It’s no wonder Cadillac earned coined the phrase “standard of the world” in the early and mid-20th century. The company sold cars like the 1957 Eldorado Brougham.
This luxurious piece of machinery boasted outrageous features for the time, and a restored example has hit eBay for sale. Notably, those who could afford the Eldorado Brougham were treated to air conditioning, separate front and rear heaters, a power front seat, two speaker radio, automatic-latching electric doors, auto headlight dimming and even a power side window.
Such creature comforts made the 1957 Eldorado Brougham a pricey thing when new at $13,074, or roughly $119,000 in 2018 money.
The car for sale recently underwent a rotisserie restoration with a gray exterior and two-tone gray interior. The seller does note the air suspension has been removed and the car now sits on springs. It’s also one of just 400 Broughams built in 1957.
Those looking for an immaculate boulevard cruiser will be faced with a $150,000 asking price, but serious offers will be entertained, per the seller.
Comments
The ’57 Eldorado Brougham is counted among the many great cars that built Cadillac’s reputation, which today they choose to try and live off of, rather than living up to. It’s tragic to me what’s become of Cadillac. Their great and much hyped renaissance promised by Johan dy Nysschen has now borne its first fruit in the form of the hapless XT4 which once again pales in comparison to the greats of Cadillac’s past.
I truly wish I’d been alive when Cadillac was ruling the roads, setting the trends, and daring to take risks.
It’s a good chance Cadillac could built an ultra luxury flagship sedan and SUV in the future late ’20 decade. The Escala will be the start, although not in the same league like the Eldorado Brougham back in the day, but will be the start from hear on out to get Cadillac to lead to more niche products.
This is Detroit Baroque, and therefore looks horrible with those fins at the tail.
A car aint no rocket.
May the ghost of Harley J Earl kick you in the behind!
I have not the slightest idea who this Harley J Earl might be, but maybe you want to throw him against the spike of the rear fins.
Or simply stand in the way when someone is speeding backwards thrusting the tip of the tail fin in his belly.
Dangerous things like that are prohibited by health & safety regulations, or should be.
Besides being ugly and dangerous, such protuberances are a senseless waste of material, creating useless space. Seeing such aberrations explains why the US empire insisted on all goods from all over the world to come cheap into the country, like the antique Rome.
To waste them.
If you don’t know who Harley Earl is you probably don’t have any business on a GM oriented website, maybe not even on an automotive one. He is considered not just a styling icon but pretty much as the person who invented the art of automotive styling and bringing it to GM.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley_Earl
You sound very European, I don’t mean that in a good way.
Thanks for the link to the en.Wikipedia article!
But then —
1st, GM is or at least used to be a worldwide undertaking. Today, GM’s largest national market is China, and therefore Chinese demands and tastes will become preponderant, in my humble view.
2nd. A basic rule of good design is “form follows function”, and “what is efficient, is in the end also beautiful”. These tailfins are dysfunctional and esthetically a ghastly thing. They are at the same time part of the reasons for the bad image of typically “US cars” worldwide.
3rd. There are some images in this en.Wikipedia article which show something better than those horrible tailfins. For example the 1953 Chevrolet Corvette, the result of a “Project Opel” and “influenced by the English and European sports cars being raced on road racing circuits after World War II”, as I read there, or the Buick Y-job. But a designer who lets her- or himself being dragged to produce such monstrosities as those tail fins (I also think of the Ford Edsel) puts a big minus on his resumé.
PS: Opel was the German subsidiary of GM from 1929/31 to 2017.
You definitely would not like some of Virgil Exner designs then! The tailfin wars of the late 50’s were between his at Chrysler and Earl’s at GM.
Horrible baroque… BTW, in the linked to en.Wikipedia article I found another negative point for Harley Earl’s resumé:
>>
Harley Earl and Sloan implemented “Dynamic Obsolescence” (essentially synonymous with planned obsolescence) and the “Annual Model Change”, tying model identity to a specific year, to further position design as a driver for the company’s product success.
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But, admittedly, this also created the used car market, as a positive effect.
Let me tell you what I think: it is not the 10% WTO standard import duty, but the memory of such design atrocities, of barge-like oversizes and wobbly suspension which limits the sale of typical US cars in Europe.
Daimler, BMW and FCA export happily from the US to Europe in large numbers, despite the 10% import duty. POTUS Trump with his erratic hullabloo only shows that he understands nothing of economy and even less of the automobile industry.
The 1957 Eldorado Brougham and the Continental Mark II was the pinnacle of luxury american cars
Actually this car and the Mark II were not the pinnicale but the last of a long line of great cars both companies built.
Thi prime Cadillac Cars were the V16 models as they went head to head with Dusenberg.
This car tried to capture the 30’s era cars but times and markets had changed. The decline had already come for most premier brands as Packard was the first to decline.
And if anyone has no clue who Harley Earl or Bill Mitchell is why are you here?
If you think that only twins of you should voice their ideas, why don’t you create your own blog, exclude comments and write only for yourself?
The interesting feature of this blog here is that it enables a collaborative effort from peoples of the most diverse walks of life and from all over the world.
Another amazing and unheard of feature not mentioned here was memory seats which would not be seen again from Cadillac until the early 80s.
I certainly understand the idea that fins are a waste of material, and potentially, but unlikely, implements for impaling clueless Europeans, or possibly blind people. That said, I find the fins are a reflection of the times, when the U.S.A. was full of optimism and posibilities, and in the throws of the Jet and Nuclear age. To me they are symbolic of our booming enthusiasm as the worlds greatest power post WW2. I find the fins wonderfully expressive, along with the useless gobs of chromed sculptural embellishment. Despite SO MANY elements packed into one design, it manages to hold together rather harmoniously imho.
Now that I have had my two cents, I would like to add that I also own, and adore the styling of my 1969 Mercedes 280S. It’s a seemingly simple and efficient 3 box design. There is much to be said for “form follows funtion”. But even then, the skills and eye of an artist can clearly make 3 boxes into a subtle, understated and elegant thing. Post WW2, Europe was digging itself out of the ruins of war. They were mostly poor and extravagances such as Cadillacs styling didn’t reflect the mindset of that time, for most Europeans. If you look at some of the European coach built, pre-WW2 cars, there were plenty that could be described as Baroque, or worse Rococo. Both forms brought to us by Europeans of “high taste”, The point here being that no culture is without it’s artistic excesses as seen through our contemporary eyes. Since the 1960’s, The best automotive stylists, come from the USA, or are trained here. Love or loathe H. Earl, he is the man to whom all succeeding stylists owe their careers.
LeTomso, don’t be an ignorant Americano. I just have to inform some folks like yourself that Harley Earl’s designs and ideas were influenced by those ‘clueless’ European sports cars of the 1940 and 1950s.