Danville Street Sighting - 1968 Cadillac Coupe DeVille

This week I have an impromptu theme for my posts. These are all cars I've found outside the same Danville auto repair shop on the same side street, just not at the same time. Last one for this group is a 1968 Cadillac coupe that I believe is a DeVille.

Danville Street Sighting - 1967 Cadillac Coupe De Ville Convertible

It's officially the beginning of summer which marks convertible season. Warm sunny weather is perfect for top-down cruising no matter what kind of convertible you have. A big lazy V8 convertible is great for taking you and five of your closest friends to nowhere in particular. A '67 Cadillac De Ville would be a fine candidate.

Millbrae Street Sighting - 1982 Cadillac Coupe DeVille Mirage Pickup

Last year I commemorated Halloween with two vintage Cadillac hearses. I hoped to feature another hearse this year but I haven't seen one on the street since a midnight screening of Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" in Oakland. Photographing a black car on a dimly lit street at night while waiting in line for a movie doesn't work so well. So the closest thing I had in the archives was this, a 1982 Cadillac Coupe DeVille converted into a pickup truck. How is that related to a hearse? Well, some people I showed these pictures to believed it was a funeral flower car. I'm not so sure.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1960 Cadillac Sedan DeVille

On Tuesday we took a look at a 1960 Cadillac Series 62 hardtop coupe that's survived life on the streets of Alameda without the benefit of a restoration. Now let's check out a 1960 Sedan DeVille that's withstood life in San Francisco.

Santa Cruz Street Sighting - 1964 Cadillac Sedan DeVille

This Caddy is kind of a fixture in its neighborhood in Santa Cruz. I've been going there for the better part of a decade and it's almost always there. Every time my friends and I go for ice cream nearby I look for it and I'm always comforted seeing the old beast is still on the road.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1957 Cadillac Sedan DeVille

Cadillacs of the 1950s have always been rather hit-or-miss in my opinion. They're all classics, but not all of them are something I'd want to cruise around in. The early '50s cars in particular have a certain sameness about them that makes me feel ignorant when I have to Google the various model years to tell the difference. Cadillac design really got interesting in 1957, when the fins got bigger to compete with Detroit's other more extroverted offerings. The front end styling was still familiar Cadillac, but aft of the B-pillar everything looked new. The C-pillar was thicker and now reversed, as was the reverse-slanted A-pillar (formerly vertical), giving the greenhouse a crisp, symmetrical look with wraparound windshield and rear window. Out back, the fins have more of a designed-in look that abandons the little P-38 fighter-inspired tail fins that dated back to 1948, and are capped with chrome trim that continues downward to the little blister taillights and exhaust outlets built into the bumper.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1979 Cadillac Coupe DeVille

I'm not a huge fan of Cadillacs. Growing up, one of the most common and stereotypical Caddies was a 1977-1992 Fleetwood Brougham. It was traditional American luxury in the chintziest way. The body was big and old-fashioned, sitting on a full frame with super-floaty suspension and wire hubcaps and a padded landau top, all driving home the belief that this was a luxury car. Inside you got your typical complement of leather and fake wood in a color that tried to match or compliment the exterior paint. Top it off with whitewalls and color-contrasting pinstriping and you have the perfect car for the senior citizen of the '80s. By the time I was growing up, many were reduced to faded, broken second-hand daily transportation or pimped out cars for ballers on a budget. Cash For Clunkers killed off a slew of these cars, making them less common now.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1956 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe de Ville

There is just something about a vintage Cadillac. They have what you might call... presence. Cadillacs of the 1950s have more presence than most, with tailfins and massive bodies often festooned with chrome, the ultimate symbols of luxury and conspicuous consumption in America. If you drove a Cadillac, you had really made it. The only other cars that could touch it in its day were Continentals and Imperials. Nothing else came close. Standard of the world, baby!