Here's a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado ragtop in Calumet Cream with what appears to be a Light Ivory leather interior.
Power was provided by the 500cid Caddy V8 in its final year of production. Now fully catalyzed, EGR'ed, and 8.5:1 compressioned, the ginormous "8.2 Litre" that had been introduced with 400 SAE gross horsepower in 1970 struggled to make 190 net horses six years later. (You could bump it to 215 by ordering the optional fuel injection.)
By the mid-'70s, convertibles were vanishing. They were heavier and had worse aerodynamics than fixed-roof cars, which hurt gas mileage, and they had a hard time with NHTSA rollover standards. Cadillac marketed the 1976 Eldorado ragtop as the last American convertible and quite a few of the roughly 14,000 sold were driven straight into garages and parked as investments.
When Cadillac launched a new Eldorado convertible eight years later, there was a class action suit as a result.
This one was photographed in September of 2022 using an Olympus E-3 and a Zuiko Digital 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 zoom lens.
Wasn't the '76 Eldorado the first regular production American car that stickered for $10,000?
ReplyDeleteIt was certainly close. The '75 Eldo convertible was $10,500 according to the JD Power site I use for this info. The '76 was a grand more.
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