UPDATE 10/08/2021: We originally featured this 1974 Cadillac Eldorado Moloney Superfly back in July 2020, but it appears that it might not have sold at that time. It is a distinctive car that appears to be in good condition, and it is located in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The owner has listed it for sale here on eBay, and while the bidding has reached $9,100, that figure remains short of the reserve. The owner has set a BIN, and this is an eye-watering $50,000. Our readers will need to decide whether its unique nature is enough to tempt them to join the bidding war or hit that button.
There’s an aspect of car culture that I run hot and cold on, and that’s the approved use of customization on vintage automobiles. Most of the time, I personally want to keep a classic OEM-correct, but there are some instances where exceptions can be made. Of course, choosing to modify a vintage vehicle carries with it the risk that the next potential owner may not appreciate your enhancements, and finding a car like this 1974 Cadillac Eldorado listed here on craigslist a new home may prove a challenge if window shoppers don’t want to ride in a car only Supafly himself could have commissioned.
Now, there’s a lot going on here. You’ve got the so-called “Superfly” headlights (I didn’t even know these were a thing); the curb feelers; air shocks; custom-mounted Hella driving lamps; and new Coker “Gangster” whitewalls, among other improvements. At the end of the day, the condition of the Eldorado was already quite nice, based on the pictures, with a relatively spotless interior and a body that didn’t have any apparent flaws. It does make you wonder, then, why the seller went down the path he did, especially since there’s still a pretty dependable market of buyers for clean Eldorados. Of course, all of the the tweaks shown here are easily reversible, so the enhancements shouldn’t be a deal breaker.
I actually saw curb feelers in the flesh for the first time in ages just the other day, on a Ford Edge SUV of all things. The CUV had the highest trim package available, which included gigantic chrome wheels that I’m sure the owner would have been distraught to scrape on a curb. In that instance, the curb feelers may actually serve a valuable purpose, even though they still looked very out of place on a modern cross-over vehicle. Not so here, where they conjure up the image of every low-budget film featuring a stereotypical pimp, rolling hard in his blinged-out Eldorado. I searched “Gangster” tires by Coker, but nothing came up.
I’m still confused by the headlamp shields, as they do a great job of making the Caddy look like the cartoon version of the Cruella de Vile car from the original 101 Dalmatians (otherwise known as the “Panther deVille.”) But, sure enough, search for “Superfly headlights” and there’s a few different options to buy a set of these to make your own Eldorado have a passing resemblance to a Stutz Blackhawk. At the same time, does this not capture perfectly the extremes to which owners of Cadillacs were taking their cars in the 70s and 80s? In some ways, it’s a museum exhibit, reminding us just how creative Caddy owners could be when they weren’t retirees simply putzing along to their tee time. Thanks to Barn Finds reader Connecticut Mark for the find.
no words
I have two Gaspump, They say that “Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder” and after looking at these pics my two words would be, Absolute Disaster!
Aaah-the good old days! (north of 110th).
Ha ha, I lived on W102nd in the 70s and you’re spot-on.
Dats a strong pimp whip!!
Mr. Isaac Hayes owned one of these babies back in the ’70’s….it’s on a rotating display table at the STAX RECORDS museum in Memphis. If you want to see a celebrity owned Superfly Eldo, make sure you swing by the STAX museum…..also a ton of 50’s and 60’s Soul Music History to absorb…..don’t miss it if you’re in Memphis!
I would like to laugh at that, but I can’t but help understanding that those were very bad men. Why glorify a horrible part of human history?
Feel the same way about Goodfellas…The Godfather…Scarface? Worth noting: Many of the films from the “blaxploitation” era…were directed and produced by white guys. The goal of course being to manufacture a distorted and unflattering image of what black life.
Normally I think sellers are lying when they claim a car has low mileage but fail to provide documentation. In this case, the pictures of the car from a 3/4 angle are proof enough.
Steve R
If the owner is trying to mimic Superfly, he missed the mark. Wrong color car for one thing. And Superfly’s headlight covers aren’t amber. They are transparent.
….and Superfly didn’t have those type of whitewalls either.
Curb feelers we’re a late 40s early 50s item designed to keep a driver from scrapeing those expensive whitewalls against the curb. The 54 Nash Ambassador had as a factory option electric curb feelers, which buzzed when too close to the curb. And I actually found a set on EBay!
Curb feelers we’re a late 40s early 50s item designed to keep a driver from scrapeing those expensive whitewalls against the curb. The 54 Nash Ambassador had as a factory option electric curb feelers, which buzzed when too close to the curb. And I actually found a set on EBay!
Anytime is see a conversion like this, I think of Curtis Mayfield and the soundtrack to Superfly.
More info on him here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Mayfield
I didn’t know he wrote the song “People get Ready”. Always associated song with Bob Dylan.
No. Just no.
Makes me think of a friend of mine who
used to “Pimp out” these cars in the ’70s.
