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 Futura 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, lol, and by working on these renderings I sort of fulfilled that childhood dream. I've deleted the "DeVille" 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 Fleetwood. There was a late '30s Series 70 with bodies by Fleetwood, so I'm not just going willy-nilly here, lol!
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 Siasconsett, Nantucket, to old Cadillac model names like the Allanté, 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 clickable 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 pillarless wagon bodystyle 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 Fleetwood 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 notchback 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 advertisments.
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 Arpege atomizer like the late Fifties super luxury sedan of the same name. I've added fender skirts to the Eldo's massive wheel openings, and in the sedan, completely eliminated the rear fender kickback for a very, very smooth bodyside. I kept the beltline 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, lol!
