CADILLAC DIE VALKYRIE
General Motors always was hot on dream cars and styling concepts. Since the early 1930s, the company had been putting on Motorama shows, exhibiting concept cars in cities across the USA. Some were outlandish, others predicted styling that was merely months away from production. So it’s plausible that when designer Brooks Stevens approached GM for a 1955 Cadillac chassis in order to build a show car, he found a willing ear. The result was Die Valkyrie.
Stevens was one of America’s greatest designers, fathering products, machines and logos in virtually every industry. His diverse portfolio covered industrial and graphic design, even architecture. Between the Miller Beer logo and the Evinrude Lark outboard motor – plus the crazy Evinrude Lakester carcum-speedboat – he penned lawnmowers, chairs, tricycles and the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. The lines of his 1949 HarleyDavidson Hydra Glide are visible in today’s Heritage models.
The versatile Stevens had intermittently designed custom cars and one-offs, usually as commissions for friends, and as far back as 1938 he’d undertaken a restyling of his own 1929 Cord L-29 – said to be the first car with a tailfin. By the early 1950s the Milwaukee-based Stevens was yearning for his car design talents to be better recognised abroad. His stint as a consultant for Alfa Romeo’s 6C 2500 whetted his appetite to crack Europe.
The idea of creating a luxury show-car to wow foreign audiences came from Guy Storr, a French public relations specialist Stevens had hired. Around 1952, Storr had recommended producing a ‘centrepiece car’ that Stevens could unveil at the Paris Salon, then display across the European show circuit. Stevens evidently relished the opportunity and secured funding from a Cleveland, Ohio-based real estate developer with political ambitions named Irwin Metzenbaum. He’d hoped to build 100 examples, although only two of the car they christened Die Valkyrie were ever produced.
In return for his money Metzenbaum asked for ‘a vehicle that had luxury, performance and appeal that was both modern, and in the spirit of the 1940s’. He wanted ‘the luxury of the Lincoln Continental and the power of Cadillac’s overheadvalve V8’. Stevens thus started with a brand new 1955 Cadillac Sixty Special chassis, no 556078063. Evidently, the four-door model’s 133-inch wheelbase was in preference to that of the arguably stronger 129-inch two-door Cadillac convertible. Officially, Cadillac is also known to have sold seven bare
62-series that year, but those are accounted for as officially sanctioned Hess & Eisenhardt station wagons.
Following the form of many American show cars of the time, Die Valkyrie was no mere styling exercise, and employed Cadillac’s 5425cc overhead-valve V8 with dual carburettors and four-speed Hydra-Matic transmission. Having raced cars in Europe and America, Stevens was proud of his country’s powerful V8 engines, so the huge, dramatic grille and front bumper of Die Valkyrie formed the shape of a giant V, with a smaller V8 emblem above. At shows it invariably drew mocking comparisons with the cowcatcher of a train, or a snowplough, but it was unusual and memorable.
A single vein of the chromed grille flowed outwards on each side to bisect the headlights – apparently in a curious bid to avoid dazzling oncoming cars at night – then travelled down the body sides in a single line. The recessed headlamps and that flat, Studebaker-like bonnet almost level with the front wings were styling trends that Cadillac would later adopt on its production models.
Die Valkyrie also demonstrated Stevens’ so-called ‘Washington coach’ door line, with its upward sweep to help disguise the long door openings and provide a natural two-tone colour break. The colour scheme replicated the one used on Stevens’ customised Cord L-29, while its steel coupe roof was removable to make Die Valkyrie a four-seat convertible, leaving underneath a thin convertible top – something Stevens later recalled as useful only for ‘getting you home if it started to rain’.
The rear is more conservative, with an undeniable air of Stevens’ later Studebaker designs to the edge of the bootlid, fashionable exhausts with exits through the bumper, and taillights that seemingly influenced those of the 1964 Cadillac. With the possible exception of that strident grille, the car
‘FOLLOWING THE FORM OF MANY AMERICAN SHOW CARS OF THE TIME, DIE VALKYRIE WAS NO MERE STYLING EXERCISE’
looked fresh and several years ahead of its time. Stevens was sufficiently delighted to take out a design patent for it.
