Many of us have been involved with a vehicle transaction involving a car or truck that was abandoned on a local property. Oftentimes abandoned is too strong of a word, as it may simply be a non-running car the owner doesn’t want to pay to move. However, it does like in the case of this 1990 Cadillac Seville, it was indeed abandoned – and it makes very little sense considering it’s a genuine 30,000-mile example! The seller notes that the Cadillac was left by former tenants who rented a building on his in-laws’ property. The Cadillac is now listed here on eBay with a Buy-It-Now of $6,500 and the option to submit a best offer.
Again, most abandoned vehicles are left behind for a reason. However, this Cadillac looks shockingly nice for being left behind, with glossy paint, all of its original wheel covers, clean glass, and no major dings or dents. The short-wheelbase Seville isn’t the most sought-after 90s luxury car, but you don’t see them all that often. Finding one in seemingly excellent condition is definitely a find these days, and would make for an enjoyable commuter car. There’s some clearcoat damage on the rear bumper but that’s the most egregious flaw I can see in the paint. The tires are fairly old, having been replaced in 2006.
The seller claims the interior is in excellent condition, and he isn’t wrong. The interior is one of the first things I look at to assess whether a low-mileage claim is accurate, and based on what I’m seeing here, the limited use seems on the money. This is also surprising for a car that was left behind by the previous owners, as normally a car not worth taking is pretty much trashed inside and out. Strangely, this looks like it was always a decent example of an early 90s Seville, and even if it had some mechanical faults, the previous owners could have likely sold it for a decent price as-is.
Even the trunk is nearly spotless! Again, when you come across a car that’s been left on a vacant property, the odds are against you that it’s going to be anything worth dragging home. I’m glad the seller saw the potential, especially considering that all he had to do was replace the fuel pump, fuel filter, and fuel pressure regulator to have himself a running, driving Seville. He does note the A/C compressor is likely toast, but other than that, it seems like a turnkey 90s luxury car that’s been in Texas all of its life. While you could lob a lower offer, the seller’s asking price seems quite fair to me.
One also can be abandoned when a car has the title is messed ip with a lien held by bank and cannot transfer due to default.
It wasn’t gifted likely for free other left for a reason.
Looks very nice
Those aren’t wheel covers, they’re aluminum wheels. The center caps are all present and accounted for, though.
The engineers did a great job with this chassis. It was considered the most sophisticated front wheel drive chassis of its day. It would live on, modified, under the ’92-97 Seville, ’94-99 DeVille, and ’92-02 Eldorado.
Everybody but the engineers failed miserably.
Are you putting sophisticated and GM of the 80s and ’90s together?? I don’t think so…
GM- Engineers- 90’s. Ummmm, did not Caddy’s have the starter under the intake manifold? They still lose half their value in 3-4 years except for the Escalade…
The sentence read: “sophisticated for it’s day”. And I agree.
I ran a car rental business during that time and had a few of these Seville’s in my stable. They were classy for their time, reliable and a joy to drive. Kept to their maintenance schedule we had no problems with them.
Actually GM had incredible engineer prowess all through the 80s and 90s. The issue was the sheer size of the companies made quick decision making difficult. Overly agressive cost cutting also played a big role in their problems. To this day, the engineering standards that 80s and 90s GM cars had to meet to be approved for production were things not even contemplated by other manufacturers.
As just one example, All GM suspensions had to be designed and constructed to sustain a considerable solid impact with a huge bump of several inches high at a given MPH, and not sustain damage. Even the standards for output of their heat and a/c systems had very high levels they had to meet.
Seat fabrics had to survive torture and wearability tests of thousands of cycles of bumps and getting into and out of the car without appreciable wear. As a collector that owns GM, Ford, Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Benz, Mazda and many other brands, it bothers me that it’s fashionable to bash GM.
They made their mistakes, granted, but at one point they had over 50% of the domestic market. Much of the good they did gets overlooked. I might also add that the starter under the intake is unique, but I don’t see the same people bashing GM for doing that bashing Toyota for a similar setup in their Toyota and Lexus v8 engines. Why the double standard?
Something does not make sense here. Why would somebody abandon this low milage example?
According to the write up, it was not running when abandoned. Maybe they didn’t realize it was just a bad fuel pump.
The owner probably died and the heirs weren’t aware of it’s existence.
How does the author judge the interior by one pic of the passenger side lower cushion of that seat that’s leather looks dried out.Nothing but a fancy Chevy celebrity with a crappy 4.5 v8.These cars were butt fugly and a low in cadillacs tradition of building classy looking cars imo.
You use the link in the article to see more pics in the eBay listing
These are far and above a “fancy Celebrity.” The Celebrity was an A-body with shorter wheelbase and twist beam rear axle. These are excellent cars on the K platform with independent rear suspension,tons of room, and great road manners. (4.5 V8 notwithstanding ;-)
I worked for Cadillac from the 80’s on. The 4100 HT was the problem engine of the 80’s. We used to call it “The 4.1 Hand Tight”. Since they leaked coolant INTO the engine from the intake gaskets, we said the factory made the 4100 HT…Hand Tight………The 4.5 was a terrific engine. Cadillac learned their lesson !
The 9 different interior pictures look pretty nice to me.I think a fair deal for a 33 year old car in decent shape.
Their are alot more 80s-90s cars I’d rather have than one of these turds
Yuck! THIS is a Cadillac!? Ugly at any price.
The Seville engineers couldn’t eliminate all the torque steer out of that V8, but the steering was light so it was easy to correct it. The ride was soft and the seats comfortable. These seemed so great after the malaise cars.
Amazing, as Nissan found a way! Cadillac and GM had the knowledge to eliminate the torque steer but chose not to. Garbage at any price!
Exactly! Just like when Honda handed GM’s butt to them when they said American cars were to big to correct emissions and Honda bought a full size Chevy and made it work. GM is an overrated company that has had people snowed since the seventies.
How can he sell it? Liens, title, ABA? Is it in his name now?
They probably did some kind of storage lien foreclosure on it.
Missouri has a procedure for getting a title for a vehicle abandoned on your property which requires some not-quite-flaming hoops to jump through, like a registered letter to the last known owner.
Nice looking car, with questionable ownership. For $6500?
Not a chance. Homey don’t play that. To title? No deal.
In most states a title can be easily obtained with a mechanics lien.
Looks like a convict car. Owner probably in jail.
Yup. Somebody had to leave in a hurry.
I bought a house with a 8-9 year old Mitsubishi Spyder abandoned in the garage. It had no keys and had minor crash damaged front fender and door. It was otherwise spotless. The garage was rented on a cash basis to a guy the previous owner knew. I only had a phone number and a first name. He rented half the garage to a guy he barely knew who owned the car. We could never get the guy to pick up the car (which other than the damage was really clean) and it got towed away for scrap. It had to be a $5k-6$k car as it was.
The tow company said it was not reported stolen.
It makes me think about my own cars. In the winter I store two cars in rented garages. No one in my family knows where they are and if something happens to me the owners of the garages only know me by a phone number.
I can see how a nice car can be abandoned.
Rental insurance like if you rent a house or storage room, you will have insurance on it and family will see the paperwork.