One Family Owned: 1985 Cadillac Seville

The Daimler DS420 was in production for 24 years, from 1968 all the way until 1992. It’s amazing that a car made before the moon landing was made until after the entire run of the next-generation Seville, the smaller car that followed the run of the famous bustle-back Sevilles, such as this 1985 Cadillac Seville. This one is posted here on craigslist in Edmonds, Washington, and the seller is asking $3,950. Here is the original listing, and thanks to Curvette for the tip!

Easily one of the most recognizable body styles for an American car in the modern era, the love-it-or-hate-it second-generation Seville was made from 1979 for the 1980 model year until the end of 1985. I think AMC may be the only company to have rivaled Cadillac’s risk-taking design department with its earlier Gremlin, Pacer, and Matador Coupe.

There isn’t one photo showing the rear of the car, at least from the bottom of the trunk lid down. It’s unfortunate that this car could show up at someone’s house on a transport truck, and the buyer might not have noticed the rear bumper filler material. The front bumper filler is also cracked and missing in areas and needs to be replaced, but the back isn’t shown at all, other than in a couple of partial photos. The seller says there is no rust and there are no dents, so that’s great news.

This is the only photo the seller included of the back, and it’s only from the bottom of the trunk lid up, so there’s no photo of the bumper filler and no mention of it in their long description. The bumper filler material on my 1984 Seville had been replaced by the original owner, and it was a black car, so that was nice. It all goes bad eventually, and it’s still available, so that’s good. But it won’t be inexpensive to have it installed and color-matched to this Balboa Blue color. The trunk compartment looks pretty nice. Mine had nice carpeted compartments on each side, but I don’t see those here; maybe they’re just out temporarily.

The interiors are Cadillac nice in these cars, although maybe not the level of a mid-60s Fleetwood in materials or size. That being said, I’m 6′-5″ tall, and I have no legroom issues in the front or the back. The seats look great, and one thing I did on mine was to change out the garage door control on the headliner to a more modern Cadillac piece, just the guts of the controller, and it worked like a charm. It was easy, and every older Seville owner should do that if they want to use the built-in garage door opener rather than a remote one.

The engine is the original infamous 4.1-liter HT-4100 OHV fuel-injected V8 with 135 horsepower and is backed by a four-speed automatic sending power to the front wheels. The beauty of this one, other than looking nice and clean, is that it has been rebuilt, according to the seller, who is the original owner’s son. The car is being sold due to his/her dad going into a senior living facility. This looks like a really nice car other than the bumper filler material, and the price is over $1,000 below Hagerty’s #4 fair-condition value ($4,800), so that makes up for the bumper filler cost. An engine rebuild is the cherry on top.