It must be the same one, the pinstriping running from front fender on thru the door handles to the rear is the same, it is hand done. If you look just past the mirror midway in the door is a whiteish blotch that could be birdshit? see it? that is really the Rockefeller Family Crest, its hand painted on there as well. The current owner bought it and sent it to White Post Restorations, they did complete mechanical restoration leaving the original paint and interior intact. The next time I see it I'll take pics of the interior, it is a rich dark brown leather and I didn't think my camera could capture it against the bright daylight.
My 2 cents, both the Cad and the Bird are something the manufacturers should have built. Packard is fantastic as well.
I bought it like the romantic fool I am. But as Popeye would say, I yam what I yam. In Resto right now. Lots of bondo removed. Floor pans were shot. We had to get a Arizona junker 64 Olds Vista for a new top as the old one was too far gone. The crappy eggplant burgundy paint was cracking in a lot of places and it was the third repaint. Original color was dark blue. At one point in the 70's it was Firemist red. Side trim was an inch lower on the left side. No one can figure that out. The back roof is straight and level, not sure why it looks that way in the older photos. A De Ville chassis. I want to keep it period trad, so I picked a 1965 Cad 429 and TH400 tranny. Im using the 390 and Hydramatic in my 53 Hudson. The wagon is as heavy as a WW2 battleship, so I wanted extra power. Dual exhausts for sure. Front discs. Im keeping the original black leather...its in perfect shape. The "story" I got from a guy at the Caddy Nats in 2017 was that Winthorp Rockeffeller ordered two in 1964 from a New Jersey coach builder (limo and parade car builder) as his Arkansas estate airport wagons so his fellow robber baron friends could cruise in style while not spilling their martinis. The guy said he worked for Winthorp for ten years. No tailgate, just a power rear window. Rockefeller must have been cheap. Im keeping it that way. WTF. I have no docs or proof, just a story. Ive never seen pics of the sister car and the guy said he never saw the two cars after he quit. Who knows what went on in those back seats? When the driveshaft came apart on me one day, I took a comfy nap while I waited for a flatbed. The former owners of the wagon didn't maintain her well at all. OJ, our friend Bill and I chased one problem after another for two years. Y'all know the deal, one shade tree mechanic "fix" after another with reams of electrical tape and cracked wires. An old wasp nest on the frame near the diff was an option I guess... Gonna name him "Dr. Quest" after Jonny Quest's dad, after all, what else would he drive in 1964? It will have billet saber wheels by Truespoke. Thanks for the nod, OJ! See you soon. Lets talk old Hemis and drink root beer. My bad photoshop rendering of what it will look like:
Wait...you bought the burgundy one from the original (two-years-ago) posting? And it was so rough you had to basically rebuild the back end?
I bought it in August of 2016. Cash in a briefcase. It barely drove straight. Brakes were shot. Only the left turn signal worked. A mouse poked his head out of the rip in the dash when I turned on the static-only radio. I named him "Eldo Elvis." 2017 Caddy Nats. I only parked it. No judging. I didn't even wash it. I should have listened to my friend Bill who said not to repaint it. We tried to save the original Vista top but it was a tough call given the sheer amount of metalwork needed. The vinyl top had leaked so there was rust everywhere. If I had rolled the car the roof would have pancaked on me. The donor roof was the way to go. We used the original roof's glass though, it was in better shape. The rear panel had originally been ball peened to death, it looked like the Moon under all the mud. We replaced it with new skin. Chassis was in great shape. This situation is what you get when you decide to grind off all 60 years worth of ugly paint to bare metal for a good respray and then find you have serious structural problems. The body was literally put together with buckets of bondo and bad 1960s welds. I almost left the car for dead but my wife and I love the thing, we're dyed-in-the-wool Caddy folks, diehards. Nuts. "Save the whale!" she said, burning up with tail fin fever. Little kids go crazy for it in gas stations since they've never seen a wagon with fins, or any ol' wagon. Thats the best part of our hobby, the ability to share it with friends and strangers alike. I let people sit in it all the time at the market. The smiles say it all. No crash damage though...not one itty bitty bit. Go figure.
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