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Eight Is Enough: 1986 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 Limo

When you want to lug around seven of your closest friends and you don’t have any interest in a new SUV, let alone the scratch to pay for one, this 1986 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 eight-passenger limo would work just fine for a fraction of what that SUV would cost. This low-dollar-hauler can be found here on eBay in Pittsburg, California. The seller has a $6,900 buy-it-now price listed and the current bid price is a mere $3,050, about the price of that new ‘fridge that your spouse was thinking of getting.

I really like these cars. We looked at one almost three years ago here and I’ve wanted one ever since, for what I have no clue, I don’t even have 5-6-7 friends. I have seen only one for sale since then but I haven’t really been looking too hard. The new front-wheel-drive GM platform was the basis for the eleventh-generation Fleetwood 75, or Seventy-Five, and they were stretched just under two feet in order to give that extra room that your friends need. The Fleetwood 75 limos were made from Coupe DeVilles, not Sedan DeVilles, and they were completed by coach maker Hess & Eisenhardt.

This car looks like it’s in nice condition and it only has a reported 75,215 miles on it. It’s all original according to the seller. I have only seen three of them for sale and they have all been blue, either this dark blue or a lighter blue like the car that we saw back in 2016. They actually came in eight colors/tones so I’m not sure why the blue ones seem to come up for sale more often than black, white, gray, or black cherry cars.

Velour seats, too. The cars with leather seats don’t seem to come up for sale that often, I wonder why that is? It has come up before that maybe a car like this was a funeral car for carrying family members which is why it doesn’t have a glass divider and the seats all face forward. It would be a tight fit to have eight people crammed in this car, two of them are going to have to sit where the armrest folds back into the front and rear seat. The seller mentions that the headliner is sagging in spots but other than that it sounds and looks great inside.

This engine looks familiar, it’s at least somewhat similar to my ’84 Seville, it’s Cadillac’s 249 cubic-inch V8, the famous/infamous HT-4100. 135 hp is not nearly enough for my Seville let alone a limo when it’s full of people. Have any of you owned a limo? If so, what was it and why did you buy it?

Comments

  1. Avatar Dan

    The last passenger I had in my back seat was a cat! A car such as this is not something I have a practical use for. However, it presents very well, and it looks infinitely better than the dippy SUV-based limos being produced these days!

    Like 12
    • Avatar 67Firebird_Cvt Member

      Yes, it looks nice but regarding the SUV comparison, how many sheets of drywall can you carry in this? ;)

      Like 0
      • Avatar Dan

        You got me on the drywall. But then again, limos aren’t really meant for that sort of job. It’s a job I, personally, would do with a pickup.

        Like 0
  2. Avatar CanuckCarGuy

    Measure twice, cut once and still not enough leg-room for the rear seat passengers…dang! It would be a cool car to own nonetheless, but I haven’t figured out the ‘why’ part yet.

    Like 7
  3. Avatar Miguel

    Unfortunately it has that garbage engine which is the reason to stay away from it.

    Like 8
  4. Avatar Barry Traylor

    I would imagine this beast gets pretty poor MPG.

    Like 2
    • Avatar Duaney

      NO, around 20-25

      Like 3
  5. Avatar Will

    If your wife wants to spend 3 grand on a fridge, it would be cheaper to trade her. She is “high maintenance”. Trade her for a fleet of cars.

    Like 6
  6. Avatar Streets of New York

    The ad says this was a “prior government official limousine.” Which government needs such a vehicle?

    I once knew someone with a Cadillac Limo. It had the divider and a chauffeur. Everyone noticed. The real advantage of this car is that it was used as work space for the commute into New York.

    Like 1
  7. Avatar Michael Dawson

    Three grand for a refrigerator seems out of orbit to this old cheapskate, but so does $30-70,000 for a new car, truck, or SUV. (Three grand is what I paid for my like-new 1993 Town Car with 50,000 miles, just four years ago this month.) But I guess with all things being equal and considering inflation, the price ratios between a new auto and new refrigerator do sound about right. But neither amount would be out-layed by this old boy, you can bet your $500 cowboy boots on THAT! HA!

    Like 5
  8. Avatar Roseland Pete

    I’m glad the article mention what type of motor the car has. There is no way that an HT 4100 would be able to haul 7 people around.

    Like 3
  9. Avatar Porkchop

    Ugh… a buy it now price AND a reserve. Why bother with an auction?

    Like 3
  10. Avatar Ralph

    Without the divider this is a Formal Sedan, the Limousine designation was saved for the one with the actual divider window.

    The seats always faced forward on the Fleetwood 75’s.

    Cloth was actually a luxury item at one point, don’t know why I always have to explain that to authors here, who should know better, leather was for your horses saddle or where the chauffer sat……cloth was reserved for where the moneyed people sat, look at any old limousine and its that combo 99 out of a 100.

    Leather was available for the rear seats of the Fleetwood 75’s by special order and the limousine cars with the dividers still had a traditional leather drivers compartment with a cloth rear compartment.

