Junkyard Find: 1962 Cadillac Sedan DeVille

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

The brain-melting Colorado yard must have a couple thousand pre-1970 cars scattered about its several square miles of land on the Colorado High Plains just east of Pikes Peak. That means I’ll never run out of Junkyard Finds there! While most of my Brain-Melting Junkyard posts have featured non-Big-Three products, there’s some pretty good stuff made by The General among the Kaisers and Willys (Willyses?). Today we’ll look at a sunbleached but solid-looking ’62 Cadillac.

This car has been sitting for a decade of two. Every winter, it hides beneath the snow. Every summer, the High Plains sun applies jillions-o-joules.

The four-door hardtop Cadillacs of this era aren’t as desirable as the coupes and convertibles, so it’s likely that this car is worth more in parts than as a restoration candidate.

But you never know what will happen to the values of cars like this; perhaps its value will be much higher in another decade.






Murilee Martin
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.

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  • Doug-g Doug-g on Jul 28, 2013

    1962 was the year I fell for Cadillacs. I was all of six. Chick, my dad's friend, bought a white Fleetwood Sixty Special with the white and black interior. I can still recall sitting in that car and thinking it was the pinnacle of motordom. Nearly 51 years have passed and I still love Cadillacs even though they've let me down several times over the years.

  • CAMeyer CAMeyer on Jul 30, 2013

    Was there a rusty Don Draper in this car?

  • Varezhka Maybe the volume was not big enough to really matter anyways, but losing a “passenger car” for a mostly “light truck” line-up should help Subaru with their CAFE numbers too.
  • Varezhka For this category my car of choice would be the CX-50. But between the two cars listed I’d select the RAV4 over CR-V. I’ve always preferred NA over small turbos and for hybrids THS’ longer history shows in its refinement.
  • AZFelix I would suggest a variation on the 'fcuk, marry, kill' game using 'track, buy, lease' with three similar automotive selections.
  • Formula m For the gas versions I like the Honda CRV. Haven’t driven the hybrids yet.
  • SCE to AUX All that lift makes for an easy rollover of your $70k truck.
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