While looking for info on 1967-1970 Eldorados, I came across some interesting wagons. Back in the day, the all-new for 67 Eldorados were a big hit. Everyone wanted one, especially celebrities. Any celebrities loved to out do eachother. So a mere regular Eldo was not enough. In steps George Barris. He made a custom wagon for singer-actor Dean Martin. Apparently 3 other people had to have one as well. Four were made. The first one (below) was Deans car.
If I see you walking toward your beautiful '68 Eldo with a saws-all and a welder, I will clobber you! David
The dark brown one at the bottom is very well integrated and looks great. George, or whomever he and his brother had build this gold one , in my opinion, had lost their touch by the time the built this thing. To many excesses, The roof line and tailgate are pretty nice but those tacked on 'spare tire' humps and that overindulgent 'pimp' grille has gots'ta go... The 'wood' area reminds me of those tacked on, fake, convertible tops old people have the dealers put on their late model Sevilles and Lincoln Continentals. Not so good to me. I think George was doing too so many 'cartoon' cars for Sid and Marty Krofft by this time, they'd blurred the line between tasteful custom and corn-ball. All in this authors opinion, apologies if you disagree or are offended.
i agree, partially lol but can you post a pic of the things on the seville your talking about because i dont know :confused::confused:
I completely agree with you on this, Mark. IMO, George Barris, although certainly worthy in his heyday of being called 'King of the Kustomizers', also produced a lot of..........crap. Did you notice that the last Eldo in the original post had a different back window design? It appears to use a standardbig GM back glass, and although it doesn't look like it has a gate that opens, the glass appears to be able to be lowered.
if you look closely at the front of the brown one it looks like it has has a different design, more like a 1976 eldorado ?
That '76 is attractive. Here's a link or two: http://www.cadillacforums.com/forum...-has-anyone-removed-fake-convertible-top.html http://www.clublexus.com/forums/att...06-fake-convertible-top-oh-no-0706081422a.jpg http://www.streetlegaltv.com/photos/data/547/landau1.jpg http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/3/1960/1221/29898110012_large.jpg 'll be honest, I wouldn't want it for myself but this Silver Caddy isn't the worst example... http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2989811/1997-cadillac-seville
George Barris and Gene Winfield were gereat custom Car Designers back in the day but I can tell you from personal experience the craftmanship left something to be desired. Here's a link to a you tube video of a New York banks Cars from a early 70's ad campaign called the anycar loan. In 1975 or 76 I repainted both "Anycar I" and "Anycar II" They are the ones with the 57 Fury quarters with the VW roof and the Candy Red one with the Pontiac grille. They were only 4-5 years old but looked horrible. Anycar I was done by Winfield and Anycar II was a Barris creation. They both were lacquer checked badly with plastic filler cracking everywhere. On anycar I to get the smooth curve in the rear where the Fury Quarters were molded in to the VW deck lid the plastic filler was literally 3-4 inches thick. I was an 18 year old car guy at the time ( I'm still a car guy just nowhere near 18 anymore) and had admired both designers work for years. Well after seeing the way these cars were slopped together I was very dissapointed. I do remember it was still WAY COOL to get the chance to work on them. Of course I had to bring all my buddies by to show them what I was working on while some of them were pumping gas and flipping burgers for a living. Anyway here's the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv5z4yWbLro
Barris You have to remember, those STARS wanted their cars finished YESTERDAY and only drove them for a short time before getting something else new and different. Quality meant nothing to them. Man, it would have been cool to have worked on one of those as a kid.
