Synchromesh-ity


Update: Videos below have gone missing. Too bad.
   
 It was Carl Jung, I believe, or maybe Carroll Shelby, who observed: "Coincidence? Ain't no such thing."
    Which suggests some other meaning for my encounters with Cadillac Eldorado Broughams.
    Item: I read Carlo Gébler's account of his search in Cuba for a 1957 or 1958 Brougham, a rare, ultra-luxury model of which I was previously unaware.
    Item: My brother and I spot a 1958 Brougham outside a classic car dealership in Sarasota, Florida (and yes, hanging around a classic car dealership does indeed increase your odds of seeing a classic car, but remember, they made only 704 of these things).
   Item: Flipping through the TV channels, I'm stopped by the sight of a black, late-'50s Cadillac executing high-speed doughnuts on the Bonneville Salt Flats to a soundtrack of barking exhaust and Pérez Prado's Mambo No. 5. Squared-off fins, stainless trim, doors that meet in the centre -- Hey, that's a Brougham!
    The commercial is one of those "Bridgestone or nothing" spots, and it has a sweet punchline.


    Here's a "making of" video that tells us the actual driver (sorry to spoil the magic) is New Zealander and drifting champ Rhys Millen, and that the car was prepared at the Picture Car Warehouse, a Northridge, California, vehicle supplier to the television and movie industry.

 

    But why a Brougham, which, assuming the subject car still had its original air suspension, would have been more difficult to set up for such shenanigans than any other '58 Cadillac?
   Well, why not? Picture Car Warehouse was up to the job. It knows Cadillacs. It provided the 1962 Coupe de Ville that Don Draper drives in Mad Men. It even works out of a former Cadillac dealership.
    There's that Caddy continuum again. I'm not sure what it means. I'm not sure I'm meant to be sure. Or as Jung was told by his teacher, Sigmund "Fleetwood" Freud, before their falling-out:
    "Cadillac -- don't talk back."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Discovered in Cuba, a rare Mercedes bird

Image
(December 2012 note: See update link, below.)     GUESS I'LL have to set aside my search for the younger Batista’s 1956 Corvette. An even tastier trophy has emerged – a Mercedes-Benz 300SL, better known as the Gullwing.    Even on the Island of Surprises, I’d be astounded to come across one of these rare beauties. But in a brief section on Cuba in Automobiles Lost & Found (Haynes Publishing, 2008), I see a photo of a battered 300SL observed by author Michael E. Ware outside a private garage near Havana.    The Gullwing, unmistakable lift-up doors in place, is dented and rusting and missing its engine, yet still would be prized by collectors the world over . . . if only they could extract it from Cuba. Restored, the Silver Metallic example with Lipstick Red interior might be worth more than $700,000 U.S.    Reached in England, Mr. Ware tells me he was holidaying in Cuba when an acquaintance brought him to an unnamed communit...
Read more

The Cuba Gullwing chronology

Image
How the 300SL would have looked new. Wikipedia photo.     IN SIX YEARS , no topic here has drawn more attention than the story of Cuba's rotting Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupe. Visitors from around the world seem endlessly appalled and fascinated by the sad fate of such a rare and beautiful car.      The same analytics program that tells me the home nations of these visitors tells me where on this blog they land – and it's apparent that many are missing the full story (or as full as anyone has been able to make it). The world's largest Internet indexer – you know who I'm talking about – insists on routing the curious to a five-year post and refuses to make note of subsequent entries.    Why? Who knows?     To provide a more complete picture, here's a list of CARISTAS entries on the Gullwing, which, to be clear, was first brought to the world's attention by British auto historian Michael E. Ware in Automobiles Lost & Foun...
Read more