstery replaced with bordello-red vinyl.
Then came my Cadillac coup de grace: new carpets. The budget kit included a large box of tacks, necessary to conform the flat material to curved floor pans, and in mere hours, I had the scarlet loop-pile hammered into submission. On the first drive afterwards, the electrical system somehow became quirkier than a smartphone dropped in seawater. Probably because I’d tacked through a wiring harness hiding beneath . . .
Finally, after too many months of frustration, we sold the Caddy to a father-son team for cheap. I’m glad they got it. But what they didn’t get was the cherry 1960s black-and-yellow California dealer plate we found in the trunk: “DLR 1.” At least that Caddy excelled at something.
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As a minor license plate collector, I may have actually swooned when I saw that plate.
Did you ever find out which dealer the owner worked for? Curious who California dealer number 1 was.
I worked with an old guy back in the early 70’s (he had to have been in his late 40’s!) who had bought a black ’58 new. It too was a convertible and was always showroom clean. Old Bill looked like a million dollars driving that car. I lost track of him in the late 70’s but have imagined him taking his last drive in that car waving to the pretty girls and chomping on that half chewed stogie. He was truly stylin’.
Wow, that’s a cool plate. Gotta wonder which dealership – you’d think dealerships would kill for that number !
Agreed, nothing says “I don’t care what you think” like a ’50s Caddy convertible with its top down – hope it survives to this day.
Cool car. Looking good!
My favorite was the ’57 convertible robin egg blue with a rolled & pleated white & blue interior.
Still looking 4 one.
My Friend Elton Cigale had a new, 56 powder blue convertible; as his frat Brother, would lend it to me, Talk about Feeling like a king. Sadly He left this earth in 57, his Parents sold the car, probably to reduce sadness.
IIRC California Dealer No. 1 was Joe Kerley Lincoln Mercury in San Jose CA. They were still in business in the early 2000’s.
Love the “Diazepam dream” description of the way those older Caddies rode if you ever drove one you would know. They were the standard bearer for luxury back in the day.
Is there ever a “wrong time” for the right car?
early caddys were great flashy cars that my uncle loved, bought + drove, but he bought a new merc murader + quickly traded for a beautiful preowned steel gray 58 4 dr caddy, said that merc was JUNK!! i got the privilege of washing that beauty when he visited from NJ to our Pa home, quite a ride!! although modern tech excels i some areas you CANT beat an old LAND YAHT in many areas, never road in a more comfortable car in my life!!!
considering how much the MM plate sold for, i bet that plate is worth more than a restored 58
What a beautiful automobile. I’ll never forget seeing a new 1958 Eldorado Brougham at Sharpe Cadillac in Tampa. That was, and still is, to me, a magnificient automobile. The sticker price was $13,155, in 1958!!