Show Car Friday? Whatever, here's a Bed Stuy Beauty!

SPIRIT OF '76

I've said it before, said it again, and will now say it again-again; the streets of Brooklyn are littered with vintage Cadillacs! If I wanted to do a blog of only 20+ year old Caddys I don't think I'd have a problem. Nevertheless, this big show-stopper caught my eye while riding through Bed Stuy recently.

This is a 1976 Cadillac Coupe DeVille in either Crystal Blue Firemist Poly or something close to it. This is the Devil in a Blue Dress.

'76 was the second year for square headlights. The only way I know of the differentiate this year from the 1975 model is this wrap around turn signal/cornering lamp; the '76 has those 2 slight horizontal bars spanning the length of the lenses while the '75 had none. If you look closely at the lens you can see that  it is actually divided into 2 parts; turn signal in front and a square at the rear that lights up the side you're steering towards when you have your signal on.

These cars are unabashed in their largess! That chrome top of the grill is a common aftermarket addition. That, combined with the weight of this enormous hood, is probably why the hood is sitting a little lower than the fenders.

Someone installed some 28 or 30 inch rims on this beast and it looks kind of normal actually.

In the sunlight this color was really incredible! The name Firemist on several of the Caddy paint codes refers to a special metal flake that catches the light in a truly beautiful way. I had a '74 Coupe DeVille in Seafoam Firemist Green, but being 18 years old I painted flames on it proudly:

R.I.P. The Olympic (as she was known) 

 This beauty still has the original fender skirts mine was lacking. You can see this was a repaint if you follow the chrome wheel well trim from back to front; it looks like they accidentally painted over half the chrome on the rear!

This dual exhaust pipes are no joke. This beast left the factory with a 500 cubic inch V8! While they were only rated for something like 200hp they are extremely torquey motors that have no issue moving this 5,000lb ride around like it was a much smaller car. My '74 got somewhere in the realm of 8-12 miles per gallon though so I had to pay for every burnout.

Somebody just had to swipe the Caddy emblem that covers up the trunk keyhole.
It looks like rust is starting to creep out from under the vinyl roof where it meets the trunk. This is an unfortunate but all too common problem with any vinyl roof of this era.

Those fender extensions are the closest thing to fins you could find on any car in '76.

She's being coy hiding behind the planter like an elephant behind a telephone pole.

Blue cars with white interiors are my favorite. The fact that somebody thought an additional pillow was needed on the backseat means that either someone's sleeping in this thing or the Princess and the Pea sits in the back.

The thing about this ride now is that all you need to do is park it in front of a row of old buildings and it looks like you're filming a Scorsese flick.

You can tell by the lack of leaves on the trees that this was one of the first discoveries of the year for me. I have so many waiting in the wings . . .

That's the last we'll see of Big Blue for now. A doppelgänger of this ride in white with a white vinyl roof pulled into the mechanic across from my shop while I was finishing up, but really; is that very surprising?