Motor Trend was hardly known as the toughest of the car-buff magazines, but it nevertheless complained about inadequate brakes on the 1967 Cadillac Eldorado.
A road test found that the Eldorado’s stopping distances from 60 mph were as bad as a Chrysler Town & Country wagon carrying an 840-pound payload — 204 feet. “In more graphic terms, it was almost two car lengths more than we would have expected,” wrote Robert Schilling (1967, p. 53).
To make matters worse, the Eldorado slid around 45 degrees from a 30-mph stop. “Test cars often get out of shape when we miss the ideal feathering pressure at 60 mph, but rarely at 30,” Schilling noted (1967, p. 54).
One could buy optional front disc brakes for $105.25. Even so, it says something about General Motors’ priorities that the Eldorado skimped on brakes. For one thing, this was a luxury car packed with an unusual amount of standard equipment for that time period, such as automatic level control, automatic transmission and power just about everything (e.g., steering, brakes, windows and seat adjustment).
Eldorado was already among highest-priced U.S. cars
The Eldorado stickered for a then-lofty $6,277. This was roughly $1,600 more than its corporate sibling, the Oldsmobile Toronado, and $1,000 higher than a Cadillac Coupe de Ville.
In addition, by the time the Eldorado was introduced, Cadillac already knew about the negative reaction of the automotive press to the weak brakes of the 1966 Toronado. That car had not even offered disc brakes as an option in its first year of production.
Nor could GM give the excuse that it was just following industry practice. In 1965 Ford had given the Thunderbird standard discs. Note that in 1967 the T-bird was priced similarly to the Toronado and $1,700 lower than an Eldorado.
Car and Driver was even more critical of the Eldorado
A Car and Driver (1966) road test of the Thunderbird and Eldorado gave the Ford’s brakes an “acceptable” rating while the Cadillac’s were deemed “a treacherous, unsafe Achilles heel on an otherwise pleasant luxury vehicle.”
The magazine quite rightly castigated GM for not taking “corrective measures” in the wake of “all the car magazines” that “griped about the Oldsmobile’s poor stopping power.”
Last year we quoted Car and Driver’s critique in greater detail (go here). What’s worth adding is that Cadillac’s complacency about brakes was particularly problematic on such a heavy car (almost 4,600 pounds) that had 58 percent of its weight on the front wheels due to the use of front-wheel drive. The rear-drive Buick Riviera did not suffer from braking problems despite sharing the platform.
Car and Driver appeared to see GM’s disregard for a key aspect of the Eldorado’s safety as epitomizing what was wrong with the automaker.
“We had hoped that Cadillac would use its considerable engineering talent to create a truly unique ‘personal’ car when the Eldorado was first rumored,” Car and Driver concluded (1966). “Thinking about them starting with a clean sheet of paper, we fantasized about a completely original American luxury grand touring vehicle being produced by America’s most prestigious automaker and were rather let down when we found nothing more than a warmed-over Toronado.”
Cadillac responded to criticism quicker than Olds
There seems to be some debate as to when front disc brakes were standardized. For example, Flory (2004) stated that they were standard equipment in 1968. However, Richard Lentinello (2019) wrote that in 1969 the Eldorado — like the rest of the Cadillac lineup — gained standard discs. The Cadillac brochures I have seen align with the latter year. This presumably helped push the Eldorado’s price up to $6,711, which was now almost $1,900 higher than a Toronado.
A similar debate has occurred around the Toronado. Drum Lessons (2024) stated that the car only received standard discs in 1971, although many were bought with that option in 1969-70. However, a 1970 Toronado brochure lists front disc brakes as standard. Even so, as we have previously noted, in 1970 Popular Science auto testers Jan P. Norbye and Jim Dunne (1970) still complained about the rear wheels locking up during braking. Could it be that chronically weak brakes negatively impacted the Toronado’s reputation, and thus sales?
As for the Eldorado, might the auto media’s early criticisms have helped to soften up the Cadillac’s reputation enough to create more of an opening for the Continental Mark III — which was the first postwar Lincoln to give Cadillac a run for it money in sales?
Finally, do we detect a larger pattern here? In the 1960s GM was an early adopter of a number of engineering advancements, such as front-wheel drive, rear engines, transaxles and aluminum V8s. Alas, the ownership experience could be marred by practical problems usually caused by corporate penny pinching.
NOTES:
Cadillac distorted its images of the Eldorado to make the car look lower, longer and wider, so as an experiment I edited the banner photo to compensate for that. This is why that image looks more “normal” than other ad images in this post.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Car and Driver; 1966. “Ford Thunderbird; Cadillac Eldorado.” November issue: pp. 42-47, 100.
- Drum Lessons; 2024. “1968 Toronado Front Drum To Disc Brake Conversion.” Accessed May 1.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2004. American Cars, 1960-1972. McFarland & Co., Inc.
- Lentinello, Richard; 2019. “Disc Brakes: Which Car Had Them First?” Hemmings. Posted April 16.
- Norbye, Jan. P and Jim Dunne; 1969. “The ’70 Personal Cars Combine Luxury and Sportiness.” Popular Science. February issue: pp. 30-38.
