The original Seville, Cadillac's first attempt at a more compact and Euro-styled car, sold well but failed at its primary mission. Rather than attracting younger buyers away from BMW and Mercedes dealerships, it anecdotally wound up being popular with older woman buyers who wanted Caddy plushness and comfort in a smaller and more maneuverable car.
For its second generation, the Seville was moved to the new front wheel drive K-body with a 114" wheelbase, a sedan derivative of the Eldorado/Riviera/Toronado's longitudinally-engined FWD E-body. Bucking the trend in mid-Malaise Era Detroit, the wheelbase and overall length remained the same. A new feature for the K-body Seville was a semi trailing arm independent rear suspension.
The daring styling, with its bustle-back trunk, emphasized the long hood/short deck proportions and was the last Cadillac design helmed by GM styling honcho Bill Mitchell. An odd casualty of the styling was rear window functionality, since the rear wheel arch intruded so far into the door space that the rear windows would only roll about a third of the way down.
The original 1980 model came with the dismal 105bhp Oldsmobile 350 diesel V-8 as the standard engine with a gasoline Cadillac L61 V-8, which was the older Cadillac 425 Series V-8 with its bore reduced to 3.8" while leaving the stroke unchanged at 4.08", giving undersquare dimensions and a displacement of 368 cubic inches and an output of 145 SAE net horsepower.
Car and Driver tested a 1980 diesel Seville and it ran zero-to-sixty in a hilariously sluggish 19.7 seconds and a quarter mile elapsed time of 21.5 seconds at 63 miles per hour. Top speed was a lethargic 83 and it took 202 feet to stop from seventy.
Shuffling through old Caddy brochures and reading the tea leaves of the badges and their placement on the fenders, this looks Cotillion White example looks like an '84 model, which would make the base motor the LT8, Cadillac's 4.1L OHV HT4100 V-8 rated at 135 horsepower.
It was photographed with a Nikon D700 and 24-120mm f/4 VR zoom lens in May of 2021.
I remember when those came out and the retro styling was the Really Big News, but I never warmed to the look. But I've never been in Cadillac's target market, so I'm sure they didn't lose any sleep over my lack of interest.
ReplyDeleteI thought they were odd looking, but they've aged well. Lord knows that Lincoln and Chrysler moved to copy it fast enough.
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