1961 Cadillac Deville

[electra225]

This car is just plain nice! IT is painted Evening Orchid/Lido Lavendar, my favorite color. This roofline was shared with the Buick Electra, not the 225, just the plain Electra. Buick built the Electra series in two distinct models from 1959 thru 1961. The Electra 225's used the six-window hardtop body. This car is incredible....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFcaOklEmMk

[TC Chris]

Wow, those fins make my Chevy of the same year look positively sedate! All those angles.

Chris Campbell

[William]

That's the kind of car I would love to take a cross country road trip with. It is beautiful.

Bill

[Firedome]

My favorite color also, and my favorite body style. It looked fabulous on the '61 Olds 98 as well. Use of chrome was so restrained (for a Caddy at least) for '61 and '62, and with those slim top pillars and clean roof design, just so elegant. This is Cadillac at the very top of its game.

But...would that black dash pad be correct??? It doesn't look too bad, given the dark accents on the dash itself, but it's hard to believe that it wouldn't be color-keyed the way all Mopars were. Weird.

[electra225]

In a Buick, the black dash pad would be correct unless you ordered gray interior. The interior options with that exterior color were black, gray and white. The white interior got a black dash pad and carpet..

[walyfd]

That color is Fontana Rose. Depending on lighting, it's either a beautiful blush rose or an in-your-face hot pink. Guy in the club had a Fleetwood in that color. Had to paint the top white to sell it.

The dash looks black but I think it's the correct mulberry that matches the wheel grips.

I see air and not much else in options. Power windows and seat were standard on deville.

Wheel covers should be fontana rose and tires wide whitewalls, last year they used them.

The flat top was rare in 61. The 6-window version was slightly taller so the fins on this look taller than they are. Also, the stainless edging adds something that my 62 lacks. Looking at this car, you can see how the fin starts in the door and perfectly continues to the tip. In 62, they used the same door then, right where the quarter panel starts, it dives down because the fin is lower.

Beautiful car but could sound a touch better. Like to see under the hood.

[electra225]

That roofline was used on the Buick Electra and the Olds 98. So, is my understanding correct that the series 61 was the entry-level series of Cadillac? And that the Series 62 used the same "C" body as the Electra 225 series in Buick? Six-window four door hardtop, four door sedan and convertible? Was there a two-door hardtop Series 62? That roofline is pretty rare in Buick anymore. I know of one that used to be shown in the BCA meets. Buick sold way more Electra 225's than they did the plain Electra, so, for 1962, all Electras were 225's.

I have noticed that when you hear cars running on a video, they sometimes sound worse than they do in real time. The only thing you can hear on my Buick when it is idling is the power steering hissing and the alternator whining. If the fan clutch in engaged, then you hear the fan. It doesn't sound as quiet on a video as in real life. I'm wondering if that is part of what you are hearing. I would have liked to have had a peek under the hood as well.

[walyfd]

Series 62 was the entry-level. Deville was series 63. Same bodies but different interiors and standard equipment. Oddly, the series 62 (cheap) convertible had the Deville interior style in leather but didn't move into the Deville line until 1964...

The coupes had a bubble top look and it, like the 4-window sedan was a one-year body.

I'm not a big fan of 61s but I'm wild for the 62s. Isn't that weird? I'd take a 60 over a 59, too...

[Firedome]

Oh man that coupe is just fabulicious. Love that color, not often seen!

Last year for the Cad Model 61 was 1951, in 1952 the Model 62 became the entry-level model. Typical GM model name inflation!

When I had my '47 60 Special I actually really wanted to replace it with a '46/47 Model 61 fastback 4 dr sedan (all Model 61s 4 drs those years were fastbacks, and I loved that body style, Model 62 and 60S 4 drs were trunk-backs). At the Cad/LaSalle Club show at Capitol Cadillac (DC area) around 1991/92 I saw what was probably the most beautiful Model 61 4 dr in the country and instantly fell in love. For those who haven't experienced it, the 346 flathead V8 in those years is a wonderful engine: amazingly smooth, quiet, durable, and torquey. In someways I liked them even better than Cad's later excellent OHVs, and it was in all models from 1941 to 1947. Battle-proven in WW II tanks! I searched for the right Model 61 but never did find the right one, the guys with really good ones were smart and didn't 't want to let go of them. I have a soft spot for Model 61s to this day!

My good Jr. High friend Bobby Williams' Mom had a '61 Fleetwood 6 window in that gorgeous Rose color. It was 2 yrs old when I first saw it but it looked like it had just rolled out of the showroom, pristine, and with the most beautiful cloth interior I'd ever seen in a car. Compared to that car our '63 Ford wagon seemed like a piece of cheap junk. I've loved '61 Cads (and '62s also) ever since.

[walyfd]

Notice how the roof from the windshield to rear window is basically straight. From a design perspective, it should slightly curve downward but people still wore hats then!

The high roofs on the series 75 sedan and limousine were retained because many gentlemen still wore top hats when on the town and the cars were corporate offices on wheels during the day.