His name was Buzzy Thomas, and if you
wanted the one of a kind vehicle, you went to him. Buzzy himself was one hell
of an auto body man whose shop was
always full of paying clients who wanted
the best and got it. In fact, it was Buzzy
who resprayed my ’50 Packard limo after
I got it ready the best I could. I gotta tell
ya’ that dark blue metallic paint was so
deep you could read a newspaper in the
reflection. Local legend has it that a
successful black businessman brought
him a brand new Cadillac Sedan De Ville
and gave him free reign to customize the
Caddy as he saw fit. The end result looked more like a limo than a 4-door
hardtop. Buzzy added a formal rear
window, landau bars, deep tinted glass,
and an extension to the rear of the car
that held not one, but two continental
spare tires! He capped it off with wire
rims all wrapped up in those gangsta
white wall tires. Wasn’t long before
anyone with a luxury car took it to Buzzy
for that extra touch. He also worked with
our local Chevy dealer when the Primo
Monte version of the Monte Carlo came
out in ’74 and ran til ’78. He added all the
extra bling to a standard Monte Carlo and
presto! Primo Monte! Truth be told, he was building them before he signed the contract with Chevy to do the work.
When the ’80s came, he retired a very wealthy man. The Superfly era was gone
and would never return. And so was the
story of a bodyman extraordinaire.
Reminds me of one of the del caballero Conversions
I misread your sentence as “There’s a lot of gagging going on here.” But previous comments may support that…;)
I hear that Shaft is a bad mother…..
Easy there, Rex-you’re showing our age!!!😝
MoTown still rocks..
It’s mutha…
Shut yo mouf
But he’s only talkin’ ’bout Shaft….
But seriously, no self respecting pimp would have anything to do with this poseur-mobile. Not an inch of fur in that interior. Not a hint of purple anywhere. Where is the cane clamp?
Shut yo mouf
Watch your mouth.
Shut yo mouth!
Must be butt ugly, not a single pic of the rear end.
Excellent double entendres there JCS😆
I think the camera gave up the ghost before they got to the rear end, fortunately!
I’m just talkin’ ’bout Shaft….
Youtube that bad MoFo Sammy Davis Jr. singing the Shaft theme. Classic!
Isaac Hayes originally sang the Shaft Theme.
we can dig it….
Looks like this went the same as a project I got many years ago. A designer was doing a lawyer’s office and bought a Revolutionary War era harvest table to use in their conference room. Behind the scenes, I was told it was worth over 6 figures and certified by the historical society as predating the Revolutionary War. Even the wood behind it had a story. The frame was mortised and tenon construction with pegs and the top was held on by hand forged spikes and shaky as grandma after her 3d or 4th drink. It was old, it was brittle and likely would have cracked or split trying to take it apart and I told them so, and where are you going to find 200 year old monkeypod? I spent over a month trying to talk them out of it, but one way or another they were going to get it done. Even when I told them the only way to get it apart was to Sawzall all the spikes off below the top to get it apart and rebuild the rest as needed then build a subframe into it to help hold the top on once done. The legs were 8″ and the fails were ~2″x6″ and heavy as heck. Believe it or not, not only did they like the idea cut it apart to fix it, they were willing to
put it in writing which they did.
Yes I did do the job eventually because the money was too good to pass up (I had a shop that rebuilt and restored furniture at the time) but to this day, it’s typically not something I bring up. It was an excellent way to turn a $100,000 table into a $10,000 table.
This car strikes me the same way, you lost 90% of the value through the modifications IMO.
I have also restored classic cars, period houses and furniture. It is necessary to understand which is best, preservation of restoration for any of these things. I was driving by a yard sale where the new owners were selling furniture left in a 200-year-old house in my town. I saw the owner putting an old table painted industrial gray on the curb. The table had the look of a genuinely nice piece, so I asked how much for the old table. He said he was throwing it away, because it had been used as a work bench and was slopped up with paint. I gave him $5 for it and when I got it home and I checked it over, I saw that I was actually a pre-Revolutionary war tavern table. I could see the old blue milk paint under the 60-year-old grey paint. I was experienced enough to know not to touch it.
I put it into a high-end auction which also was offering a Connecticut tavern Table that had bee restored and refinisher. Its form wasn’t as good as mine, but it was pretty and shiny. My table sold for $15,000 as is and the refinished table sold for $2,500. I am sure after the restoration experts go done removing the grey paint with out disturbing the original blue color, it was put on the market for $35,000 of more.
Knowledge is an incredibly valuable trait, as has been demonstrated here again and here very often on BF.
Good stuff, Kinmont Willie-thank you for sharing that as another lesson in why we need to look beyond the immediate surface when making a decision or judgement..
Doin The Gangsta Lean. That Said I Would Never Own Superfly.
However I Still Love It…….
Growing up near the west side of Chicago are used to see these cars quite frequently as a teenager. They are definitely from a specific time period in the 70’s. Fly!
The South Side was also a trip to drive through in the late sixties and early seventies.
Checkout this dude with a brim that matches the Superfly Cadi.
https://i.postimg.cc/Cx5QmzVj/South-side.jpg
Somebody done Pimped your ride. Oh Lordy…….
Shaft was a very cool private detective. Not a pimp.
Hey man,waaas sappenin? I I like me these big fly rides so I can put all my hoes into and I can still wear my hat with the smoove long feather in it,baby! If anybody don’t like this car they is a jive Turkey! – Kid dy- no- mite, from deep in the get- to.
