“This is more than one of the finest convertibles ever built. It is now the only convertible now built in America—and it will not be repeated for 1977.” That’s how Cadillac described their 1976 Eldorado Convertible in their slick sales brochure. If you were alive in 1976, you were made aware of two important national events: 1) America was celebrating its Bicentennial, and 2) the 1976 Cadillac Eldorado was going to be the last convertible GM would manufacture. And, as a result of #2, those with the means snatched up the Eldorado luxury drop tops for its already lofty sticker price (and well beyond) with ROI in mind and a big cash-out sometime down the road. Many were squirreled away, pampered, and driven very little. That’s why you see a good number of low-mileage, well-preserved survivors for sale today. This one was bought as a pair by a husband and wife in Canada which might explain the low mileage of 15,230. It doesn’t say if this was the hubby’s or the wife’s Eldorado, but based on the limited photos, it appears to be in outstanding original condition and looking for a new home.
Yes, by today’s standards, this was a huge personal luxury two-door convertible. Some have joked that you didn’t park these Eldorados, you docked them. At nearly nineteen feet long and weighing in at over 5,000 pounds, these big boys made a statement at any resort, country club, or law firm they floated into. This Caddy was sold in 1993 with 12,500 miles on the odometer and purchased in 2016 with 13,200 on the clock. It currently shows 15,230 miles and the seller believes this is the actual mileage but doesn’t mention having any documentation. Based on the Eldorado’s condition, it’s believable. The original Cotillion White paint looks very smooth and shiny with the seller saying “there is no signs of touchup paint or body repair.” All the chrome, trim, badging, and glass looks very good as do the front and rear bumper fillers which are notorious for fading, cracking, and disintegrating over time. Even the white color-matching wheel colors, which can be known to fade to a cream color, look bright white.
For some reason, the seller chose not to include any photos of the car with the white convertible top up (they also chose not to show any photos of the Eldorado’s engine – which is a double head scratcher). The drop top does have the optional white hard boot, though, that gives the car a seamless, finished look.
The Eldorado’s interior is in gorgeous condition and screams luxury and opulence mid-1970’s style. Often called a “rolling living room,” the six-way powered Sierra grain white leather seats look near perfect and extremely comfortable. And Cadillac, usually restrained in its interiors, wasn’t here with a contrasting bold, red dashboard, instrument cluster, three-spoke steering wheel, carpeting (on the floor and lower door panels), and seatbelts. Of course, these Eldorados came well-equipped from the factory with just about power everything, and the seller says that “all power equipment works as it should.”
The extremely long, beveled hood and massive engine bay was needed to house the Eldorado’s huge 500-cubic-inch V8 (which isn’t included in the photos). Despite it’s size, the large engine only produced 190 horsepower and had 360 net pound-feet of torque. It is mated to a Turbo-Hydramatic 425 three-speed automatic transaxle to drive the front wheels. This ’76 Eldorado is still calling Canada home and is located in Parksville, British Columbia and is for sale here on craigslist for $35,000. A shout out to our pal, Scott, for sending this Caddy Time Capsule our way. So, what do you think? Have any of you owned, driven, or floated down the road in one of these “living room on wheels?”
A Boss Hogg Mobile!!!!
YEE HAA, KC! Just sent Roscoe for some KFC, mmmm! Ya know before me, an Indian Chief on a TV show called WESTWARD HO, was chauffeured in a while Caddy convertible. But he didn’t have them Dukes to contend with. Damnation! Where is that Roscoe P. Coltrane? I’m hungry 😕
Rick, speaking of those Dukes, Daisy was in town today for an appearance at the annual Mopars in the Park show along with 1984’s Miss Direct Connection Cludia Abel. But I’m thinking why should I go over there when we have Angel, Miss Cadillac Diva ?
You bet! I doubt any aspiring QUEEN could dethrone ANGEL, our Cadillac DIVA QUEEN 👸. DAGMARS and all! Love ya, you DIVA LICIOUS dish!
Plenty of room in the ashtray 🚬 for cigars KC
You might be right on that one KC. Looks like one of the cars Angel described a few weeks ago. And yes Ron, I do remember the hoarders who
Snapped these up to make a huge profit later. Speculators drove the prices into the stratosphere–far out of reach of many Americans who really
wanted one. Used to see these selling for as much as $100,000 in 1982! Guys like Bill Zigelbaum, who had a shop just outside Detroit didn’t
help matters much. In fact, he was one of the biggest offenders there were at that time. He was charging
150K for the Eldos he had and people
were stupid enough to pay his ridiculous prices. But it all came crashing down when Chrysler released it’s LeBaron ragtop in ’83.
