Sunday, August 1, 2010

Another Old-School Cadillac: the Coupe De Ville

Long and sleek, low and wide, this DTS-based Coupe De Ville marks a return to rear fender skirts covering the rear wheels. A full-length glass roof and pillarless styling ensure a light and airy cabin

C H O P — I've found about a dozen half-finished chops on one of my hard-drives. Some were stopped because they just weren't working. Some were stopped because I had a hot idea for another chop and never went back to the earlier one. This Coupe De Ville is one of those latter ones. It was almost done, but needed the background changed. I started by just adding the "V" and crest from my Sedan De Ville chop from the other day, and then I spent another few hours, lol, adding the rear fender skirts and the glass roof.

9 comments:

  1. Good God Casey! Fender skirts! I can't remember the last car that "featured" them! You've raised the bar pretty high for your competition. Whether you like them or not, the execution is smooth and seamless!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad you appreciate the fender skirts! They were always one of my favorite items on cars. I had them on my old Caddy and Tbird. Sometimes I would take them off for a butch look, lol. Caddys especially, never went without them back then. I think the last car I can think of were the late '70s downsized Pontiac Grand Villes, but I'm sure I'm forgetting some cars. Maybe Paul in New York can help us ou

    ReplyDelete
  3. They were naturals on your 1964 Tbird and 1968 Caddy. Cars in the sixties and seventies were designed from the onset for them. It was either the Pontiac your refering to or some early 80's Chrysler's (Fifth Ave, New Yorker ?)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Casey, et al,

    I'm thinking, I'm thinking. Oh, the pressure!

    Those Pontiacs you mention are very confusing. They were the Catalina and Bonneville when they downsized for '77. Then they went away and then came back as the Parisienne -- first as a very slightly modified Caprice without fender skirts, then with Pontiac styling including fender skirts. That would have been 85/86.

    Wait! The 93-96 Fleetwood Brougham and Buick Roadmaster used fender skirts. 1996 must surely be the last use of fender skirts!

    Wait again! How about the first Honda Insight?

    All this thinking so early on a monday is exhausting!!!

    Paul, New York City

    ReplyDelete
  5. oh, you're right about the last Fleetwoods from the '90s. I forgot about them, and I really liked them back then! I don't think the Roadmaster used skirts though. It had very small rear openings, like the Caprice of those years. BUT, there is a LeSabre around here, white with a dark blue 'convertible' vinyl top, one of those dealer travesties, and it has fender skirts. They actually picked up the chrome trim from the lower rockers and look halfway decent for a car that wasn't designed for them. And you're right about the first Insight. Maybe i'll start a trend now? : )

    thanks for all that hard thinking on a monday morning!

    ReplyDelete
  6. As a fan of monster-size cars (see http://www.marketplacemagazine.com/blogs/blog2.php/2008/09/12/barges-on-four-wheels), many with fender skirts, me likey. It would be most elegant, particularly with the 556-hp V-8.

    ReplyDelete
  7. very cool write up! there is a collector of that era large Chevy in my town. He frequently drives around in a Caprice convertible, and has a couple of those pillared coupes, an Impala and a Caprice. I'll see if I can get some shots of them this spring/summer. thanks for the link!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I look forward to seeing those. I saw a red '75 Caprice convertible with white interior and top last September. Pristine. And it had the highly sought after temperature gauge/fuel economy meter option ... because you certainly want to know if you're maximizing your fuel economy while driving a car EPA-rated at 13 city/18 highway mpg. (Although our '75 Caprice got 18 mpg once, by the time I got it 11 mpg was more common. And with a 26-gallon gas tank.)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Drive a 2010 DTS. I wish your creation was a reality. I've always wondered why GM never kept the design lineage as straight as possible. Is there a more beautiful car than a Black 1964 (The year I was born) Fleetwood Sedan with Red leather interior? Your design study brought me back. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete