Junkyard Find: 1985 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz
The Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz was made for the 1976 through 1991 model years, but the real Biarritz existed only through 1985. Today’s Junkyard Find is a final-year example of the proper, stainless-steel-roof-equipped Biarritz.
This car is best-known as the Ace Rothstein‘s exploding Cadillac in the opening sequence of the film Casino.
The Eldorado Biarritz was a very expensive machine in its day. How much? $35,500 in 1985, which is close to 80 grand in inflation-adjusted 2014 dollars. For that kind of cash, Ace Rothstein could have had, say, a new BMW 735i ($36,680), a Mercedes-Benz 300CD ($33,750), or even a Porsche 911 Cabriolet ($36,450). But hey, check out that stainless-steel roof panel!
In my role as Chief Justice of the 24 Hours of LeMons Supreme Court, I hectored teams about the need for an Eldorado Biarritz race car until one team finally put together the “Ace Rothstein Special” ’84, complete with the appropriate suits.
Now that’s a race car!
This one is pretty well used up, but you can still see flashes of the casino-manager-grade luxury here and there.
The chain-based front-wheel-drive system developed for the original Toronado back in 1966 was still being used in 1985.
Opera lights, landau roof, and all.
The car that dreams are made of.
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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I've always liked the Riviera more, especially in T-Type trim with the funky FWD offset version of the Grand National wheels and in all black just like a GN.
as for me personally I need to find this particular salvage yard as I need some of the Biarritz only door chrome that I see is in good condition who knows what yard this was taken in? anyone ?