1961 Cadillac DeVille

Coupe Coupe

390 V8

Automatic

61J066346

Clear

1961 CADILLAC COUPE deVILLE ~ California Black plates issued to this car in 1963~ Family owned for OVER 50+ years ~An original finned Cadillac~ A true California Classic~San Remo Turquoise~70k Original Miles "STANDARD OF THE WORLD" IN 1961 Up for bid today is a 1961 Cadillac Coupe deVille this is a classic California Barn find that was recently uncovered after several years resting comfortably in a barn in rural Northern California. The history of the car as it was told to me was this 1961 deVille coupe was sold new in San Francisco, California at Don Lee Cadillac on Van Ness Ave on San Francisco's auto row. It was purchased off the showroom floor by a couple who owned it and stayed in the family for over half a century.This is a well appointed Coupe with the deVille option with full power windows including power wing windows This is not a series 62 but a deVille. Don Lee Cadillac San Francisco was the showroom used in the first Walt Disney Herbie "The Love Bug" movie. This San Remo Turquoise Coupe deVille was built the second week of February 1961.What we have here "in fact" is a true California survivor that has always been in the Golden State from new...over half a century! This is a running and driving car that has been used very little and is still a stunner. She is not a show car but a very pretty 51 year old lady that has had some cosmetic enhancements. She is not unlike Heather Lockear or Meg Ryan two other California classics from 1961. Still pretty but not brand new, what can I say she is not a show car and not been restored, she is a very nice example that runs and drives and would be an ideal candidate for restoration or you can make improvements as you go. This is a car that was of high quality and high cost that was loved by there former owners and kept for years because they liked it and could not replace it. Cosmetically this Cadillac is in wonderful condition for a 51 year old automobile. From the big chrome grill back to the iconic fins this car screams class and beauty. This is a very solid 1961 Cadillac but is not a quite a show car yet. The imperfections this deVille displays are minor and age related, but once fixed will bring this car to show quality standards. The drivers door window and the passenger door window are both cracked as is one of the vent windows the other has some de lamination on the inside of the glass all windows from repeated cyclic stresses all windows function with full power. The rubber around them is dried and cracked and the drivers rear window was rubbing on worn guides so I left it up. All of these windows are flat glass and should be inexpensive to have made and I was told they are the same as 1961 Chevrolet,Pontiac and Buick but I do not know this for sure. The cool windshield and huge wraparound rear window are in great shape. Next is the trunk latch should be replaced. It shuts flush some of the time and other times not, I could not get it flush for the pictures, it locks with out opening and opens with the key but the latch is not right The rear bumper is slightly askew. The chrome is in decent shape for the age of the car but it is slightly askew on drivers side. I'm sure a minor parking lot mishap not major. There is some minor chrome discoloration mainly on the rear view mirror and the interior trim. The carpet is fully intact but has some spots here and there. The seats have not rips or tears as well as the head liner. The car is heavily accented in beautiful chrome. Negatives 1. Drivers,Passenger and vent window are cracked 2. Rubber around windows is dried and cracked 3. Trunk latch needs replacing 4. Rear bumper is slightly askew When all the windows are down it is a true pillarless hardtop coupe with a doors that are bigger than a Smart car Mechanically she is again in wonderful condition for being so old. The big 390 gives true meaning to the expression "she purrs" because that is how I would describe how this 325 horsepower work of art runs.The engine and transmission are tight. The car was stored with out fuel, so with clean fresh high octane fuel she purrs. The transmission shifts silky smooth in all the gears. It has been years since I drove one of these with reverse in the forward position where first gear is on most column shift automatics.This car rides the way it looks; smooth and with purpose. This is a testimony to a high quality design and proper maintenance in the last 51 years. All of the hoses look good and the cooling system seems to be flowing with no leaks or overheating. The oil looks new as well as the transmission fluid, the power steering and coolant were topped off. I did my first test drive to take the pictures you see here, I have driven the car about 60 miles and only noticed a slight leak from the power steering. The last oil change was 11 years ago in La Canada, CA and has only been driven a few hundred miles since then. The huge battery should be replaced as it is at least 11 years old. The odometer is operating and it shows 70600 miles. That is an average of only 1300 miles per year. The dash cover is drying out up near the defroster vents. The radio light comes on with the switch but cannot hear any thing from it, The big chrome clock is in/op,The wipers are in/op, The headlight