Sixty-One, Sixty-Two, Sixty-Three, and Seventy model names Revived
I recently found scans of a 1968 Cadillac brochure at the Old Car Manual Project
website. They're the fairly typical heavily airbrushed renderings,
pointedly out of proportion to make the cars seem even longer than they
were. I thought I could do something with them and soon enough, I was
working on ten "new" additions to the 1968 lineup.
For the type, I kept the advertising agency's original Future font for my new type, and kept the same brochure look for all of
these renderings. I used to sit and dream I worked at agencies that
would have made these brochures, like Darren Stevens on Bewitched
did, loll, and by working on these renderings I sort of fulfilled that
childhood dream. I've deleted the "De Ville" name and used a version of
their prewar nomenclature instead. The Series 61 becomes the Sixty-One,
the Series 62, the Sixty-Two, the Series 63, Sixty-Three, and Seventy for
the Fleet wood. There was a late '30s Series 70 with bodies by Fleet wood, so I'm not just going willy-silly here.
It was also great
fun creating colors and naming them. Working with color is what I love
the most and even though no one ever knows it, I name the colors I use
in my books to set the tone of if for me. For these Cadillac names, I've
used everything from
places I've visited, like Consecrations, Nantucket, to old Cadillac model
names like the Gallant, even my late great
aunt Melba's name. I hope you have as much looking at them as I did
imagining and creating them. All images click able thumbnails to enlarge
or save as always.
Above, my "entry level" Sixty-One sport coupe. It's a full size Caddy
but uses the GM B-body roofline from that period. I've done a couple of
renderings of this idea in the past, and it never fails to look
"perfect" to me, lol. For this one, and for most of these renderings,
I've also changed the front end. I've kept the grille line completely
horizontal, saving the original higher central only on Fleetwood models.
I think it looks cleaner and simpler, something Cadillac strove for
many times in their history. The blue sedan is my "Sixty-Two Park
Avenue" pillarless sedan. It's a "short-deck" design, something Caddy
itself did in the early Sixties on a few sedans. The idea was that much
of Caddy's buyers were aging, and they most likely had prewar garages,
often measuring less than 20 feet long. By making the trunk (rear deck)
6- to 8-inches shorter, the cars were more manageable and fit in those
garages. I've seen a few, but they weren't big sellers. In MY alternate
reality though, the short-decks proved very popular and I've created a
full lineup of them. To compensate for the shorter rear quarters, I've
opened up the rear wheelwells on them. Perhaps a younger clientele would
have appreciated their looks and slightly smaller mass.
Short decks in both convertible and hardtop coupe models. I've used a more formal roof than the Sixty-One coupe because of the shorter trunklid. I think it's a very pretty and proportional coupe!
I would have added a factory station wagon to the Sixty-Two lineup. I think Cadillac may have gone the "Packard" route and called it the Station Sedan, and the pillar less wagon body style had been gone since 1964, but I think it's a very elegant and cohesive design. No wood would have been offered to keep the car sedan-like and Cadillac-like! The bottom car is a revived Series 63, or Sixty-Three, here. It would have been available only as a 6-window pillared sedan, and would have featured optional "Formal-Tone" two tones in classic combinations. It would have been the final step up before the luxurious Fleet wood Seventy models.
For the top Cadillac, I've brought back a prewar moniker, the Seventy, or Series 70 prewar. I would have made Fleetwood an entire series, with sedans and coupes. The top one shows the "base" Seventy coupe. The windows are large and airy, showing off the top-shelf leather interiors, and a nice cleanly sloped notch back roof. The bottom one shows the ultra luxury model, the Brougham coupe, and features an almost blind rear roof panel, and a heavily padded grained vinyl roof. The interiors would have mirrored the largest Seventy Brougham sedan with adjustable footrests in the rear, fold-down writing tables, and an optional "Car Office" similar to what Imperial offered in '67 and '68. Colors for Fleetwoods would have reflected fine jewelry, and the ads would have used expensive jewelry in a nod to Caddy's fabulous Fifties advertisements.
Finally, I would have added two models to the unique front wheel drive
Eldorado: A sleek "Aerodynamic Coupe," using the name of a limited
production Depression-era Caddy, and a revived Brougham sedan complete
with stainless steel roof and Arpeggio atomizer like the late Fifties
super luxury sedan of the same name. I've added fender skirts to the Eldon's massive wheel openings, and in the sedan, completely eliminated
the rear fender kickback for a very, very smooth body side. I kept the belt line contour just below the side windows, and trailed it back into
the rear quarter panel. As much of an icon this original Eldorado is, I
was astounded at how "right" these completely different versions looked
if I do say so myself.