The blueprints, sketches and Cadillac chassis were shipped to Hermann Spohn of Ravensburg, Germany, where the gigantic bodywork was constructed entirely from steel. Spohn Karosserie – a former wheelwright best known as the constructor of car bodies for the Maybach Zeppelin DS7 and DS8 – was certainly versed in building low-volume coachwork. His efforts had graced Hispano-Suiza and Mercedes-Benz chassis, so there would have been little doubt about the quality of the finished car. Some even consider Die Valkyrie to be Spohn’s finest work. Unusually, Hermann Spohn himself did not include any of his personal styling cues, instead strictly following Brooks Stevens’ design.
The steering wheel and dashboard of Die Valkyrie are standardissue Cadillac, as are the remainder of the chassis and drivetrain including, of course, power steering and power brakes. The car rides on its original steel wheels, adorned with slightly newer Cadillac Eldorado wheelcovers and now-rare US Royal Master tyres. The sister car rode on Cadillac Eldorado wire wheels and had a louvred bonnet – the quickest way to tell them apart.
The interior is trimmed in black leather, the large 40/60 split bench-style seat apparently based around frames and mechanical pieces from a Mercedes-Benz 300 Adenauer, adapted to suit. Doorhandles and other fittings also appear to be of Mercedes origin, which seems logical given Spohn’s connections in Germany. The door panels are styled with a sunburst pattern,
accented with a white flash that continues through the dashboard and topped with polished trim. It manages to feel opulent without being vulgar.
Other notable features include rear quarter-vent windows, built into the door-glass frames, which disappear into the door for a completely pillarless effect. Externally, the trim is minimal, with Die Valkyrie badges on the doors and a crest on each tail-light surround, and the slab-sides seem like those of a car ten years newer, rather than a product of the tail-finned rocket-car age. Constructed entirely from thick steel, everything on the car feels solid – and heavy, although that hardtop roof can be removed by two people.
Spohn’s body sits low over the chassis, and the bulkheads, interior floor and boot floor are unique to the car and flat, with no rigidity stampings. Even by American standards of the time
‘THE SLAB-SIDES SEEM LIKE THOSE OF A CAR TEN YEARS NEWER, RATHER THAN A PRODUCT OF THE TAIL-FINNED ROCKET-CAR AGE’
it still looks and feels huge. With the top removed, rear-seat passengers step straight into the back, since the doors are so long.
This Die Valkyrie was owned most recently by Joe Bortz, a collector of GM Motorama cars and 1950s show cars, and the only owner outside the Stevens family. He bought it direct from the Brooks Stevens Automobile Museum in 1997 and the car has survived in remarkably original condition, thanks to Bortz’s efforts. Die Valkyrie sold at auction in September 2017 and is currently offered for sale by Hyman Ltd Classic Cars of St Louis.
‘The two known Valkyrie cars were shown throughout Europe, then returned to the USA,’ explains Geoff Isabelle from Hyman. ‘Here the history gets a little blurry. Some say that Mr Stevens purchased the car because he liked it so much, but according to information I learned from Leonard McGrady – who owns the example that’s equipped with the wire wheels – this car was given
to Stevens by Metzenbaum as payment for his design work. Stevens later tried to claim he wasn’t paid and apparently some legal action ensued. I can’t say which is the absolute truth, but the latter makes for a juicier story!’
What is known is that the car was used and enjoyed by Stevens’ wife Alice for several years. The majority of the indicated 37,000 miles were accumulated by her, since Die Valkyrie was her choice as personal transportation around Milwaukee before it was retired to become one of 70 cars exhibited within the Stevens Museum in Mequon, Wisconsin.