switch is in/op, The turn signals are in/op, All of these items might or might not be related. She should have a total service and make a few improvements to make it a reliable daily driver that you can enjoy at an affordable price. The trunk is solid but the original paint is thin and chipped, the original rubber seal is dry and cracked and should be replacedIt has an original spare bias ply tire as well as the original jackStill has the original card board in trunk however is dirty and stained. The inside of trunk is original the 51 year old paint still has color but is chipped and faded. Original sound deadening undercoat is flaking off to reveal original factory markings on frame. . Cadillac Data Plate Decoder 02B- Production date 2nd week of FebruaryStyle 61- #6337- Coupe deVilleBody FW - 9284Trim 46- TurquoisePaint 29- San Remo TurquoiseTop- Acc - EHYNSE- Soft Ray GlassH- HeaterY - 6 way power front seat adjusterN- Power Vent windowsS -remote lock390 V8 - 325 horsepowerAutronic eye - $46Power windows - $85Power vent windows -$ 73 "1961" Jet Age Jet set lifestyle Classic " Cold War" Styling Take a trip back in time to the era of John F Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and the "Bay of Pigs" An actual vintage "Finned Cadillac" California original being offered for a very low reserve. Bidding starts at only 99 cents Overall the car has age related wear and cracks on many of the trim piecesAs I have said more than once this is not a show car but a very nice example that clearly was a valued asset of the previous owner for over 50 yearsAs with many collector cars the value is what someone will pay for it and with many vintage collector cars the value increases as the supply decreasesIt is unusual to find a 1961 anything in this condition much less a classic finned Cadillac coupe. The fact that it is an original California car is a huge bonus as California cars historically are the most desirable to collect This 1961 Cadillac Coupe deVille is from a by gone era that will never be duplicated.I got to think that in 2012 there are not many available like this one here. Being offered with a very low reserve so bid to buy as this car will most likely sell to the last bidder Cadillac Division General Motors1961 CADILLACTHE STANDARD OF THE WORLD The development of the 1961Cadillac actually began about a decade earlier. One day in the early 1950s, William Mitchell took an aspiring young CM truck designer aside and told him, "If you ever want to amount to anything around here, you better start designing cars." As much as Chuck Jordan loved trucks, he could see that his boss was right. 1961 Cadillac DesignIf you park a 1960 Eldorado Brougham and a 1961 Cadillac six-window sedan side by side, you'll notice major differences. Mechanically the 1961 Cadillac was almost identical to its finny 1959-1960 production ancestors, with the same engine, transmission, frame, and suspension. Yet the 1961 Cadillac design -- body and interior -- was all new, and the design that Earl, Jordan, and the Cadillac studio created that year was totally unlike anything done before."The 1961 model would be a clean-sheet design and my first chance to do a brand-new production car," he remembers. "We all recognized it as a great opportunity, so we worked night and day. I mean I worked my tail off, because I believed in that car, and I also had the responsibility. I did a lot of the illustrations at home at night, because there just wasn't time in the studio."As so often happens, the studio's first attempts to do an all-new design started pretty far out and needed to be reined in."We felt the 1961 Cadillac ought to be a style leader," comments Jordan, "which meant not as heavy-looking as in 1959-1960. It needed to keep the Cadillac elegance, but with more life and more of what I call grace and spirit. At first we got a little too spirited."Dave Holls adds, "We wanted to get off the big fins. Chuck came up with the idea of the skegs, those long, pointy fins along the bottom of the fenders, and those first appeared on the 1960 Brougham. The skegs came partly from the Cadillac Cyclone Motorama show car and partly from the Firebird III gas-turbine experimental, which influenced all of us. At first, we were going to make the skeg dominant on the 1961; the skeg would be the main fin."We did all kinds of strange things up at the top of the fender, like little mid-waisted fins and things like that. Tons and tons of my sketches tried to find new ways to do the upper fins, and some versions of the car didn't have upper fins at all. Mr. Earl didn't like that, though, and neither did Bill Mitchell. So eventually we put regular fins back on the car, but the skeg remained in a reduced form."Cadillac offered three different sedan roofs for 1961. The first, the one used on six-window hardtop sedans, derived from the Brougham. And, according to Dave Holls, the Brougham's upper -- with its bridge-like silhouette, thin, rectangular sail panel, and equally slim A-pillar -- came from a four-place Lancia Flaminia coupe by Pininfarina.The second roof, for a four-window hardtop sedan, used the "cantilever" or "flying wing" silhouette. This was General Motors' very flat, thin upper with a raked, wrap-around rear window. The flying wing appeared on General Motors cars ranging in size from the