1958 Cadillac Series 70 Eldorado Brougham

The 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham was an exclusive automobile and the 304 examples built accounted for 0.2% of Cadillac's 121,778 total production. It helped the company re-establish itself as 'The Standard of the World.' They were given every conceivable luxury item General Motors could conjure and set a new standard of automotive excellence. Harley Earl's styling team contributed many new ideas, including four-door hardtop sedan bodywork with side windows that disappeared completely. There were rear-hinged rear doors and brushed stainless steel for the roof. In the front were quad headlights that were exclusive to the model and still illegal in most states. The headlights were a first for GM and would later find their way to other GM models. The hand-built cars wore bodywork by Fleetwood, with design cues from Park Avenue and Orleans show cars from 1953 to 1956.

Power options were numerous, including the trunk lid and rear doors that opened and closed with the push of a button. The doors would lock automatically when the transmission was put in gear. The forged aluminum wheels and a memory front seat were the first for a production vehicle.

The elegance, style, and exclusivity were expensive, demanding a cost of $13,974, which was twice the cost of the Eldorado Biarritz Convertible and among the most expensive in the world. Cadillac reportedly lost $10,000 on every car built, which was why it was produced for only two years and only 704 total examples were built, with 304 of those in 1958. Changes for the 1958 models were primarily seen on the interior of the car with the door panels now completed in leather as opposed to the metal finish the cars featured in 1957. Exterior changes now included new wheel covers. The car was available in 15 different monotone color combinations in addition to the 44 different trim combinations.

Power was provided by a 365 cubic-inch overhead valve V8 engine which offered 335 horsepower and mated to a four-speed Hydra-Matic automatic transmission.

Along with the steep price, the end of U.S. production of the Eldorado Brougham was due in large part to the bottleneck the hand-built Fleetwood bodies caused within GM. Beginning in 1959, body production was done by Pininfarina of Turin, Italy.

by Daniel Vaughan | Oct 2019