And of course, Cadillac followed suit
much to the anger of these same speculators who spent huge sums of cash for these so called last year ragtops saw their investments go as flat as a pricked balloon, and their cries of foul did indeed resemble a
symphony of scorched cats. Many of
them tried to sue GM and Cadillac for
renighing on their word that they would not produce anymore ragtops.
As a result, many investors were left
holding a big, empty bag. That debacle is now a cautionary tale with a moral that everything is subject to
change without notice. Nice car though. Too rich for this old man’,s
blood, but a nice car all the same.
My dad had one, It was a nice car, but he didn’t like it after taking a 8 hr. trip in it. He went to the Buick dealership and traded it in for a new 1976 Buick Limited loaded with everything Buick offered. Said that the convertible was too noisy inside on a long road trip. Said the Buick rode as good and was much quieter on the hiway. Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?
Bruce, your Dad gave up one of these?! For a Buick? Man, that’s almost sacreligious! Locally, a friend inherited his Dad’s “Bicentennial” edition, I think #33 our of 200 produced. Last time I laid eyes on it, it only had about 14 miles on it. It was even up on blocks to ‘preserve’ the tires! I remember when his Dad bought it new.
You could be right on that one KC, and yes Ron, I do remember that announcement. It was even in the newspapers and on the radio. All it did was create the biggest panic buy
in automotive history. These cars flew out of dealerships and into climate controlled storage. Used to read Cars & Parts, Hemmings Motor
News, and Car Exchange. And all of them featured ads in which sellers
were asking– and getting as much as
$150K for cars that were driven from
the dealer into oblivion. But you still
could get one of these cars if you looked hard enough. Sure, the prices for the ’71-’75 were up there, but not as eye watering as the so called “last
convertibles” were. And quite frankly, I like the looks of the ’71-73 cars better than I do these. They had very
tasteful side trim that paid tribute to
1950-1955 with that vertical piece of
brightwork on the rear quarter panels
and they had better engines too. They still hadn’t castrated the 472 yet
and it had enough torque and ponies
to float you down the road in grand
style. But it all came crashing down in ’83 when Chrysler released the LeBaron drop top. It wasn’t long before GM followed suit. These same speculators that started that panic buy in ’76 cried foul as they watched
their investments go as flat as a pricked balloon. There were lawsuits
galore as these fools tried to sue GM
for going back on their word that the
’76 models would indeed be the last
of the ragtops. These cars were a
cautionary tale on the inherent dangers of investing. Do your due diligence BEFORE you jump in. Do it
wrong, and you take a bath.
Yeah Bruce, I would really rather have a Buick. You get the same world class engineering and you get it for less. My MIL had an ’01 LeSabre Custom sedan that to me was truly
awesome. It had everything you could ever want in a sedan. Room, ride, power, that car had it all and then
some. She bought it used with 85K
miles showing in ’07. And when it finally quit running, it had over 250k
miles when the timing chain let go in
2021. Fix it? Yeah I could’ve but Mom had dementia and couldn’t drive
anymore anyway and my two dumbass BILs traded it for a bag of
synthetic weed. Sure would like to have one like it now, my back and joints would be singing my praises.
Ken, I had a ’04 LeSabre Ltd. & my wife had an ’02 the same but hers had the handling package (you knew by the rims) + HUD so I know what you mean by nice cars. I made the mistake of disconnecting my battery for 2 weeks and the dual zone climate control was never the same even with reprogramming.
Saw a nice ’02-’05 this morning at Menards. No rust around the fuel cap cover (yet).
This car is an absolute beauty! Cadillac went downhill after this. They started downsizing everything including their engines. None of this worked. People started buying trucks. Just Cadillac belongs in a museum.
This really was the Last factory built Full size Convertible. Later Cadillac Convertibles and others were from conversion studious. Although a few (Chrysler LeBaron) were factory 🤔 built, none could match the OTT excessive panache of this Last of The Breed.
Forget about the his & hers, it’s Angel’s now! As I type, they’re preparing the stall at her palatial estate to park this beauty.
Hey Jon Rukavina, always good to see ya! I know can’t see ,but it rhymes. Talk local sightings! While attending a local government meeting (yeah, still trying to prevent foolish projects, as best I can) what to my wondering eyes did I see, but a genyouwine Muskmobile! I don’t remember the name, but it looks like a cheese wedge. I’ve seen everything from Mercedes, Maybach, to Smart Kars, but this is a first. Hope alls well!like Timex, still tickin.BTW has there ever been a Maybach here in The BARN? ELIZABETH TAYLOR’S Maybach went to Jose, the styling guy, not the city. DAMN!
