Junkyard Find: 1976 Cadillac Sixty Special Fleetwood Brougham

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

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
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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  • Doctorv8 Doctorv8 on Dec 10, 2014

    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.

  • Dshnva Dshnva on Feb 02, 2022

    Good grief, HOW COULD YOU GET THIS SO WRONG?! This is the downsized 1977 Fleetwood, not a ‘76.

  • Joe This is called a man in the middle attack and has been around for years. You can fall for this in a Starbucks as easily as when you’re charging your car. Nothing new here…
  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
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