I have been watching this old Caddy of Ryno's pop up in the classifieds for months. Right across town, taunting me. So I finally got over to look at it on my way up to the HAMB drags saturday morning and knew I needed to bring it home. It was solid, with good floors, and not much patch work needed on the body. After clearing things on the home front Saturday night I shot Ryno a text and he was kind enough to drop off this beauty the next day! I have built and rebuilt this car a dozen times in my head this week. I am going to spend the winter gathering the parts I need to to get it on the street in the spring. From there she is going to get the dents knocked out and settle into a more appropriate ride height for a future custom. Its nice to have a reason to post again. I will add pics as I start working through things but here she is at her new home. Check out those fantastic hub caps!
Gorgeous cars. The proportions of the short deck look odd at first, but it grows on you! My ex-boss had two of them that were restored by the late L.A. Cadillac specialist Ray Cash: (that '62 wheelcover was replaced later with a correct one...) (...and the missing turn signal was put back in after I shot this.) Wonderful cruisers both. He later sold the white one to a friend and kept the black one. Since then it's had original-style wide-whitewall bias-plys installed, which made a big difference in its handling (and not for the better!).
Those 61's are great! My uncle had a mint green one back in the day. My cousin just turned 16 and we used to take it crusin, wasn't much of a chick magnet back in 1967 but boy could that sucker burn some rubber!!
Had some time this week to put together an illustration of where I want this custom to go. I am going to name it "The Codillac." Yes, a cleaver play on Cody(me) and Cadillac. Air bags, shaved handles, scallops and flaked roof.
Picked up a mill for the 61 this weekend. 472 Cadillac Big Block Clean and about ready to button up. It had a few thousand miles on a remanufacture when the car got t-boned. The guy I bought it from started to work it over. He was clearing out the Caddy stuff because his son wanted to go SBC. Solid Rockers, MTS 10th Thumper cam, hardened pushrods, aluminum intake, chrome covers, new timing gears and chain for good measure. He had all new gaskets and a full set of valves in case I wanted to work over a pair of heads down the road. About as far as you can take it with a stock bottom end. Also came with a TH400 and a high stall torque converter. Pretty excited to keep it Cadillac. Since I am Caddy-dumb I am going to get some help and go through everything top and bottom to make sure things are torqued to specs, have the proper play and aren't rubbing the wrong way.
The Jalopy Journal
