Junkyard Find: 1988 Cadillac Brougham D'Elegance

by Murilee Martin

Published: July 26th, 2012

junkyard find 1988 cadillac brougham d elegance

I admit it: I’m suffering from a silly infatuation with Broughamness. Every American car manufacturer (and a few Japanese ones) slapped Brougham emblems on a wide variety of vehicles during the Brougham Era, which we’ll call 1968 through 1992, and the last hurrah for Detroit Broughams was the car that I found in a Denver self-serve wrecking yard yesterday.

In 1987, Cadillac decided to remove the Fleetwood name from its big rear-wheel-drive ocean liners and simply dubbed the car the Cadillac Brougham.

At first glance, I thought I was looking at an early 1970s product here.

You wouldn’t have seen a Chevy 305 engine in a proper Early Malaise Era Cadillac, though.

I’m pretty sure this car has more marque emblems than any built before or since. I gave up counting after I got to 15.

#1980s #1988 #1988CadillacBrougham #Brougham #BroughamD'Elegance #Cadillac #CadillacFleetwood #Denver #DownOnTheJunkyard #Fleetwood #Junkyard #JunkyardFind

Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

More by Murilee Martin

Comments

Join the conversation

2 of 60 comments

Gearhead77 on Sep 21, 2012

Thanks for that video, pinkslips. That Brougham is beautiful in the way only a low mile survivor can be. It also shows how hard GM was trying to keep a very old car fresh. As soon as I saw that interior, I became nostalgic for my 84 Eldo because it was the same color, same seats and everything excluding the IP. I was not nostalgic for the 4100 V8, which didn't live long under normal circumstances, less so under my teenage right foot.

Like Reply
Laserwizard on Dec 28, 2015

Once upon a time owning a Cadillac was actually impressive. Today they are cramped and non-luxurious eyesores. The best way to get a Cadillac now is to have the company leave everything off the chassis and buy it with the engine and then have it reworked. I am convinced that if you own a Cadillac today you are an idiot and so far removed from intelligence that you don't understand that you are driving a product that can be had for $20k elsewhere and is more impressive - even a Honduh Accord, the bloated thing it has become, is better than a Cadillac.

Like Reply

Recent Comments

Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.
Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Off-road fluff on vehicles that should not be off road needs to die.
Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Saw this posted on social media; “Just bought a 2023 Tundra with the 14" screen. Let my son borrow it for the afternoon, he connected his phone to listen to his iTunes.The next day my insurance company raised my rates and added my son to my policy. The email said that a private company showed that my son drove the vehicle. He already had his own vehicle that he was insuring.My insurance company demanded he give all his insurance info and some private info for proof. He declined for privacy reasons and my insurance cancelled my policy.These new vehicles with their tech are on condition that we give up our privacy to enter their world. It's not worth it people.”
TheEndlessEnigma Poor planning here, dropping a Vinfast dealer in Pensacola FL is just not going to work. I love Pensacola and that part of the Gulf Coast, but that area is by no means an EV adoption demographic.
Keith Most of the stanced VAGS with roof racks are nuisance drivers in my area. Very likely this one's been driven hard. And that silly roof rack is extra $'s, likely at full retail lol. Reminds me of the guys back in the late 20th century would put in their ads that the installed aftermarket stereo would be a negotiated extra. Were they going to go find and reinstall that old Delco if you didn't want the Kraco/Jenson set up they hacked in?