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?

  • Jrhurren Worked in Detroit 18 years, live 20 minutes away. Ren Cen is a gem, but a very terrible design inside. I’m surprised GM stuck it out as long as they did there.
  • Carson D I thought that this was going to be a comparison of BFGoodrich's different truck tires.
  • Tassos Jong-iL North Korea is saving pokemon cards and amibos to buy GM in 10 years, we hope.
  • Formula m Same as Ford, withholding billions in development because they want to rearrange the furniture.
  • EV-Guy I would care more about the Detroit downtown core. Who else would possibly be able to occupy this space? GM bought this complex - correct? If they can't fill it, how do they find tenants that can? Is the plan to just tear it down and sell to developers?
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