Purchased recently from an estate, this beautiful Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz has covered only 60,000 miles in its lifetime. Thought to have been a barn find in Minnesota in the 1970’s, and now a barn find that has been parked since the 1990’s, this Cadillac has been well taken care of. A fair amount of maintenance has been performed on this beauty, which really makes it that much sweeter of a ride. Anything worth having will cost a premium, but this Caddy is very nice! It could be yours for the buy it now price of $79,500. Check it out here on eBay out of Colorado Springs, Colorado.
While there is not a full image of the engine bay, the seller shows the factory 3×2 carb setup and assures that the carbs are original to this Caddy. There were a few things wrong that the seller has resolved, such as a bad brake booster, and rusty mufflers. Also several items have been checked such as the air ride suspension to which the seller has opted for a temporary fix so that the buyer can resolve whatever issues there may be. Also the transmission pan was checked for debris. Although this car appears to be a driver, I think that it still needs some fine polishing to be up to the task of navigating open roads.
Inside the bright red interior appears to be virtually without flaw, but it is in need of a solid cleaning. There is some paint chipping around the steering column area, but remainder dash seems very nice. Also there are some cracks in the leather on the driver side of the bench, but that it to be expected for the age of the leather.
The paint and body work on this Cadillac is stunning and there are no apparent flaws to be found. There is some mention of rot in the cross under-body supports. Also the seller mentions that there are 4 or 5 silver dollar size holes in the floors. The convertible tops looks to be in fair shape, but it is a bit dirty like the tires. I would guess this car spent some time in a dusty/dirty place. Truly a beautiful machine, this Cadillac needs little to be excellent. Are you a fan of this Eldorado Biarritz?
Am I a fan?! If only I had the money to buy this sweet machine.The ’59-60 Eldorado Biarritz are my favorites of the Eldos and it is worth having IMO.
Wow…are these 59/60 Cads coming out of the woodwork or what ?
You put 20k in this beauty and you got 80k in a 50k car….
You put 20K in this beauty,you would still come out ahead because these cars in very good condition goes somewhere between 100-230K.These are some hot Eldos.
Had a ’58 Biaritz 4-door HT back in ’73(?)
Got it fairly cheap ($500) too. The big
story on these cars was the airbag
suspension.setup that caused the owner
one nightmare after another. After coming home from playing music over
the road, I’d find my car sitting just two
inches off the pavement! It took about
20 minutes of idling the engine to refill
the airbags so that you could drive the
car again!! It was a really cool car but I
didn’t keep it long though. The hiss from
from a leaking rear airbag allowed the
rear of the car to sink slowly into the
sunset! With no internet back then,
a replacement was as scarce as hens
teeth. Wound up selling it to a friend of
Dad’s that had more patience and resources than I did back then. Wished I
had it.now. The last time I saw one like it.
was in a tire commercial with an old
couple doing stunts in it. The things you
do in your misspent youth….sigh.
No AC! Rats. Buying a premium top-dollar car like that, why not spring for the AC? On a warm summer day when it’s raining a convertible top does you little for comfort. Beautiful car though anyhow.
This car sold at an estate sale I attended 3 months ago for 28K. looks the the seller increased the price and has not done a thing to it since. Car went up in price 51K in 3 months and all he did was wash it. lol
Ah fellas – there’s what I believe is an inexpensive materially but somewhat labor intensive way to restore all these leaky GM airbags, along with Mercedes, & whatever else is out there hissing away: For some yrs now I’ve been using a roof sealant for houses to fix all sorts of things, from Panhard engine mounts where the rubber separates from the mounting plates, to eliminating the time req’d to pull FW driveshafts to replace boots, along with steering rack boots by splitting them then bonding back together with this inexpensive gunk.
What is it? PL – capital letters – “roof & flashing sealant” – made by Loctite/henkel and sold at most box stores for $6/caulking tube. FAR tougher than silicone, can glue tires together, patch innertubes, and whathaveyou. Only drawback to it is it takes 3 days to cure, but when cured, it’s the same as the urethane used to structurally bond windshields to car bodies at the factory. However, factory stuff is 3X the cost as it cures very quickly – $18/tube.
So – for airbags, pull end plugs, degrease whole interior surface of rubber bag with Brakekleen, smear this stuff all over the inside surface to leave about 1/16 in. thick skin, then set aside to cure. To keep exterior surface cracks from spreading, scuffsand them with reasonable grit, degrease with brakekleen, coat & let cure.
For the Panhard engine mounts, I sandblast the steel endplates, scuffsand the rubber’s bonding surfaces, degrease all, smear coating of PL all over steel & rubber, push together firmly enough to force excess out of joint, & set aside.
Here’s the kicker: the Panhard engine mounts bolt to the front chassis crosstube and the OTHER end bolts to the exh header pipes! AND the rubber is in TENSION and SHEAR – way tougher situation than nearly all other engine mounts – and they absorb the rock ‘n roll of a shaky flat twin 50 hp engine that’ll take the car to 90 mph with 850 ccs.
Last mount repair was on my 60 hp Panhard 24 BT coupe good for 100 mph & 40 mpg. The “gunk” has held for 4 yrs now – constantly in tension even when sitting.
