If Cadillac had offered an El Camino or Ranchero-style pickup on their regular entree menu at dealerships during the seventies, I can’t help but wonder if it might have been moderately successful. The idea of a car in the front and a truck in the back was a good one, sort of the automotive equivalent of a mullet, and I’m guessing it would have attracted a few luxury buyers who would have appreciated the convenience of a truck. Fortunately, some third-party builders saw the need, including a company called TCW that produced a pickup offering called the Mirage. Another was made by Caribou Coach Builders of California, not surprisingly called the Caribou, such as this 1973 model here on eBay. This one’s in Lena, Illinois, with 8 bids taking the price to $11,655 so far.
These unusual Caddys are rare, with the seller claiming that only six were produced in 1973. This car/truck is said to have been restored, but it’s not mentioned how long ago this took place. Unfortunately, there is a flaw on one of the quarter panels originating at the top, which the seller is straightforward about pointing out. I can’t really tell if that’s just a crack in the paint, filler, or what exactly is going on here. If you’re striving for perfection, it’s probably time to redo this one area.
Better news is that the rest of the body appears to be in very nice shape. The inside of the bed section looks immaculate, and it’s got an additional storage compartment underneath for smaller items. Also notable is how nice the trim and chrome pieces remain, and no custom Cadillac would be complete without the large shiny pieces around the grille and oversized hood ornament. Elegant wire wheels and whitewall tires complete the package outside, and if you can live with the one fracture present, I’m not spotting much that needs attention regarding the exterior.
Other than a close-up shot of the odometer, we only get to view this one photo from the interior. In this case, it may be enough, since the inside had to be reduced in size by removing the back seat. The condition of just about everything we can see appears near perfect, and what pickup owner wouldn’t enjoy seats that look as comfortable as these? No photo of the engine is provided, but the DeVille only came with a 472 in ’73, which is said to be running as it should. The 68,000 miles are stated as actual, so hopefully, this very large powerplant will be operating reliably for the foreseeable future. Any thoughts to share on this coach-built 1973 Cadillac Caribou?
Flower car with a grill toupee. Caribou? More like CarryBouquet.
Caribou
-K
Nice, but the seat covers don’t look like anything they had in 73.
It looks like a Caribou all right-about 19 feet of ugly. They made 6 of them, about 6 too many. The early 70s Cadillacs were nice looking cars in their sedan and coupe form, so who or why would anyone want to perform an atrocity on a car like this? It wouldn’t be so bad-I’ve seen other years of Cadillac turned into Daddy Warbucks El Caminos that were attractive, but this? No thanks. Oh..a parting shot-that odo has been monkeyed with. The numbers don’t line up.
Right Terry and what happened to the other 5 of them!
The numbers not lining up doesn’t mean the odometer has been monkeyed with. It means it has rolled over – as in 168,000 miles, not 68,000 miles.
Aw for Pete’s sake folks! It’s something different on BF. And besides, the more you look at it, the more than t grows on you. Just imagine having the most stylish pickup 🛻 truck at Lowe’s or Home Depot when you’re picking up all the supplies
you need for that “Honey do”54@list your
wife or girlfriend gives you for the weekend. Me, I’d at grille and add a set of steer hornsa real Kountry Cadillac! After all, variety IS the spice of life.
I’m with you on this. Roll on up to the big box store and slot it between all the testosterone infused pickups in the Pro Parking at the door.
Feels like ai wrote the eBay description..
This comment is already starting to feel like ” that’ll buff out” and ” put an LS in it.”
It has a nice powerful engine, beef up the rear suspension and use it to pull your 5th wheel travel trailer
Nicely done, and as ken mentioned, variety is the spice of life. Just because something isn’t the particular “spice” you prefer, it doesn’t mean that you need to attack it with every insult and negative descriptor you can muster. Personally, I’ve seen enough Camaros, Chevelles, and Corvettes on this site, and others to last a lifetime. Caribous, not so much.
Any one who doesn’t appreciate the work it took to make this land yacht a masterpiece has probably never owned a Cadillac, or could never afford one. Man I wish I didn’t have so many projects, and more space, I would love to park this gem right in front of my shop and show it off every day! It is absolutely beautiful! Good luck seller.
I could see pulling up to the barn with hay, grain bags, a manure fork, water buckets, saddles and other horse gear in the bed, and a dog in the passenger seat. And a big American flag sticker on the back window.
The F250 and Duramax crowd would be jealous.
My neighbor has a Mirage, original everything, maybe 30k miles. Beautiful car/truck. It is every bit a Cadillac, you just get one passenger, but at my age that’s all I need. She does have the twin but it’s the car, about the same mileage, all original, and beautiful as well. This caribou needs to go for over $50k even with a flaw. Problem on a restored car is how deep the flaw goes. Still you can be guaranteed the only one in town. But it probably won’t fit in too many garages these days. Still a beauty.
looks more like a mortuary flower car than a pickup truck
Right here, THIS, THIS, THIS! To expand on that a bit, “what he said”.
I would lose the cheesy grille cap and drive the wheels off of this
Love it coming from a ute loving country you would have bragging rites.
The only ones I’ve ever seen were flower cars at funeral homes. I’m surprised there were only six of them obviously just that one year but I would think there were more of them since several funeral homes had them. Funeral cars, of course got very few miles put on them and they tended to keep them for many years.
As a kid I always dreamed of making an El Camino style pickup from a ’59 Cadillac. Friend of mine (who owned a body shop) also had the same idea and made a pickup out of a Sedan de Ville. He used the roof’/windshield from a Chevy El Camino (all ’59 GM’s used the same windshield) but the Chevy cab looked way too small on the Cadillac body. Which exaggerated the length of the vehicle. Painted bright red it was/is an attention getter. The fellow that built it wasn’t very tall so he had to answer a lot of questions when he went to the DMV to get personalized license plates. He requested “LongNLo”….. I never did get my ’59 Cadillac-El Camino.
I like it, except the “grille cap”. You don’t see flower cars much anymore. The cost versus the benefit just doesn’t pencil out. Most funeral homes use vans for flower cars/vehicles. The open bed of a flower car although handy for loading and unloading had limitations as far as cards sent from well wishers ending up on the side of the road or being unreadable after the rain on the way to the cemetery. Plus, the van is easily 1/2 the cost of a custom flower car. (Take it from a person that made part of his living selling vehicles to the funeral home industry. PLUS, that same van was used as the cadaver transport vehicle from the hospital/morgue.
Lena is about 14 miles north of me. Northwest Illinois, driftless region. You’d be heading to Menards to save big money rather than Home Depot. Oddly enough a Mirage was for sale a couple of years ago a couple towns east of here. IIRC the Mirage had a deeper bed, more Pickup style. This is more flower car with about a 1 foot deep bed and the locking compartment to put various gravesite items that might be needed.