This car, Lot 117, sold for $291,000, including buyer’s premium, at Broad Arrow Auctions’ Chattanooga, TN, sale, on October 12, 2024.
In the late summer of 1957, the endless waves of prosperity that had underpinned America’s post-war optimism finally hit the shoals of recession. Car sales, booming earlier in the decade from pent-up demand and appealing new products, nosedived, slicing 30% off 1957’s 6.1-million-car volume. “Detroit found itself in the driver’s seat of a stalled car,” lamented Time. “What once looked like unstoppable momentum now seemed at the mercy of a faltering economy.”
Exner marks the spot
General Motors, the undisputed market leader, with nearly 50% market share in 1957, saw its sales clipped by nearly 1 million units the following year — this due to the market downturn as well as the blocky and over-adorned styling of its 1958 models. Design chief Harley Earl had previously envisioned more of the same for the 1959s, stoking anxiety among his young lieutenants. Their fear was confirmed when Cadillac studio chief Charles “Chuck” Jordan happened upon a yard of unreleased 1957 Chryslers, the first to feature Virgil Exner’s finned “Forward Look” styling. Jordan raced back down Mound Road to inform his boss Bill Mitchell, who, with Earl safely out of touch in Europe, dumped 1959’s dowdy ’58-based themes and started all over again. Ultimately, he created a high point (or low point) in post-war automotive design.
GM’s Exner-inspired 1959 gamble knew no limits; from the bat-winged entry-level Chevy to the top-end Cadillacs, whose fins, the highest of any production car, would become the undisputed symbol of post-war prosperity. The best of the best were the Eldorado Biarritz convertible and Seville coupe, each priced at $7,400 — nearly three times dearer than a Bel Air.
Jordan’s final design for the pair included a three-inch height reduction complementing a lower hood and beltline, as well as several inches in added length. A stainless spear accentuated their leaner profile, sweeping from the A-pillar to the rear wheelwell, and offsetting their prodigious 18-foot presence.
But it was those fins, bisected by twin rocket-engine taillamps and taller than anything Exner dared create, that made the Eldorados so emblematic. “Tailfins, because of both their association with the high-status Cadillac and the way in which they evoked Jet Age speed, were the perfect embodiment of that moment in the history of the consumer economy,” wrote Thomas Hine in his 1950s cultural history Populuxe.
Bedeviled by details
Evocative as the cars might have been, sales of the 1959 Eldorados were about half those of the 1957s: just 975 Sevilles and 1,320 Biarritzes. While mechanically straightforward, with a tri-carb 390-ci V8, the ravages of rust, significant decorative complexity and fussy features such as air suspension have made them especially difficult to restore. “People think that because they are GM cars, you have access to the parts,” says Cristina Manginelli of Cadillac Parts & Restoration in Poughkeepsie, NY. “But that’s not the case — even though 1959 and 1960 are sister years, they’re not twins. You would think that something you don’t see, like the air-ride system, would be the same, but it’s not.” Documentation, plus a pre-purchase inspection by a knowledgeable expert, are both in order.
Our profile Eldorado’s sale price of $291k falls within the range for well-presented examples, which have consistently traded in around $225k–$300k. Pricing is dependent on key options (such as air conditioning and bucket seats) and especially colors. The white-and-red combination of this example plus its desirable features placed it at the higher end of the range. Clive Cussler’s one-of-one Kensington Green example sold for $235,200 at Bonhams Cars’ 2024 Quail Lodge auction (SCM# 6968052), though provenance might have offset its uneven condition. The top auction sale to date is a Seminole Red example that inspired passionate bidding up to $410k on BaT in 2022. (At least one private sale has neared $500k.) Given the costs and challenges of a restoration — as well as the limited number of shops able to take on such a complex project — spending top dollar on a well-cared-for example is money well spent.
Despite generally flagging enthusiasm for 1950s cars, nostalgia for the most distinctive examples of the era seems unlikely to decline. Dave Holls, one of the lead designers of the 1959 Cadillac program, later described GM’s 1959s as “our year of total excess,” prompting the decline of fin infatuation as Earl and Exner left the stage. Yet the legacy of excess is perhaps the reason behind the 1959 Eldorado’s enduring appeal. “For many years I didn’t like the 1959 Cadillacs,” said former GM chief designer Ed Welburn. “But in recent years, I’ve gained a greater appreciation for them — their surfacing, the attention to detail — what the studio must have gone through in making a car like that.” It appears that the market has drawn the same conclusion with this fairly traded example. ♦
