Turn 10 Car of the Week: 1969 Cadillac DeVille
By J. Mason
About a year ago I purchased a second-generation Toyota pickup. I paid more than I should have, and in return I got less than was advertised. I was desperate; I was using my tastefully modified BMW as a daily driver and track toy, while also using it to drive down logging roads, go camping, and hunt for untouched fly fishing waters. What? You thought all we do around here is huff gasoline and watch Top Gear?
I bought the truck and I do honestly love it, but it has turned out to be more work than expected. I spent hours shampooing what appears to be an entire Big Gulp of caramel-colored stain from the passenger side footwell. I have attempted to solve the rat’s nest of wiring that the previous owner used to poorly install a set of pathetically ineffective fog lamps. And I have been on what is turning out to be a never ending search for uncut interior door panels. If you own a car and ever plan on selling it, please, do the next owner a favor, and don’t hacksaw holes in it to install crappy speakers. Pet peeve right there.
Now because I own what some may call a “beater” or “work truck” I do make the occasional pilgrimage to the junkyard. I always tell my wife I’ll be home quickly, but every trip ends up running several hours over. The issue isn’t that I’m slow or that I can’t find what I need; the issue is that as soon as I cross through the chain link and barbed wire onto the grime covered gravel, I become an archeologist. I really have no need to even head to the American cars section of the yard, or dig around in old Volvos, but I know somewhere out there is an automotive treasure chest waiting to be peeled open and tell its story.
You see, I’m the type of guy who sees a dead heap of a car out in a field and wonders, how did it get there? Every car has a story; at one point in its life, every pile of rust and glass sat in a dealership window, pristine and beautiful, smelling just right and waiting for someone to take it home. Car designers dreamed it, industrial/mechanical/electrical engineers made it work, assembly workers built it, dealership sold it – so who killed it? What happened in the life of that car that left it rusting in a field of three-foot tall weeds? How do cars end up on cinderblocks, floating in mud and slime at the Pull-A-Part off Highway 99?
On my latest trip to the ‘yard, some questions come with easy answers, like the DUI court report in the passenger seat of a mangled AMC Pacer. Then again, some cars offer only clues to their demise, like evidence of neglect on the spray-painted blue Porsche 944S. Finally, some answers lead to even more questions – was the toaster oven in the driver’s seat of this Celica the cause of an accident? DWT – driving while toasting? The tough questions come when you find a car in relatively GREAT condition, a car really out of place like Jessica Simpson at a MENSA meeting. Here’s a Nissan 200SX with an engine so clean you could eat off it. Over there is a pretty damn decent 1969 Cadillac Sedan DeVille, wedged between a totaled Camaro RS and one of about thirty Ford Aerostar minivans. Those cars raise the biggest questions for me... especially the Cadillac.
The Sedan and Coupe DeVilles were the pinnacle of the Cadillac line in 1969, and the Coupe is one of my all-time favorite cars. They introduced a string of new innovations, the sum of which equal a fantastic package. The designers departed from the stacked headlights that were so prevalent at the time, and moved to a new horizontal placement. It was the last year that the Cadillac “V” would grace the front of the car, but the first year to remove poorly functioning wing windows. Sophisticated new features included theft-deterrent locks in the steering, ignition and transmission, the introduction of Automatic Climate Control, and the Twilight Sentinel system which illuminated corner lights when the turn signals engaged, lighting up the street when you turned the car off so you didn’t stumble over curbs. Not bad.
The real heart of the Cadillac was the engine. In 1969 the DeVille came equipped with a monster 7.7L V8, which at the time was the largest engine ever to power a passenger car. Through Quadrajet four-barrel downdraft carburetion and light alloy pistons, the V8 pushed 375 peak horsepower at 4400RPM and 525 ft-lbs at only 3000RPM. Of course you need a touch of power when pushing such a huge vehicle around.
To give a frame of reference, the ’69 Sedan DeVille is 225” in length. That’s over 18 feet long and 1.5 times the length of a Lotus Exige, nearly 2.5 times the length of a Smart Car and a full two feet longer than the Maserati MC12, which is the longest car in Forza Motorsport 2. It weighs 4,949 pounds, more than two Mazda Miatas combined. Yet the car can do 0-60 in less than 10 seconds and does standing burnouts all day long. It’s long and intimidating, full of luxury and appointed features, and has a motor to back it up. You can’t help but look at it and feel like taking a road trip.
And here I stand, in a puddle of mud and coolant and cigarette butts, looking at one of the most iconic cars ever produced, the best America had to offer in 1969, a labor of love for so many Cadillac employees and owners, and I watch it slowly decay and become lost to history. Where did it come from, how did it get here, and how many memories does it hold? I don’t know, but I salvaged what I could – the rear Cadillac emblem from the corner of a massive trunk. It now has a home of pride in my office here at Turn 10.
I’m going to issue a challenge. Go outside this weekend, put a fresh coat of wax on your own car, appreciate what you have regardless of how humble it may be, go on a drive and make your own automotive history. Some day, someone like me will look at your car in the junkyard and be curious about its story – this Saturday is a good day to start writing it.
J. Mason is a bit of a romantic nostalgic when it comes to cars. Maybe because he was conceived in the back of one.