The 1970 Cadillac Coupe de Ville was designed to take people where they needed to go in absolute comfort, style and luxury. It wasn’t intended to be a quarter and standing mile race car, but Ohio’s Sean Mote wasn’t going to let that stop him from achieving his goal.
According to Bangshift, Mote purchased an old, beat up 1970 Coupe de Ville from a junkyard some years back and set to work making it road worthy while daily driving his other Coupe de Ville. He built a naturally aspirated 500 cubic inch Cadillac V8 for it, which enabled the heavy Caddy to run a brisk 13.50 second quarter-mile at 105 mph. But Mote had much bigger plans for the car.
After becoming interested in turbocharging, Mote contemplated adding a little boost to his Caddy. He gave the car a complete makeover, adding black paint and other modifications, in addition to a 90mm Precision turbocharger. The result was an incredible 10.90 pass at 127 mph, an impressive showing for any car at the strip, let alone a 4,200 pound Coupe de Ville.
Mote’s road to the 10s wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. He says he had 15-20 Cadillac 500 V8 blocks in his garage at one time, the result of him blowing a few of them up through trial and error. Mote says when the engines begin making a lot of power “the main caps are walking and stuff” by the end of drag racing season.
Nearly all of the work done on the car was completed by Mote himself. The fiberglass bumpers and hood, which are much lighter than the Caddy’s stock units, were made by Mote and his friends after they watched how-to YouTube videos and received some pointers from a friend who builds boats. The plumbing for the huge 106mm turbo, third-generation Mustang sourced suspension, roll cage and more were all also Mote’s doing.
Bangshift says they personally saw Mote’s car hit 186 mph in the standing mile last year. The Coupe de Ville looks mean enough to make the haunted killer car from the 1977 movie ‘The Car’ wet itself, and has the performance to back it up.
For photos and more information, check out Bangshift’s feature on the car.
Comment
500 engines have some potential as long as you do not rev them. If you do much over 4500 it will puke a crank.
A buddy at Edelbrock has worked with these for years and got some neat results but his first comments are always don’t rev it over 4500 RPM.