Elvis' '69 Cadillac sells at auction for $342K
There's no denying that provenance relating to music's biggest stars can pad the auction price of a vehicle — and provenance doesn't get much bigger than the King of Rock 'n' Roll. And that explains how at a Mecum auction in Arizona early March, a 1969 Cadillac Eldorado hammered away for just over a cool quarter-million dollars.
In fact, it dented someone's — likely a rabid Elvis fan — bank account a total US$253,000 (CND$342,000).
According to the auction house, the Caddy was part of the King's fleet in Beverly Hills until 1973, at which time ownership switched to Elvis' mechanic. Given the singer's propensity for generosity in all things automotive, there's an excellent chance Elvis simply gave the car away out of gratitude for the work his mechanic had performed over the years.
Purchased new by Presley from Hillcrest Motor Company in Beverly Hills, the car is powered by a 472-cubic-inch V-8 engine which lives under a hood as flat as the prairies and the size of a grand piano.
It's about the same colour as a grand piano, too, advertised as Sable Black and looking baller against the shiny brightwork that defined Cadillacs of that era. The odometer is said to read less than 50,000 miles (80,000 km).
Some work has been done to the car over the years, including a new transmission in 1981; and the recent replacement of the original vinyl top. The latter was apparently completely stripped in preparation for the roof being sanded and epoxy-primed prior to the current vinyl covering being installed.
(Anyone who has had the misfortune of doing bodywork on a car from this era with a roof of this type knows this replacement is leagues better than anything belched out of a Detroit factory in the late 1960s.)
Black, leather-clad bucket seats are found in the cabin, along with typical Cadillac trappings of the day. We idly wonder if Elvis ever played any of his own tunes out of the original-equipment FM stereo in this car, complete with fake wood trim on each of its selector dials.
Circling back to the engine, 472 cubes is the equivalent of a whipping 7.7L of displacement, if you're wondering. Official literature of the day claims 375 horsepower from the engine, but one must remember those were the old so-called “gross horsepower” ratings, though this was a decently high-compression engine for its time, at a 10.5:1 ratio. In subsequent years, both Johnny Law and oil embargoes sadly conspired to choke big engines like this down to 8.5:1 or less.
No matter the power level, the Elvis connection in this example helped it fetch at least 10 times the value of a typical '69 Eldorado. The crew at classic-car insurer Hagerty suggest the same model in good condition is worth about US$20,000, for example, or, in pristine shape like this low-mile example was, about US$58,000.