This car, Lot 380, sold for $95,200, including buyer’s premium, at Worldwide Auctioneers’ Auburn, IN, auction on April 26, 2025.
The radically redesigned 1959 Cadillacs debuted in the fall of 1958, the product of a young and ambitious design team led by 29-year-old Chuck Jordan. Yet Jordan and his colleagues quickly realized they had “overcooked” the design and needed to calm down the 1960 models accordingly. As Jordan later told the Cadillac-LaSalle Club, “We all agreed that the ’59 looked too exaggerated, so we lowered and simplified the fin, refined the bumpers, redesigned the rear quarter and cleaned up the overall design with elegance and substance more appropriate to the Cadillac line.”
Evolution and restraint
The 1959 Cadillacs would mark the end of fin inflation and the start of a five-year idyll that some regard as the peak of Cadillac’s post-war design arc. Its image improved steadily as the brand recovered from the 1958 recession and the disappointing sales of the flabby 1958s. Credit Bill Mitchell, tipped by Jordan’s chance sighting of Virgil Exner’s “Forward Look” 1957 Plymouths, for upending Earl’s plan to warm over the 1958s for the next model year. Mitchell immediately initiated fresh 1959 proposals while his boss was safely out of the country, leaving Earl little choice but to accept the new direction upon his return.
As Mitchell replaced Earl in late 1958, Cadillac sales would soon surge in the early 1960s, leaving Lincoln and Imperial even further distant in Cadillac’s rear-view mirror. Underpinning that growth was a level of industrial coordination almost unimaginable today (back when the car business was still largely managed by typewritten memos). Cadillac underwent a major redesign in 1961 and again in 1963. The 1961 models had been heavily influenced by the Firebird III and Cyclone show cars, most notably with a lower “skeg” that extended from the front wheelwell to the rear bumper. The skeg was dropped in 1963, creating a simplified overall profile, whose presence was enhanced with 4½-inch-longer front fenders and a sheer body-side appearance (perhaps influenced by the minimalist 1961 Continental) with just vestigial traces of fins gracing the rear quarters.
Beauty in the details
The Eldorado family shrank over the same period, losing the Brougham sedan and Seville coupe in 1960. Now offered uniquely as a convertible, the 1964 Eldorado exteriors differed only in a few details from the 1963s, most noticeably by the body-colored bar dividing the grille as well as the open, chrome-trimmed rear wheelwells, which immediately distinguish 1964 Eldorados from their lesser De Ville counterparts. While much 1964 content was shared under the skin, the $1,000-pricier Eldorado was shifted to the higher-end Fleetwood line starting in 1963 and offered a more lavish interior, with perforated leather seating complemented by real African Baku wood trim.
GM always favored Cadillac with its newest technology, and the 1964s could be ordered with the first true automatic climate-control system — “Comfort Control,” a bit of technical magic at the time. Cadillac’s long-running 390-ci V8 was redesigned in 1963, but was stretched in 1964 to 429 ci, adding 15 hp and, more importantly, 50 lb-ft of torque. Delivering that enhanced performance was GM’s all-new Turbo-Hydramatic 400 3-speed transmission, which would become sufficiently legendary for its smoothness and reliability to be adopted by both Rolls-Royce and Ferrari. Options carried over — though not as innovative but still rare — included auto-dimming lights, automatically illuminated lights, cruise control and a limited-slip differential.
Buy the best
The 1964 Eldorado featured here is one of just 1,870 examples built that year and, at $95,200, lies nearly at the peak of current pricing, surpassed only by a $121,000 Mecum Kissimmee 2020 sale of an AACA National winner in a desirable black-over-red combination (SCM# 6925770). Our example sold previously at Barrett-Jackson’s 2020 Scottsdale sale for $60,500 (SCM# 6922607). Its subsequent updraft likely resulted from the current preference for low-mileage cars, a decent option list that includes Comfort Control and a six-position steering wheel, and an extensive mid-2024 $30,000 refresh that appears to have included new paint. If that’s the extent of the pre-sale investment, the seller was fortunate to recover his costs.
Eldorados of this era tend to fall into two groups — those that need substantial remediation and those that have already received it. As restorations of these massive cars become more expensive — and finding the people (and the parts) to do them becomes more challenging — the market is placing a premium on buying someone else’s depreciation. “These are very time-intensive undertakings,” said Frank Nicodemus of Cadillac Parts & Restoration. “For example, the only company that services the complex climate-control system no longer does — it’s critical to ensure that the system is working properly.”
The seller of this quintessential emblem of 1960s affluence and ambition did well — and its buyer can now enjoy some delightful summer rides.
