As you will know, if you were following my reader's ride thread on it, I was not getting on so great with the Moose-tang. So I sold it, and in its place I have procured a more suitable family car. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have owned the Moose, and it had some great points, but it was deficient in the number of cylinders under the hood and no amount of oogling the slot mags was going to make up for that.
So here we have a 1987 Cadillac Fleetwood. In the snow in Cannock.
This is one of the last of the traditional body-on-frame built Cadillacs, so all the qualities one comes to expect of a big ol' traditional car. Pillow soft ride, that feeling of driving something which could write off a Scania articulated wagon... By '87 Cadillac were upping their game on economy, so this behemoth only packs a 5 litre V8. This replaced the lamentably poor 4100HT “sudden death” engine which had been used in RWD Cadillacs during '83 and '84. So she lacks the performance of the 7 and 8 litre engines used in the older cars but is far more drivable than the smaller 4.1 motors were. 4 speed auto is a nice to have feature even if the big block is not an option for this year. The car has air bags in the back from the factory, this is one smooth cruiser.
Everything is power operated. Several things don't work. I'll get to them when the weather improves. Its only prissy things like the rear electric windows. NP. The leather interior is like an old Chesterfield or something. Ace. The dash is an acre of that photograph-of-wood-effect-plastic which manages to nicely lower the tone of the whole interior to somewhere just above “Vegas Whore House” the dash features full instrumentation Cadillac style – speedometer, odometer and fuel gauge. I shall probably add some auxiliary instrumentation of my own.
I think I got a good deal on this one, the seller had advertised the car on eBay but listed it amongst the regular modern cars rather than the classic car section, this I think limited his exposure and reduced the number of bids. Some you win...
Only hiccup was it ran out of petrol seconds after I paid for it necessitating a trip to the local Shell with a Jerry can.
About the only rush-to modification I think she needs is LPG. I could do with some affordability from this one.
Its great to be back behind the (fake wood grained) wheel of an 80s Cadillac, these things are just so “right”. The only place I think I'd rather be for commuting would be a mid 70s 'Lac like a Coupe DeVille with the 472 to play with but this is the (slightly) downsized practical alternative.
I'm just' loungin' yo.
So here we have a 1987 Cadillac Fleetwood. In the snow in Cannock.
This is one of the last of the traditional body-on-frame built Cadillacs, so all the qualities one comes to expect of a big ol' traditional car. Pillow soft ride, that feeling of driving something which could write off a Scania articulated wagon... By '87 Cadillac were upping their game on economy, so this behemoth only packs a 5 litre V8. This replaced the lamentably poor 4100HT “sudden death” engine which had been used in RWD Cadillacs during '83 and '84. So she lacks the performance of the 7 and 8 litre engines used in the older cars but is far more drivable than the smaller 4.1 motors were. 4 speed auto is a nice to have feature even if the big block is not an option for this year. The car has air bags in the back from the factory, this is one smooth cruiser.
Everything is power operated. Several things don't work. I'll get to them when the weather improves. Its only prissy things like the rear electric windows. NP. The leather interior is like an old Chesterfield or something. Ace. The dash is an acre of that photograph-of-wood-effect-plastic which manages to nicely lower the tone of the whole interior to somewhere just above “Vegas Whore House” the dash features full instrumentation Cadillac style – speedometer, odometer and fuel gauge. I shall probably add some auxiliary instrumentation of my own.
I think I got a good deal on this one, the seller had advertised the car on eBay but listed it amongst the regular modern cars rather than the classic car section, this I think limited his exposure and reduced the number of bids. Some you win...
Only hiccup was it ran out of petrol seconds after I paid for it necessitating a trip to the local Shell with a Jerry can.
About the only rush-to modification I think she needs is LPG. I could do with some affordability from this one.
Its great to be back behind the (fake wood grained) wheel of an 80s Cadillac, these things are just so “right”. The only place I think I'd rather be for commuting would be a mid 70s 'Lac like a Coupe DeVille with the 472 to play with but this is the (slightly) downsized practical alternative.
I'm just' loungin' yo.