1959 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible Coupe

Everyone knows GM's flamboyantly finned cars of 1959, especially the outrageous jet-age 1959 Cadillacs. How many know that they would have turned out very differently had a brash young designer named Charles M. 'Chuck' Jordan not indulged in a bit of industrial espionage in 1956?

Cadillac was working on new models for 1959, but almost no one there liked them, except soon-to-retire Styling Vice President Harley Earl.

Acting on a tip, Jordan drove to the Plymouth plant. Looking through the fence at prototype Plymouths, he saw 'nothing but fins, fins, fins.' He brought Bill Mitchell (Earl's heir apparent) and others over to show them. That very afternoon, with Mitchell's gutsy approval, they started on a new design. When Earl returned from a trip, he came into the studio, looked around, and walked out without saying a word. A few days later, he decided to support the second design.

Stretching 225 inches on a 130-inch wheelbase, the 1959 Cadillac was also three inches lower than its 1958 counterpart. Its V8 was bored from 365 to 390 CID and its output upped from 310 to 325 horsepower with a standard four-barrel carburetor and dual exhausts.

Once owned by Helen Voorhees Brach (of Brach Candy), the current owner purchased this 40,000-mile Seminole Red 1959 Series 62 convertible from her family in 2009. It is number 10,784 of just 11,130 built that year.