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The 1953 Eldorado was a special-bodied, low-production convertible. The car was available only in white with red interior and featured special badging and a hard tonneau cover over the top. Although it was based on the regular Series 62 convertible and shared its engine, it was nearly twice as expensive.
This first Eldorado had a wraparound windshield and a cut-down beltline, the latter signifying a dip in the sheetmetal at the bottom of the side windows. These two touches were especially beloved by GM Styling Chief Harley Earl and subsequently were widely copied by other marques. In fact, throughout the 50s, Eldorado was GM's styling leader, and since GM led the industry, where the Eldorado went, everyone else would tend to follow.
GM found it prudent to cut the Eldorado's price somewhat for 1954, and was rewarded by a substantial jump in sales. For '55, the Eldorado's body gained its own rear end styling with high, slender, pointed tailfins. These contrasted with the rather thick, bulbous fins which were common at the time and were an example of Eldorado once again pointing the way forward.
For 1956, a two-door hardtop coupe version appeared, called the Eldorado Seville. 1957 saw the base Eldorado and Seville coupe once again present an innovative rear-end design, a low, downswept fenderline capped by a pointed, upswept fin. This concept was used for two years, but did not spawn any imitators.
1957 was chiefly notable, though, for the introduction of one of GM's most memorable designs, the Eldorado Brougham. This four-door hardtop with rear-opening doors was an ultraluxury car that cost an astonishing $14,000, more than any Rolls Royce of its day. It featured a stainless steel roof, air suspension, the first dual headlights, the first memory power seats, and every possible kind of appearance and convenience feature that GM's most inventive minds could devise. This design ran for two years and of course sold in very small quantities due to the price. It has been estimated that GM lost money on every one, but they are today among the rarest and most collectible of all postwar American models.
A different Eldorado Brougham was sold for 1959 and 1960. These cars were not quite so extravagantly styled and priced but were very unusual pieces in themselves. Cadillac contracted out the assembly to Pininfarina of Italy, with whom the division has had a long-running relationship, and these Eldorados were essentially hand-built Italian exotics with American drivetrains. Their discreet, narrow tailights, nicely integrated into modest tailfins, contrasted sharply with the "rocketship" tailights and massive fins of the standard '59 Cadillacs and were an indication of where Caddy styling would go in the next few years. However, build quality was not nearly to the standard of the Detroit hand-built '57-'58s, and the '59-'60 Broughams decisively trail the 1st generation Broughams in value & collectibility.
The last Eldorado Seville was built for 1960 and after that the Eldorado convertible became essentially a trim version of the standard Cadillac convertible. With the end of the importation of the Italian Eldorados in 1960, the name entered something of a fallow period.
An Eldorado convertible would remain in the Cadillac line through 1966, but its differences from the rest of the line were generally modest. In 1964, probably the most distinctive year during this period, the main visual cue indicating an Eldorado was simply the lack of fender skirts.
In 1967, though, the situation changed radically. The personal luxury car market, which had begun with the Thunderbird, and arguably the Eldorado itself, in the 1950s, had become large and lucrative. The radical front-wheel drive Oldsmobile Toronado had appeared in this segment in 1966, and its chassis was adopted for the Eldorado the following year. The crisp, formal styling of this full-size coupe by GM's Bill Mitchell was widely praised, and sales were excellent. This body ran virtually unchanged for two years. These '67 and '68 Eldorados are the only Cadillacs ever to have hidden headlights and are considered fairly collectible today. The same body with some revisions continued for 1969 and 1970.
When GM's full-size cars were redesigned for 1971, the Eldorado regained both a convertible model and its fender skirts. The hardtop introduced a new styling innovation—the opera window, a fixed rear side window surrounded by the vinyl roof. This was yet another Eldorado touch that would prove popular, appearing in virtually every American car line by the end of the decade. This body ran for eight years, with a substantial facelift in 1975.
In 1976, when all other domestic convertibles had vanished, GM heavily promoted the final year of the topless Eldo as "the last American convertible," and many were bought as investments. Later on, when GM again introduced convertibles, there was an unsuccessful class action lawsuit brought by investor-owners who felt they had been deceived. The Eldorado/Toronado platform became GM's largest car in 1977 and 1978, when the other, rear wheel drive full-size cars were downsized.
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