Rumours circulated that Cadillac itself had expressed an interest in the project, perhaps as a possible means of further establishing its cars on the European market, especially since Stevens made little effort to conceal the American origins of his donor vehicle. But of course, by not directly adding any Cadillac badge (beyond those on the wheel-covers,) the
luxury carmaker could also choose to quietly dissociate itself if the concept publicly failed.
That didn’t happen. American cars were generally wellreceived in Europe at the time, French enthusiasts no doubt fondly remembering the Cadillac ‘Le Monstre’ entered in the 1950 Le Mans, which received a standing ovation when it crossed the finish line. So Die Valkyrie certainly garnered interest when it made its debut at Paris in the first week of October 1955. Over the months that followed, the car continued to attract attention at various other motor shows across Europe, before being shipped to America to be displayed at events such as the Madison Square Gardens Auto Show.
At that same initial 1955 Paris unveiling, Brooks Stevens Associates were making another attempt at the European market with the custom-bodied 1955 Gaylord Gladiator, whose story seems to mirror that of Die Valkyrie. Built for brothers Jim and Ed Gaylord, heirs to the bobbypin hairclip empire, their car was also two-tone black-and-white, and Cadillac supplied its engine. In fact, Chevrolet’s chief engineer Ed Cole had talked them out of using the rival Chrysler Hemi.
Stevens had Spohn build the Gaylord bodywork he had designed under a somewhat contradictory brief of ‘a modern car with classic overtones’. Despite the $17,500 price, a number of orders were placed, including one from King Farouk of Egypt, yet only three Gaylords were produced following various issues over bodywork fit and finish.
Adding credence to the suggestion that Cadillac might have seen Die Valkyrie as a way into Europe, we know General Motors closely observed such styling exercises. The Gaylord featured a retractable hardtop that dropped into the boot – in the style of earlier Peugeots and the later Ford Skyliner. Producing a working version had thus far eluded General Motors, leading GM’s chairman Harlow H Curtice, upon seeing the car at Paris, to remark to his assembled engineers: ‘You bastards told me this couldn’t be done, so how did these idiots do it?’ History hasn’t recorded what Curtice said when he saw Die Valkyrie, but alongside other European designs making their debut, such as the BMW 507, VW Karmann Ghia and Citroën DS, Stevens’ cars certainly would have stood out.
Rumours of a total production of six examples with three remaining in Europe appear unsubstantiated. At present only two Valkyries are known to exist. ‘From what I understand,’ continues Geoff Isabelle, ‘the car didn’t go into production for a number of reasons. Stevens styled Die Valkyrie to be an American take on a European car. Given that it is based on a Cadillac chassis and shares that car’s dimensions, it is easy to see why it didn’t appeal to Europeans – it would hardly fit on their roads. Also, it was a very expensive undertaking, involving acquiring each brand-new complete chassis from General Motors, then shipping it overseas for the coachwork. I’m sure that securing numbers of bare, rolling chassis from General Motors was a bit of a task, other than the Series 75 Professional limousine and hearse frames, and that was never an option for the casual buyer. This leads people to believe someone at GM or Cadillac had an interest in the project and pulled some strings to make it happen.’
Stevens went on to greater success, notably with Studebaker where, on a tiny budget, he redesigned the dated 1961 Hawk coupe into the beautiful 1962 Gran Turismo Hawk. He revised the 1963 Studebaker line, including the innovative sliding-roof Wagonaire station wagon, and penned several concept vehicles that, sadly, came to nought when the company closed in 1966. He designed such hits as the Excalibur and the Jeep Wagoneer, in all contributing to the designs of 41 marques before his death in 1995. In fact, Die Valkyrie might be considered one of his rare misses. It might not have set Europe alight, but the fact that both examples have survived in excellent condition speaks volumes both for the quality of their construction and the affection they have engendered. Thanks To Hyman Ltd Classic Cars, hymanltd.com, where Die Valkyrie is for sale.