Cadillac’s V-16 cars were legendary in refinement, quality, and excess in an era when a lot of people didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. You knew that you were something if you could afford one in the early-1930s, but if you could afford one you knew that anyway. Far more customers bought Cadillac’s V-12 cars such as this gorgeous 1931 Cadillac V-12 370-A Convertible Coupe. This example is a survivor and it will be auctioned by Gooding & Co. at Pebble Beach this August in Monterey, California. All images copyright and courtesy of Gooding & Company. Photos by Brian Henniker.

I would personally be very careful to leave as much of this car as it is now. They have a pre-auction estimate of between $75,000 and $100,000 listed for this auction so it isn’t inexpensive to buy one even now, but you knew that already. The 370-A V-12 came out in the fall of 1930 for the 1931 model year and they were expensive but not fall on the ground expensive, starting at around $3,800 which is only around $62,000 today. You can easily pay that much for a pickup truck today which is sad in more ways than one. For the record, a V-16 of the same vintage would have been around $2,000 more expensive in 1931.

The interior is about the only area where decades of wear are overtly apparent, as a V-12 Cadillac owner may have said in 1931. There are many more photos on the Gooding & Co. website so you can see the passenger side and the whole car in all its glory and glorious it is. Coachwork on this car is by Fleetwood and it’s a rumble seat convertible. It doesn’t get much more “Hollywood golden era” than this.

This car was reportedly delivered to a dealer in Los Angeles and we don’t know if he was the first owner or what that timeline was, but in the late-1950s or early-1960s, it went to a gentleman in San Diego and it still retains its 1963 California black plates. It was rarely driven and was stored in a collection of cars. Other than the deterioration of the seats as shown in the photos, and a few other aged areas, this is one amazing car.

Cadillac’s 368 cubic-inch V-12 was built to the same quality standards as the V-16 was and they had 135 horsepower. A three-speed manual floor shifter changes gears and we assume that it’s in running condition but that isn’t mentioned. Would you restore this V-12 Cadillac convertible or preserve it?