In the 70s a company next to me used to build cars like that in fact they had one that color the place was called unisun or US sunroof after that they became avanti that made the CB antennas This was in Addison Illinois
👌
I like it.
I do wonder what the electric drill is up to in the picture of the tires and curb feelers?
Youngblood Priest to the Valet Parking Kiosk Please, your ride is ready !”.
” Shaft, I wan mah baby back”
Words. If you saw this thing coming down your street you’d call the police.
There are no photos on the back End of the car. I wonder if he’s hiding something
It could star in an “Escape from NY” remake. All it needs is chandaliers. lol
Today’s low profile tires, eat your heart out!
Might get a ticket with yellow headlite covers.
I’d drive it…..in Detroit.
Being a Cadillac collector…I can’t tell you how much this makes my eyes bleed. But I guess I have to remember that in this hobby, everybody likes different things. However, would somebody please just take this one to the crusher.
Crusher? Not if it’s rust free underneath! Looks like most of these addons are bolted on – should be ez to remove. & the tires are not even radials! – u dont want to use/keep them even if they were blackwalls. lol. Can still find some inexpensive blackwall tires for this car these days.
You’ll most likely be buying new tires for any old used car for sale, anyway.
Thank goodness the interior wasnt pimped!
Back in the day when this was a new car there were Cadillac dealers who sold these, they were built by a small “custom” outfit and built to order, maybe by this Maloney guy mentioned in the craigslist ad. Wasnt there something similar to this Caddy but on a White C3 Corvette body in a James Bond movie ? Its dam ugly, thats my opinion and opinions generally stink, like this monstrosity .
Coming from NYC, where Super Fly was Fly, I love this car, these were around during the Disco days, and we in the Boros had vehicles like Lincoln’s and Cadillacs, even Grand Prixs w spoke wheels and Vogue tires, and sunroofs, it was a place in time
I was waiting for the Grand Prix to be mentioned. My dad was an avid modeler in the 1970s and one of his favorite kits, purchased over and over again, was the MPC “Grand Superfly” model which used a standard 71-72 Pontiac Grand Prix as its basis. The added parts like wide whites, padded privacy rear window and large headlight reflectors were kitbashed for use on all sorts of other projects. Later in the decade, when “Welcome Back Kotter” was new to television this same kit was repackaged as the Sweathogs ride. Came with figures of Vinny Barbarino, Horshack and the rest of the cast. Otherwise, same kit.
Is everyone here so young that they don’t know about this part of automotive history?
Les Dunham – Dunham Coach.
http://dunhamcoach.com/home.htm
Absolutely the best, his name escaped me temporarily cause I’m not that young, but he did all those Cadillacs
Surprised it doesn’t have 30″ Rims
Nah, that’s new school, with that terrible music, this car is for cruising w Barry White, Lou Rawls,no hate
I am with John Oliveri on this one! There was a time & place where this would be right. I remember seeing vehicles like this being driven by my Dad’s friends. Although I generally prefer a nice stock Cadillac, I can also see the appeal of this.
My Dad had one friend who had a 1978 Fleetwood Brougham, 2 tone caramel & chocolate, a custom gold grill, these same stainless headlights but they were gold plated, it had a “toilet seat” tire on the trunk, fake tv antenna, Landau bars, all of the cliche add-ons.my Dad borrowed that car a few times. People would just stare at us. Apparently we didn’t have the right colored skin to be seen in that car lol. I liked it!
Since I’m a kid, growing up in NY, we all had cars that were a spin-off of that car, my first car in 77, was a Black w white top and interior Luxury Lemans, w every option in the book, spoke wheels 1.5 inch whitewalls and curb feelers, rear pkg shelf had fur, car was gorgeous, every car after that had Vogues and Spokes, and my friends and I are mostly Italians, it was stylin time, great music, great clubs, and everyone got along,black, white, Hispanic, everyone was out for one reason, to party
Sounds like a heck of time to be alive John. I was, but in 77 i was 9. So no groovy Caddie for me and my parties were probably tame compared to yours and your buddies. All that said i wish we had a time machine and go back in tjme and stay there.
I’m a Jersey boy, one of my fellow workers is a great friend of L. Dunham. these cars are special to we Jersey an NYC car nuts. Real art!!
Boonton NJ Superfly car builder
Somebody ran amuck with the JC Whitney catalog.
This is a pimp daddy car the epitome of 1970s extravagance and luxury GANGSTER white wall tires bias ply so what, it has the look of a superb pimpmobile, it was about a certain period in the 1970s if you didn’t own a Cadillac in the 1970s you weren’t standing out and this car definitely STANDS OUT few pimp machines are left in the world and this is beautiful
Fabulous pimp daddy car, exuberance and over the top style, 1970s was the best decade ever, platform shoes, wide bell bottoms, flavorful flashy fedora, that’s what it’s all about, style and flash how about VELOUR interior, lol you don’t see that anymore PIMPMOBILE
Lady across the street from me growing up in Brooklyn had a white one,God awful looking thing
Should be rolled off a cliff.
The interior is surprisingly restrained.