Corvair to the Cadillac, and was an update of the corporate "flattop" two-door hardtop style of 1959-1960."We never considered that roof to very successful on the 1961 Cadillac," Jordan notes. "The flying-wing roof looked gawky because we had to raise it after customers complained about bumping their heads on the 1959-1960 versions. When we raised the flying-wing roof on the 1961 Cadillac, I always thought it looked a little awkward."Cadillac shared these roof lines and a sharp-angled variation of General Motors' "bubble-top" two-door hardtop design with Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight and senior Buicks.The third sedan roof used by Cadillac for the year was the six-window hard design that appeared on the Series Special. It featured a more formal up structure with a blind rear quarter and rear vent windows attached to the doors.It was also the year when General Motors abandoned the expensive, knee-knocking, "panoramic" wraparound windshield (except on Series 75 limousines, which bore the style through 1965) and went to a more conventional type."We wanted something new," recalls Holls, "but couldn't get anything that satisfied Earl until we did the Brougham windshield. He told us, 'You can't just end it at the bottom of the pillar. You've got to something different. Do a little circle do something else there.'"He didn't want the windshield to look like Chrysler's anybody else's. He wanted that little curve, that switchback where it went into the belt; that was Mr. Earl's touch. The Brougham also had a 60-degree rake to the glass, which was very fast for that time. And then when we finally got that windshield right, he said, 'Oh my God that's more beautiful than the wraparound!'"All 1961 Cadillacs gained considerable finesse in their detailing. Holls says the accessory road lights were among favorite details. "They look like Marchal or Lucas lamps: clear lenses, bullet in the center, floating vertical struts, and a rear projection into a mirror-like parabola. You could never have done a headlight like that in an American car, but we had more fun doing those road lamps."Body-color wheelcovers added yet another distinctive touch. Holls borrowed the idea from Rolls-Royce. "We'd tried body-color wheelcovers for 1960, but Cadillac decided they didn't want to use all those colors, so they offered the 1960 versions only in black, white, and a brushed finish. Most people ordered the brushed wheelcovers," he says. "Cadillac completely missed the point, and the salespeople did a terrible marketing job. But they finally got it right in 1961." 1961 CADILLAC TypeV-8 - Overhead valvesBlockCast iron block.Displacement390 cubic inches.Bore and stroke4.00 x 3-8/8 inches.Compression ratio10.5:1.Brake horsepower325 @ 4800 rpmBearingsFive main bearings.Valve LiftersHydraulic valve lifters.CarburetionRochester four-barrel Model 701930. Don't miss out on this rare findYou might never get another chance to find such a well preserved example THIS WILL TAKE YOU BACK TO A SIMPLER TIME DON'T MISS OUT ON THIS LOW RESERVE1961 CADILLAC COUPE deVILLE ~VALUE IS ONLY GOING TO GO UP! Additional Information, Please Read Before BiddingCAR HAS A CLEAN CURRENT CALIFORNIA TITLE CAR IS SOLD AS IS WITH NO WARRANTY Please only bid if you intend to buy. If you have any questions or concerns, please ask BEFORE you bid. It is very frustrating to have bidders who are not serious buyers and it is not fair to the other bidders.Please have all funds in place prior to bidding and make sure you are able to follow all the directions of the auction prior to bidding. If you are unable to do this, please do not bid.Please do not email with request for the reserve. Bidders who bid/retract bid just to determine the reserve will be blocked from future bidding. The reserve should have no bearing on what you feel comfortable bidding. The reserve is the least we will accept.We require a $500 non refundable deposit within 24 hours of the close of the auction to be made via paypal. The balance must be paid before 5:00 PM on the Friday following the auction.Buyer is responsible for shipping of the vehicle and all costs associated with it. If you require the title to be overnighted to you, there is a $25.00 charge for this, the charge will be more for international postage.PLEASE BE CLEAR REGARDING PAYMENT!!!!I will only take the deposit of $500 on Paypal I will not take full payment on PAYPAL or any other credit cards or accounts that are linked to a credit cardBalance is do IN FULL by the following Friday by cash in person, or bank to bank wire EXPORT OKWE CAN HELP PUT YOU IN CONTACT WITH AFFORDABLE SHIPPING TO JUST ABOUT ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD! ~We can assist you in finding the most cost effective shipper just about anywhere in the United States or around the world. We are in the San Francisco Bay Area, very close to the port of Oakland and a few hundred dollars away for the port of Los Angeles or Long Beach. We have an extensive network to put you in contact with the right shipper for you.~ INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING Chris Ortiz cell: 310 863 4444 email: chris@shipdei.com www.shipdei.com/ INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING Chris Ortiz cell: 310 863 4444 email: chris@shipdei.com www.shipdei.com/