Junkyard Find: 1976 Cadillac Sixty Special Fleetwood Brougham
Once the price of crude oil quadrupled in 1973, even your Cadillac-buying demographic felt some pain when contemplating the thirst of a Fleetwood. Still, the biggest Cadillac (not intended for chauffeur operation) projected the sort of majesty that rich (if elderly) car shoppers sought during the Middle Malaise Era. I spotted this battered example of the breed yesterday in Northern California.
While the quarter-panels, floors, and fenders are rust-free, the areas of the hood where rainwater (or maybe ocean spray, if the car lived within a couple of blocks of the Pacific) collected picked up some rot.
Fisher and Fleetwood, working together.
This car would have been perfect for Spec Land Yacht racing.
500 cubic inches, 190 horsepower. Let’s not dwell on that.
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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raresleeper, I'm going to sell my black '76 Talisman that Jack wrote about. It's not low mile, but it is very nice. LMK if you're interested.
Good grief, HOW COULD YOU GET THIS SO WRONG?! This is the downsized 1977 Fleetwood, not a ‘76.