Junkyard Find: Big Sexxy, the V8-6-4-powered 1981 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham
Finding a Malaise Era Cadillac in a self-service wrecking yard is interesting, especially when it has Cadillac’s not-so-successful first attempt at a cylinder-deactivation engine. Those cars don’t make me sad, though.
A nicely customized show-car Cadillac with metalflake paint and pro-applied airbrush work in a junkyard — that makes me sad, even if it did suffer from the wretched V8-6-4 engine. I found this once-glorious Cad in a Denver-area yard last summer.
A car like this needs a name, of course. Meet Big Sexxy!
Sorry about the beschmutzified images; I had touched the camera lens with greasy fingers after removing an Integra shifter. Don’t try that at home.
Big Sexxy is covered with quality airbrush work. If I had to guess, I’d say this car was customized during the 1980s, then entered a long-term downward spiral.
Under the hood, the V8-6-4 engine. GM never could get this engine to work correctly, and most owners simply unplugged the connectors for the valve de-actuators (located on the valve covers).
The interior has been gutted pretty thoroughly, so we can’t tell how much tuck-n-roll used to be there.
Rest in peace, Big Sexxy.
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'm late to this one - vacation and all that - but the old man had one of these during his brief love affair with (used) Cadillacs. He bought a used brown '81 Fleetwood with the 8-6-4 engine, which, oddly enough, my uncle designed some of the machinery that made the parts. The car came with a switch - from a previous owner - that made the engine 8 all the time. In that mode it was actually a pretty nice car. But once I accidentally turned the switch off and wondered what the heck was wrong with the car.
Even Honda had troubles with variable cylinder management necessitating a recall in 2011. Search on Honda Technical Service Bulletin 11-033. This seems to be an idea that doesn't work in the real world.