- Schilling, Robert; 1967. “Eldorado: Switches from push to pull.” January issue: pp. 51-54.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES
- ads.aacalibrary.org: Cadillac Eldorado (1967)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Cadillac Eldorado (1967, 1969)
One wonders whether offering the Toronado and Eldorado with standard drum brakes was the result of corporate penny-pinching or a “not-invented-here” attitude. The sad part is that, unlike some of GM’s forays into advanced engineering in the 1960s and 1970s, the front-wheel-drive system of both cars was robust and trouble-free. But GM never expanded its use beyond those two cars (unless one counts the GMC Motorhome).
One minor quibble – According to both 1968 issues of both Consumer Reports and Car and Driver, the Cadillac Eldorado received standard front disc brakes for 1968. The Cadillac brochures from that year are surprisingly coy about this – most likely because discs were still optional on the “regular” Cadillacs.
The Toronado and Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight received standard front discs for 1970.
The Toronado and Eldorado represent a lost opportunity. For 1971, GM turned them into front-wheel-drive versions of a standard full-size car. The basic design was bloated, and once they were fitted with mandated 5-mph bumpers, the cars looked like tanks. The Lincoln Continental Mark IV and V somehow pulled this off much better.
I found some variance among publications about when disc brakes were made standard. For example, Flory says that Cadillac did so in 1968. However, the Cadillac brochures I have seen only list standard discs in 1969. Might this have been a running change? With the Toronado, I stopped my research after reading Drum Lessons, but after seeing your comment I checked a 1970 Toronado brochure, which does list standard discs (so text has been revised). I can’t speak to what Consumer Reports or Car and Driver say beyond what is already noted because my access to those magazines is mostly limited to what is posted at the Automotive History Preservation Society.
The April 1968 issue of Consumer Reports, which is the “Annual Auto Issue,” states that the Eldorado now has standard front disc brakes.
Car and Driver makes this claim in its overview of the 1968 domestic cars, which contains a drawing of each model, along with a brief description of it and staff commentary. The commentary states that power front discs are now standard, and specifically mentions the poor braking performance of the 1967 model with standard drum brakes. I’m trying to determine when that issue was published.
In the specification section of the 1968 Cadillac brochure for the entire line-up, it simply states “power front disc brakes optional on all models.” It also lists power front disc brakes as an option on “the front wheels for those drivers who prefer them,” with drums, front and rear, as standard equipment, under the “Optional Equipment” section.
This could very well have been a running change, or even a last-minute revision to the Eldorado. Otherwise, the mystery deepens…unless someone produces an all-original 1968 Eldorado equipped with front drum brakes.
I believe the inclusion of front disc brakes were a running production line change in April, 1968, as they were to be a standard equipment inclusion for the 1969 model year. G.M. for some reason did not address the Delco-Moraine proportioning valves until 1971, although there were still proportioning valve issues with front-disc / rear-drum set-ups as late as 1982.
Oldsmobile’s 1967 full-line brochure states that a brake proportioning valve is standard for the Toronado.
It’s also my understanding that the disc brake design used for the 1968 Eldorado is different from that used for the 1969 models.
A Toronado brochure states that the “brakes have been improved in several ways in 1970. Power disc brakes at the front wheels will substantially increase brake life and improve stopping power. A new tandem power booster affords effective braking with minimal pedal effort. And rear brake cylinder diameters and linings have been modified for greater durability, stopping power and skid balance.”
How does one reconcile that with Jan P. Norbye and Jim Dunne’s critique, which included, “The rear wheels locked up in the brake test. Going into a curve braking, rear wheel locking threatened to throw the car out of control.” Is this a situation where there is only so much you can do to mitigate against all that weight on the front wheels?
The propensity for lock-up must have been inherent in the weight distribution.
Road Test tested a 1972 Toronado and noted that brakes tended to lock up “at the conclusion of each stop.”
The braking performance was still better than than that of the prior generation of Toronado, particularly in resistance to fade.
The 1966-1970 Buick Rivieras did not have the full driveline weight penalty that the Toronado or the Eldorado had because of the driveline and differential live-axle on the Buick. Checking the dry-weight penalty of 595-pounds for the Cadillac 429 and the Oldsmobile 425 at 651-pounds, plus the 135-pounds (dry) for the TH400 Turbo Hydramatic, all of the front wheels, the Buick’s 630-pounds plus its TH400 (not completely upon the front wheels) may have allowed for better 60-to-0 stops. G.M. may have pioneered aluminum engine blocks among the Big Three automakers, but the scrappage rate was high and many longtime mechanics absolutely detested G.M.’s aluminum engine blocks. Perhaps the most successful G.M. aluminum block engines were the Corvair Turbo-Air sixes, not including relatively low-mileage racing engines.
Uhh, actually, the history in this article is a bit off. Yes, Ford offered discs for the T-Bird in ’65, but they were an *optional* extra. It was *Lincoln* that made discs standard equipment, the first mainstream marque to make such a move (other cars did it earlier, like Studebaker’s Avanti in ’63, but they were not mainstream cars).
A number of sources list front disc brakes as standard on the Thunderbird in 1965. They include Langworth, Wikipedia, Flory and a 1965 Thunderbird brochure.
Please share if you have specific cites that provide different information.