Hi Rick, yup we see those around here all of the time. And I also saw one of those Maybachs downtown Mpls. once.
Hope all’s well with you, too!.
I’d assume the seller wants $35,000 in Canadian dollars. Just a shade under $25,500 US…
This has to be the worse web site ever for trying to bid or buy a car. Impossible!!
I have tried to bid but have given up! Why does it have to be so difficult?
Did you read the writeup? This one is listed on craigslist and the link is right in the last paragraph…
My garage wasn’t made for this but I love it.
Yes, Rod Denny, I’ve owned a few of these “living room on wheels”. Shown is my ’73 Eldo with red leather interior, white top, and a hard-shell parade boot cover. This was the last year before the dreaded bumper fillers. With only 67k miles I rescued it from a long slumber. After doing valve work, replacing the door rubber, and replacing the inner fender splash aprons, I really enjoyed displaying her at local car shows.
@Jon Rukavina
Jon, even though we’ve never met, you know me so well! Rick W, also.
IF I had a palatial estate AND a few empty stalls, this would definitely go into one of them. Then I’d schmoosh Jim Z into selling me his ’73.
Cadillac f’d up in 1974 through 1976 when it came to the dashboard and interior of those years. The interior looked cheap and ’73 had the last really nice dashboard.
It must be so nice to be wealthy enough to buy TWO of these when new. I’ve never been fortunate enough to come across that kind of fortune. What little luck I have come in completely different modes and situations.
Whenever I took my 1975 Eldorado convertible to NJ inspection (before the QQ plates) the dumbass kids always thought the reflectors were taillights and always try to fail me because 1) the first time I went right after buying it the passenger side was broken and 2) of course they didn’t work, i.e. light up. Always had to educate these bozos about classic cars.
Good Morning Angel! Jon R. Posted a comment about your right to be QUEEN and I just responded. Guess we’ve all been Down and Out, not in Beverly Hills. I’m off to Church. 😲 YES Church! No 💩
Morning Angel! Just sitting here waiting to start working. As for this car, there isn’t anything I can say about it that hasn’t already been said.
Seeing it though reminds me of a song by Guy Drake called Welfare Cadillac. You can find it up on YouTube if you want to hear it. The song came out in late ’69 going into
1970. Love it or hate it, it had catchy
lyrics that made you think. We opened for him and Spec Roads while on my first tour in the summer of 1970. The song was a huge radio hit
for him and his only big hit. Heard that time quite a bit on WHOW out of
Clinton, Illinois while waiting to play live on The Breakfast 🥞 Jamboree
with Uncle Johnny Barton. But that’s
another story. BTW, if anyone wants them for this car, I do have a set of steer horns for the front of it.
Did those horns belong once belong to Boss Hogg’s fancy ride?
No, they’re mounted on a wall mount but they could be adapted to fit the car. And as for the Buick LeSabre, Mom’s
car too had that really grippy suspension your car had. We
enhanced that by adding a set of very wide Cooper tires that
just seemed to glue the car to the pavement. My BIL took great delight in showing people just how well a family sedan could handle by taking the curviest parts of Cypress Gardens Boulevard at 80+MPH! I seriously thought of adding a turbo
to the 3800 V-6 the car came with after seeing a LeSsbre so equipped on YouTube in 2012. I reached out to the builder who told me that his car was running over 400HP with the
turbo set at 10 pounds of boost. Of course if only stood to reason that the transaxle would have to be beefed up to deal with the extra ponies and torque. In short, the mods cost more than we wanted to spend so we said “Forget it” and left things as they were. But the car, it was great and I loved it.
How I wish that I could own another one before I’m too old to enjoy it.
When I was much younger a great friend of mine had a 76 Eldo Hardtop with the immense sun roof and the white interior like this one but it had been repainted dark green by a previous owner. We were driving it from Michigan to Florida one year and we heard a rattle in the front end so we pulled off the freeway onto the shoulder in Ohio near Lima. We pulled the hub cap off and found two of the studs rolling around in the hub cap and only two of the others had the lug nuts still attached. We tightened what we could and drove it to the Goodyear tire store in Lima and they replaced the bad studs and we were back on the road within an hour and the guy gave us a great price for the repairs! It was a great car for my friend Bill while he owned it.