Cadillac Stories

Yesterday I got an email with a great Cadillac story to share from John in Canada:

My father bought his first Caddy in 1956 after having owned a ’52Buick Roadmaster. The ’56 was a light beige Fleetwood with a dark brown brocade cloth interior. After his nephew totaled it in 1959 he bought a navy blue ’59 Fleetwood 60 Special. The car was stunning. I drove that car and still remember it in great detail.

In 1963 he drove it to Michigan to attend a relative’s grand opening of their Lincoln – Meercury dealership. Now this was a big deal because the dealership was located in the midst of Cadillac country. Ironically, Dad’s nephew had been a successful Cadillac salesman who saw an opportunity to sell Lincolns with almost no competition. There was a large evening dinner party attended by a number of top Ford execs from Detroit.

When Dad went out to his car that night to get a cigar he saw one of the Ford execs looking in the open driver’s window at the Fleetwood interior. “May I help you?” Dad asked. “Hello,” the man said, “Is this your car? ” “It is,” Dad replied. “I was admiring it,” the man said. Flattered, Dad offered him a cigar and after they had introduced themselves, the man said “You know, John, the bastards make a beautiful car.”

The man was Lee Iacocca, VP, Ford.

Dad treasured that story.

East Coast Car Association 15th Annual Car Show

I will be going to this show in Queens NY and if you are in the area I suggest you try to make it also. Good bunch of guys talking cars. Will be there taking pictures of all the cars (Especially the Cadillacs).

New Cadillac Escalade Reveal

The day after the Forest Park show I will be in Manhattan covering the new 2015 Cadillac Escalade reveal. Will be a fun time and I am sure I will be fighting for elbow room when they reveal the new Escalade. Really looking forward to that. Cadillac has been revealing short 15 second or so videos like this one below.

Really looking forward to sharing pictures from the event with you all.

I have to admit when I was told about this car last week by the Bow Wow Boys car club members at the East Coast Car Association cruise night I wasn’t sure what to expect. All they told me is I have to show up on Sunday to their car show to see the “John Wayne Cadillac”. I am glad I did as this is a 1 of 1 custom built 1979 Cadillac with a Packard body.  You can see some Cadillac features like the mirrors, panels, roof, etc. If you walked up close to this like I did and seen the Packard logo on it you would get confused but there is no mistaken that this is a Cadillac.

The Cadillac has all the makings of a Packard but is on a Cadillac frame so it is deemed a Cadillac. I did some research on this and what I came up with surprised me. This is from Coachbuilt.com.

“C. Budd Bayliff, was a huge Packard enthusiast who purchased the rights to the Packard name and trademarks in 1978 and soon introduced a line of Packard Custom Sedan and Coupe replicars based on late-model GM passenger cars at his 2100 Harding Highway shop in Lima, Ohio. His replicas ranged from simple cosmetic changes to elaborate body modifications such as new front and rear body structures with early-1930s style clamshell front fenders with side-mounts and a separate trunk. The front ends of some of Bayliff’s modern Packards look remarkably like those found on the 1970 Stutzes and are often mistaken for them at car shows. A long-wheelbase Bayliff Packard was built for professional boxer Ernie Holmes in the early 1980s.”

It seems that Mr Bayliff built a few cars a year and put the Packard name on it since he bought the rights to the name. Frank Sr from the tv show Jerseylicious is the owner of this Cadillac. He bought it off the guy that bought it off the estate, making him the 3rd owner. He has all the specs and the build sheet for the car.

John Wayne ordered this car to be built but passed away before it could be done. When you see the video you will see the inside door frame had a gray carpet that was suppose to make it look westernish (If that is a word) and tried to match the silver on the outside of the car. Frank says it drives like a dream, like a brand new car. I didn’t look to see how many miles were on the car guess I was too busy staring at it. Although the Duke passed away before Bayliff had the name Packard under his control he was building these cars for years.

You can see all the pictures on our Cadillac forum

Some other pages to check out about Bud Bayliff Cars:

Bayliff Coach Corp
Cadillac Database
1992 Bayliff

I would like to welcome Richard to our club. He has a beautiful 1967 Cadillac DeVille convertible.

I purchased this car in May of this year. Although it looks pretty good from 20′, there are a couple of small paint blemishes that I will take care of this winter. Otherwise the body and chrome are pretty straight. The car was repainted in 2006 by the individual I purchased it from. I believe everything is stock except for the after market 8-track, and except as noted below, everything works.

The car wasn’t driven much over the past few years and routine maintenance and replacement of wear parts wasn’t done. Since I bought the car I have totally rebuilt the front end (upper and lower control arm bushings, ball joints, tie rods, idler arm and steering gear box) installed front disc brakes and new Cooper tires. Now it “drives like a Cadillac”.

After a complete tune-up it moves right out to about 80 mph then starts to float, so this winter I’ll pull the heads and replace the lifters and push rods, have the valves ground and new seats and guides installed and rebuild the carb and distributor.

I have a constant electrical drain and the climate control doesn’t work correctly and the air conditioner isn’t hooked up, so that gets addressed next week. The Portland CLC annual cruise-in and show is this weekend, so the next couple of days will be spent detailing the car to get ready for that. Sorry the pictures aren’t better quality. I’ll hopefully have some better ones after this weekend.

Lets give Ricard a big CadillacCountryClub Hello! Thanks for sending in the pictures and joining our club.