1957 Cadillac Coupe de Ville Project

In June of 2000, my youngest brother and I were driving around and he was showing me some of the old tin that he had found the Central Valley (CA) countryside. Most of it old trucks, some of it for sale but most of it just lying around soaking up the sun.

After looking at several old relics he said, ”I know where there’s an old Cadillac”. “How old?” I replied. Something in the 50’s was his educated guess. When I asked how many headlights it had and he answered one on each side. That automatically ruled out a 58 or 59. I’m not a big fan of Caddy’s of the 50’s except for 57’s. I love 57’s but I never thought of owning one. They’re pretty rare and usually the price reflects that. It’s the old supply and demand thing. When we pulled around the corner and I saw this 57 coupe de ville sitting in a driveway with a FOR SALE sign I said, “I gotta have that”.






I didn’t get it right away. I had to do a little research to see if it was really worth what was being asked for it. And there was no one around to ask any questions about the car either. It would have to wait until the next time I went up for a visit. It was the last weekend in July before I got back up there. We went over to where the car was several times trying to find someone. We talked to the neighbors, left a note, got the phone number and left phone messages. It looked like another weekend was going to pass without buying another project. Finally we got hooked up with the guy and negotiated the deal. We borrowed a trailer and towed it over to my brother’s house for storage for a few weeks. The few weeks turned into a couple of months before I was able to get it down to my house to begin the project.

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