PS: The reason GM’s air ride failed is for two reasons – 1. no moisture dryer for the air in the system was what I was told. Condensation would freeze & plug air lines. 2. The bag ends were plugged with cast alum. “spittoons”, with several surfaces machined for precision sealing surface. The machining opened porosity in the spittoons and they leaked air. No one used Loctite back then if it even existed. Today all Hydramatic autotrans cases are vacuum-impregnated with Loctite to prevent fluid leaks. Probably other mfrs use the same process, or vacuum-cast the metal to eliminate entrapped air.
PPS: Ford’s air suspension loadleveler on the Expedition/Navigator which came out around 1986 is successful as Ford used Dupont glass-reinforced nylon to make the spittoons. They come out of the mold finished – no machining, no corrosion ever, molded-in twistlock solenoid air valves, and half the wt of alum. I and my sales partner back then assisted in the development of that airbag system, now made by Goodyear. They’re plastic, but they’re the right kind of engineering plastic that can do all sorts of heavy jobs in automotive. And in fact I’d bet that some clever individual could adapt the Ford bags to a Biarritz and have a reliable air suspension, which was how GM tried to emulate the fantastic ride of the 1955 Citroen DS19 sedan’s hydropneumatic ride, which was in production for approx. 60 yrs.
If anyone wants to know how to fix lots of other problems with this “glue”, contact me offline at citbuffatgeemail.calm
Thank you Ken. I’ll bet you’re an interesting guy. As a side note, I’ve used the spray and caulk rubber sealant as seen on TV to repair lots of cracked material that needs waterproofing/sealing. It keeps my old pontoon boat underway…….. I’m gonna check out your idea.
FlexSeal? A bad joke on roofers. I’ve been in roofing 44 yrs. and we are finding this crap on roofs – doing no good whatsoever. Huge TV scam for you gullible dimmies.
Never used it on a roof, but works great on lots of stuff. Being a gullible dummy’s not too bad. Try it sometime. LOL.
Great information. Thank you!!
Sure wish I was at the estate auction. I so want one of these. $80K is a lot of money, but when complete it is worth so much more. The current owner will make out very well. Good for him to see the value when he purchased it.
I think the price is too high; but the car is in ery good shape it seems, you would need a physical inspection and get it up in the air to look at its bones.
Thank you for excellent advice and knowledge regarding airbags. I willlook into this for my ’93 Lincoln Continental. No one here has the expertise required and the Lincoln dealer wants the Earth for doing the job (actually replacing the whole assembly)
Maestro1, here’s an example of what the PL can do: A friend in our Arcane Automobile Society around the Bay area has a Chrysler 300 with power brakes, but no power as the booster diaphragm developed cracks. So for kicks & giggles, he pulled the vacuum chamber apart, degreased the diaphragm, coated it with the PL, reassembled and 3 days after curing he had power brakes with the original part. I’ve patched lots of tubes for the old Michelin Xs on my early Citroens – as many tubes crack right at the base of the valve stem where flex fatigue from pounding the pavements bends them. I scuffsand the base area, degrease & coat with PL and I’ve got a perfectly useable tube which can normally run $18-25.
When I found a 3/4 in. dia. chunk of rear vent window seal had cracked out of my ’51 Bulletnose Studebaker V8 Commander Landcruiser, and the whole gasket was rock hard from baking in Dallas in its prev. life, I cleaned the remaining gasket break areas, masked off the glass & painted areas with blue masking tape – to which the PL won’t stick – I filled this large pit full of the PL, put clear tape over it so I could form it thru the tape by pressing on it, then let it cure. Peeled off the clear tape for a near perfectly smooth surface, blended some areas of the PL where it met the original gasket with a dremel sanding drum, and had a repair that was virtually invisible. This stuff doesn’t shrink it large volumes as does spackle – and you can sand/grind mismatches down to other contours. That repair looked great and saved me the trouble of chiseling out the rest of the original gasket, disassembling the vent window & frame, and will last longer than the rest of the gasket. it really cleaned up the appearance of the car, and as I had to sell it later, this was a clean fix for an otherwise very clean ’51.
In my teens, a young couple moved in across the street. He was a 6′ 2″ house builder. She was 5′ 3″. blonde and HOT. She originally had a blue ’58 Impala convertible. It was lust at first sight. Then, she got a…you guessed it…a ’60 white Caddy, red interior convertible. Now, I was drooling and jealous…again. Love the 60 Caddys!! Just not convertibles.
I absolutely LOVE this car! Even if the seller were to make $50,000 + off me (not gonna happen…I am broke white trash lol), I wouldn’t care as long as I felt it was a fair deal. My advice though is for the buyer to go over it with a fine tooth comb. The color white hides damage & cheap repairs so much better than other colors. If all is sound, I think it is very reasonable. I wish I had the funds!
Way back when I was younger and Caddys like these were too, I helped out at a friends repair shop , he had a customer that had a ’60 Caddy with the air suspension which we worked on frequently until it was fixed. The worst part was that the customer smoked these really stinky cigars and he always left the car parked with the windows up & parked on a slope on front of the shop doors so nothing moved til the Caddy did . This was during the summer. We couldn’t move the car off the slope until the air raised the car. That car sat & idled with the windows down and the a/c full blast until it was safe to breathe , ,,,,, it stunk & the windshield was always hazy.
YEP IT WORKS GREAT ON A LOT OF THINGS I use it on a lot of restoreation I do ao Autos!!