Rare Rides: The 1933 Cadillac V-16 All-weather Phaeton

Corey Lewis
by Corey Lewis

In the midst of the Great Depression, Cadillac offered a new range of ultra-expensive motorcars that featured 16-cylinder engines – a count never offered previously by a domestic automaker. One of the V-16’s most prestigious variations is today’s Rare Ride.

Presenting the extremely exclusive All-weather Phaeton sedan.

The launch of Cadillac’s most expensive line of cars occurred with some unfortunate timing. In development since 1926, the V-16 debuted a year after the start of the Great Depression, 1930. All the figures on this new Cadillac were superlative, not only the cylinder count. The enormous 7.4-liter engine produced 165 horsepower, at a time when a common Chevrolet Eagle sedan made just 65 horsepower with its inline-six. In 1930, the V-16’s base ask in cabriolet format was $6,500 (about $99,000 adjusted for inflation) before any customer personalization. The All-weather Phaeton was the most expensive version and started at $8,000 ($122,377 adj). And they were all made-to-order. For reference, the normies buying a standard Chevrolet sedan in 1933 paid $445.

Customers could choose from among 10 different body styles, built by the coachbuilders in and around Detroit. Each firm assembled their bodies atop a wooden frame. Available body styles included five- and seven-passenger sedans and limousines, convertibles and coupes for two, larger coupes that carried five, as well as town car styles for five or seven, and large convertible sedans (phaetons). Pictured above is the Brougham, where your hired driver sat outside because they were poor. Customers consulted with their Cadillac dealer to personalize the V-16 in almost innumerable ways, adding their own personal sense of style inside and out.

The first run of V-16 cars was from 1930 to 1937, and Cadillac sold around 3,800 in total. For the 1933 year in particular, 126 cars were built. A second generation V-16 debuted for 1938 and merged Cadillac’s prior V-12 and V-16 engines into a singular offering in the newly-designed 7.1-liter V-16. As WWII heated up, production ended in December 1939 with less than 500 second-gen V-16s completed. It was the only time Cadillac made a production V-16 engine.

Today’s Rare Ride started out in life with a standard Fleetwood-built sedan body. Through a couple of owners, this car made its way from New Jersey to St. Louis in the Sixties. There, it had its sedan body swapped with an original All-weather Phaeton body from the same model year. It was then restored to the highest order and kept in pristine condition since. In beautiful navy over navy, the Cadillac sold recently for an undisclosed sum.

[Image: Cadillac]

Corey Lewis
Corey Lewis

Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.

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  • Peeryog Peeryog on Feb 10, 2021

    That was very interesting, and so is the Hyman website. Thank you for that Corey. As to the perceived decline in quality, that website provides a brief timeline. The Fleetwood they have listed from the 40s already shows aspects of mass production that reduce the apparent quality of the cars. More years ago than I care to think, I drove for a livery company which had a series of Cadillac Fleetwood 75s when Cadillac still made limousines. The rear interior of the '66 was lined with real, if dour, wood. The 70s were obviously and cheerfully plastic.

    • See 1 previous
    • Arthur Dailey Arthur Dailey on Feb 11, 2021

      @Old_WRX Personally I believe that the tufted velour upholstery of 1970's brougham luxury vehicles is/was the absolute best ever used in vehicles. As others have noted, once GM allowed their lesser marques to include previously Cadillac only options, and once they decided to make Cadillac more 'affordable' it lost its way. Exclusivity is a primary requirement for a premium brand.

  • Jeff S Jeff S on Feb 11, 2021

    Well you don't have to worry about horrible interiors on today's new vehicles you can have any interior color on most vehicles so long as its black and a wide variety of whites, blacks, grays, and silvers for exterior colors.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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