    Like 5
  11. Avatar boxdin

    Driving limos back in the early 90s I was assigned a car exactly like this one. We were told it came from the “Chock full of Nuts” family before we got it. We had to keep the cars clean so I was lucky because this one fit in my garage so I didn’t need to wash it very often. It wasn’t a good car mechanically but I liked it anyway.

    Like 2
  12. Avatar Ralph F Paine III

    When our kids were young I bought Michael Elledge‘s (owner of the Red Wings, Tigers, and Little Caesars Pizza. Limousine. Bar glasses on one side were for one team & other side was for his other team. TVs, Fax machine & very low miles.
    Even had bulletproof tires.
    We used it for 4 years & sold it for more than we paid for it.

    It was the best mini van money could buy.
    I remember it as a 1985 full size rear drive 36” stretch by Maloney?
    We would drive the kids to Florida& when we couldn’t take their complaints any longer we would roll up the divider. They soon figured out they could pick up the rear seat phone & call the drivers compartment.

    Like 5
  13. Avatar That Guy

    Front-facing jump seats are the standard configuration for factory-built limos. Permanent rear-facing ones aren’t common except for aftermarket stretch jobs. They are intended to be for occasional use, and fold away to give the rear seat passengers more room at other times. These don’t fold completely into the floor as earlier Cadillac limos did though. They look rather clunky, whereas in the older limos the jumpseats virtually disappear.

    This type of limo is primarily intended as a personal vehicle, not as a car for hire. It isn’t necessarily expected to be at capacity most of the time.

    The auction headline describes the car as a “prior government official vehicle.” So it was probably used by a high-level politician or public official as their personal transport.

    Like 2
  14. Avatar Joe Spinelli

    junk dont deserve to have tbe cadillaÇ on it

    Like 1
  15. Avatar Del

    I am with Joe. Its junk.

    And I own a Caddy CTS

    Like 0
  16. Avatar Myron

    I want it! If I had the money that is. I might have built it. I worked for Hess & Eisenhardt in Madison Heights, MI about that time, and they built these cars. Imagine having a car that you built on the line. We got the cars built kind of like you see it but the back door frame was only about 4-6 inches wide. We cut the cars stretched them and reassembled them.

    Like 3
  17. Avatar Stevieg

    I owned a limo once. Had it for a rather short period of time. A guy I knew from the hearse dealership I worked at was kind of a slime ball. He called me up one day and asked to borrow money. I knew he wasn’t good for it, but he knew I had money back then & I could afford to lend it to him. I just didn’t want to. Besides, Mother’s day was the next day & the banks were closed. I didn’t want to “blow the bank”, so to speak, & not be able to do anything for the mothers in my life that I love. So I asked him how much he needed. He told me $700.00. I asked him what he needed it for. He had a warrant for an unpaid ticket. I asked him what he had to sell. He told me he had nothing that cheap. We went back & forth. I knew I had him over a barrel. I had about $1,200 on me.
    He had a nice 1980 Cadillac series 75 formal sedan like this, all white out with dark blue cloth interior, old funeral family hauler. I got it from him for $1,000. I had a friend drive my Mom & I around for Mother’s day. She loved it!

    Like 3
  18. Avatar Steve

    I had three 75 formals (With the divider) and loved them all. Two ’66s and a 68. I didn’t like the downsized ones after ’77 (I had one ’77 briefly), but the ’86 was a nice swan song for the model (Which was introduced in 1936, if I recall correctly). They were the last ‘stock’ limousines that you could buy off the showroom floor (Most all of them manufactured entirely at the Clark Avenue plant in Detroit). Most manufacturers (Buick, Chrysler, Packard, Lincoln) had a stock line of limousines until after WWII, when they started to drop off, giving the Fleetwood 75 most of the market share until the custom Lincolns gained traction in the late ’70s (As Cadillac downsized).

    Like 3
  19. Avatar Steve

    I have one, slightly newer than this one. Mine is a 2000 Cadillac Six Door Federal Coach. It’s black with light gray interior. What purpose does it serve…..none really, except I’m the only parent dropping my kids off to school in a limousine! It’s a very comfortable car to drive, and I love the odd looks I get from people. Yes, it’s got the infamous Northstar (or Deathstar as they’re referred to around here), but I only have 41,000 miles on it, so hopefully it holds up for a while!

    Like 2
  20. Avatar YachtRocket

    You may see this compact car driving around Palm Springs and Silicon Valley along with my full-size 2001 Lincoln Town 72 inch stretch limousine and my subcompact 1986 Lincoln Town Car. (The high bidder from Australia failed to perform.)

    First day in Palm Springs a note was left on it asking to buy it.

    My mechanic is in love with it even as he could charge me only $49 for his first inspection. Oh yeah, the bullet hole in the front left fender is now repaired. This HT4100 is running fine. Yes, I suppose doing the South Grapevine while passing at 85 would everyone feel like a boss. But it would also defeat the entire purpose of this vehicle – serenity and elegance for royalty. The butt-banger rolling sardine cans available today and their passengers apparently do not understand the free-range-human movement and the Zen.

    Peace.

    Like 1

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