Restoration Shop in Ballard

It's easy enough to sink tens of thousands of dollars into your classic car. When I checked out these vehicles at the restoration shop in Ballard, it struck me that each had some good points and some bad points for your restoration dollar.

1951 Chevy 3100 Advanced-Design truck
Pro: Everybody loves it. Easy to maintain.
Con: Hard to drive.

1962 Ford Thunderbird
Pro: Well-built and powerful. Makes a statement.
Con: Old man's car. Kind of tacky.

1982 Jaguar XJ-S
Pro: It's a V-12 supercar. Surprisingly affordable.
Con: It's surprisingly affordable because it's impossible to keep running.

1981 Fiat 124 Spider
Pro: Fun.
Con: Not very reliable.

1980 MGB
Pro: Fun.
Con: Not very reliable.

1958 Cadillac Coupe DeVille
Pro: Wow power, easy to maintain the drivetrain.
Con: Kind of a money pit - it's got power everything with 1950s wiring.

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1980 Cadillac Seville

"That is the ugliest car I've seen." That was my father's reaction upon seeing the new "bustleback" Cadillac Seville in the fall of 1979. I'm sure that was an exaggeration. After all, dad could remember a lot of Detroit ugly, like the 1958 Dodge.

I haven't seen one of these in quite a while. They were built on the same reliable front-drive platform as the Eldorado and Oldsmobile Toronado, but most of them had truly terrible engines: the Olds diesel or Cadillac's failed "variable displacement" V-8. Weirdly, both Chrysler and Ford decided to copycat this car in the form of the 1981 Imperial and 1982 Lincoln Continental.

 

 

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1970 Cadillac Fleetwood

I'd like to see the reaction of the GM guys who built this car if I could go back in time and tell them that in just 12 years, they'd be selling a Cadillac that made only 88 horsepower. That would be the infamous Cadillac Cimarron. This Fleetwood however packs a 472 c.i. V-8 that makes 375 horsepower. The biggest, most luxurious American car made in the second half of the twentieth century started at $7,284 or about $57,000 in 2023 dollars. (You know, that's not really that expensive. The cheapest Chevy Suburban you can buy costs that much today.)

Cadillac's top of the line included a dizzying array of magic carpet ride features. For instance, "The front suspension used upper and lower control arms with a new integral steering knuckle for greater dependability and longer life. It had independent helical coil springs, rubber mounted strut rods and rubber bushings to isolate road noise as they absorbed impact. The rear suspension was set-up to accommodate the Automatic Level Control network. The rear suspension used the Cadillac four-link drive system, helical coil springs and large rubber bushings to improve ride quality."

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1957 Cadillac Coupe DeVille

The giant slept deeply. In the giant's dream, all the gas stations on Route 66 were open again, and all selling 100-octane premium leaded gasoline. The giant roared down the desert highway to a vanishing point on the western horizon. And the giant dreamed on.

Cadillac's first all-new car since 1948. In 1957 the Caddy 365 V-8 produced a gravel-crushing 400 ft. lbs. of torque.

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1952 Cadillac Series 62

GM introduced an all-new Cadillac in 1948, with a high-compression V-8 in 1949. By the 1950s, the technology in Caddys had left other luxury carmakers in the dust. Automatic transmission had already been available since 1941, now add to that wrap-around glass and power-everything by the mid-50s.

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Time is an illusion. 1979 Cadillac Fleetwood, 1955 Ford Fairlane, 1965 Plymouth Barracuda

There are some neighborhoods in Seattle where you can street store the cars you're (slowly) restoring.

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1958 Cadillac Eldorado. For Those with Money to Burn

The 1950's were the era of the status symbol, when social norms forced men to all wear the same gray suit and hold the same gray opinions. Buying an Eldorado made the bold statement, "I have money to burn." A Cadillac Series 62 coupe cost $4,800, while this Eldorado cost $7,300. That's a difference of $22,00 in inflation adjusted dollars. And yet, what was the difference between the Series 62 and this car? Not much.

Come to think of it, not much has changed. A new BMW 530 starts at $54,000. Yet is it really dramatically more capable or luxurious than a $24,000 Toyota Camry?

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1969 Cadillac Eldorado

When you're behind this Eldorado in traffic and you catch a whiff of its exhaust, you know you're behind a 472 cubic-inch V-8 made before pollution controls.

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1991 Cadillac Sedan DeVille

It's a pretty nice car I guess - it better be, considering that it cost at least $66,000 new in 2019 dollars. When this car was built, the new Lexus and Infiniti models that would start eating Cadillac's lunch had just come out. They were similarly priced, but unlike Caddy's of the time Lexus and Infiniti looked like they might be driven by someone under 75 years old.

Yes, that's the Space Needle in the middle picture.

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1985 Cadillac Cimarron

Take the cheapest Chevy econo-box, add leather seats and nicer rims, then double the price. This is the cynicism that produced General Motors' most notorious product of all time, the Cadillac Cimarron. GM had a lot of problems in the 1980s, and one of the biggest was often having four, or in this case five different divisions (with five separate and expensive executive hierarchies) all selling the same car. It's one thing to have the inexpensive Chevy Celebrity also sold as the somewhat upscale Buick Century, but in this case GM went to a completely ridiculous and unrealistic extreme. Time magazine include the Cimarron on its list of 50 Worst Cars of All Time, saying, "Everything that was wrong, venal, lazy and mendacious about GM in the 1980s was crystallized in this flagrant insult to the good name and fine customers of Cadillac." Here's an article on the Cimarron from curbsideclassic.com.

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1967 Cadillac Sedan Deville

This Cadillac should always be covered in cherry blossoms.

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1966 Cadillac Coupe DeVille

The giant slept deeply. In the giant's dream, all the gas stations on Route 66 were open again, and all selling 100-octane premium leaded gasoline. The giant roared down the desert highway to a vanishing point on the western horizon. And the giant dreamed on.

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