[electra225]

I like the 1962 Coupe/Sedan Devilles. I like the new for '62 "C" pillars they shared with Buick Electra 225 and Olds 98. IMHO, this is the nicest looking "C" panel ever on any car. Very elegant and distinctive. BTW, Walter, is the hidden antenna correct for a '62 CDV?

What color blue would this have been?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mca1ey4ZpfE

[walyfd]

York blue would be the closest to that but that looks more black sapphire from the early 90s.

Not sure what you mean by "hidden antenna". It was electric and fully retracted into a Frenched chrome escutcheon in the passenger fender. That was standard practice from the late 40s (vacuum through 1955) through the 90s... except for the few years where the antenna was in the windshield.

[electra225]

"Retractable" would have been better said than "hidden". Thanks for straightening me out. So the color on that car is not correct. Bummer. It was a pretty color. I had a deuce of a time finding a '62 CDV that hadn't been lowered or didn't have those old horrible hooptie wheels on it. Such indignities to elegant, stately automobiles. Who thinks those horrible big wheels look good on an old car? It violates the lines of the car as well as killing the wheel arches.

[Firedome]

That formal high roofline on Model 75s continued right through 1964, as did the old-style windshield and "A" pillar. The '64 Model 75 we had as our wedding car in August of 1971 had both of those old-style design features, as well as that "Frenched" small rear window and a chauffeur's division window. It was an awesome conveyance but I was too over the moon to experience the car to it's fullest at the time, needless to say. I do recall that the rear seat was a fine gray wool broadcloth. We celebrated 50 years together last year, so that Caddy must have been a good start!

[walyfd]

Actually it was 1965.

The 1965 75 series was a 1964 with 1965 wheel covers and 60 Special seat trim, as well as the 1965 engine.
It was the LAST cadillac with separate fins and the "X" frame and the high roof.

The 1966 75s were still impressive but not the "top hat" limousines of the past. They were also the first cars with STANDARD climate control HVAC.

Oddly, the '66 75 series was cleaner and sportier than the last rwd generation of 1984. I think these cars took an even more formal turn with the 1977 restyle.

[Firedome]

Yes the '64 Fleetwood body was carried over to '65 while the other bodies changed completely, I'd always assumed (wrongly) that they were still titled as '64s then skipped to '66. My college room-mate's parents had a navy blue '66 Fleet, still finely crafted and still had real wood inside, the last great Fleetwood imho. The '71 DeVille they traded the '66 for was comparatively a real steaming pile, it felt so flimsy and tinny that the front fenders and hood seemed like they flapped when traversing big potholes in the road. It was an embarrassment to the name...how the mighty had fallen.

[electra225]

Good old Bob Lutz. The ultimate GM bean counter. If it took 12 bolts to hold the fenders on, he wanted to use four. The fiber optic lights on the front fenders on the '74 LImited I owned danced around so much at might, one would think they were oblong instead of round. I don't remember the '71 Limited being so bad, but the '74 build quality was attrocious. I can only imagine what Cadillac suffered at the hands of Mr. Lutz and his bean counting brigade......

I had a customer who had a '71 CDV. I really liked that car. I'd have to say the '71 Cadillacs would be one of my more favorite years for Cadillac. GM cleaned up the styling on the '71 model cars compared to '69 and '70. I sure liked the '71 Limited two-door hardtop I had, although it didn't run as well as the '68.

[walyfd]

Not getting into the whole Lutz at GM or Grettinger at Cadillac argument or whatever...

Cadillac was trying to kill the Rwd Brougham from about 1986. Last full-frame, bof car left and the utter disaster of the 4100 squirrel-cage engines should have buried it but, no, people still wanted the true Cadillac, especially the professional car market. Remember the hideous stretch limos of the 80s. This was when Buick, olds and Chevy were selling well but buick and olds also killed the rwd Electra and 98 Regency lines. If you wanted a totl rwd GM, it was cadillac brougham or Chevy caprice. So, that mid-market went to Ford LTD and mercury.

Had GM and cadillac been smart, they'd have done the 1990 restyle in 1988 and the 1993 restyle in 1991. Same for all the C bodied Caprice and Roadmonsters.

As for Lutz... he wanted GM versions of the K car and monster trucks like the hummer... and darn little in between...

When will aging people who can't climb or bend want cars they can get in and out of, see out of, see AROUND, park, drive, carry luggage in in comfort?

AFAIC, Lutz killed the traditional GM RWD cars. And darn near destroyed GM 10 years later.

[electra225]

Buick dropped their 350 V-8 after 1981. Buick would have been better off to have had the Buick "X" code 350 V-8 in their Electra and LeSabre lines and at least kept one of those in rear drive guise as an option to their front-drive models. The rear drive Park Avenue/Olds 98 models were actually pretty good cars even with the anemic 5.0 liter "Y" motor. They were good engines, but their zero-to-60 times were measured in minutes, not seconds.....

Did the 1964 Cadillac 75's still have the 390 engine and Slim Jim Hydro?

[Ken Doyle]

I believe the Slim Jim transmission was only used by Olds and Pontiac.