A customer stopped into the shop to check progress on some work we were doing for him, I glanced out to see that he drove this: It was built for John D. Rockefeller by Cadillac, that is a VistaCruiser roof taken right from the production line. Original, paint, heavy leather interior, drivetrain - it was sitting there running with the A/C 'On' and you couldn't hear the car run. You can just make out the Rockefeller Crest on the door.
I sat in it and the leather seats creaked like a saddle, original leather had to have been over 1/8th thick and been lovingly handrubbed regularly by the chauffer for decades. I've never experienced anything like that before.
How cool is that, oj! I guess John D. could pretty much afford most anything he desired. I thought at first that it might have been a flower car special ordered from the factory by some funeral home.
In 1971 Evil Knievel came to the Shop driving a Cadillac El Camino, it blew me away. The next year He was driving his Caddy station wagon. There was no Chauffer driving for him either time. He was one Kool guy. The Wizzard
..........I've often said that I must have been switched at birth. I was supposed to go to one of those wealthy families like the Rockefellers or the Vanderbilts or J. Paul Getty instead of those poor hard-working souls that I was given to.
I would think there is a very good chance that Cadillac subbed out this conversion to one of the commercial coach builders......Professional cars and Limos typically are bodied/rebodied that way, not in house. Over the decades, several Caddy wagons have showed up in enthusiast/collector magazines. Hess & Eisenhardt was one such converter...there were others. Ray
Imagine that at a car show. That's what interests me the most is the unusual, odd things. Sent from my SM-S320VL using Tapatalk
The Rockefeller connection has to make that a shooting brake rather than a station wagon. (Naw. Both labels are kind of same/same anyway so "Vistacruiser Caddy" is probably the best description after all.)
There was a guy in our truck club years ago with a Vista Cruiser roof grafted onto his 64 Suburban, it looked like a duck out of water, kind of like the Caddy.
.................That was the thing to do back then. Lots of things were going on inside those vans back then. There are people walking around today that were conceived in those vans.
Saw a Vista Cruiser roof grafted to a Chevelle 2 dr. wagon at a car show in my home town not that long ago. Very nicely done. The craftsmanship was excellent, looked as if it was factory, IMO. Sorry, no photos.
Awesome car, love those rare coach built and one-off Caddy wagons as much as those Caddy flower cars (El-Caminos). Is it a 9 seater? Reminiscent of the Scenicruiser built exclusively by GM for Greyhound from '54 to '56.
A local found a pristine VistaCruiser, garage kept probably under 50K miles on it, the first 'improvement' he made was to put sidepipes on it. I shit you not.
Actually I found a write up or two about and started out as a Series 62 sedan. Also there wass no mention of any Rockefeller ownership rather it was "unknown". BTW, John D. Rockefeller died in 1937.
Something else kind of odd... That is a 63 Caddy, Vista Cruiser didn't come out until 64. I think someone did a nice job grafting the top on.... But thinking some of the story doesn't add up. It could have been built for John Rockerfeller III. He died in 1978 in a car accident.
Way back in the 90's we built a Cadillac Vista Cruiser in the local GM factory. Looked very good. Story was special order for a owner of a lot of GM stock. It went by my work area quickly. We were running 55 an hour.
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