(EXPANDED FROM 3/25/2025)
The Cadillac Seville has come up in our recent debate about whether William Mitchell stayed too long as head designer at General Motors (go here). Thus, I thought I would expand on my take on this car. I have argued that the 1975-79 Seville was not the iconic design often ascribed to it.
When I first posted this article last year it elicited an unusual amount of pushback. So a note to newer readers: Indie Auto’s overarching goal isn’t to reinforce “common wisdom” but to offer an independent perspective. That can lead to robust debates.
My article was a response to a Driven to Write piece by jm2 (2025), who offered a spirited defense of the first-generation Seville. He called it a “shining star” that would “become a benchmark and gain the significance of an icon — one that would change the face of design in North America.”
This was a well-argued essay, yet I found myself holding back from joining the parade. To my eyes the Seville showed that General Motors would have trouble responding to the rise of imports even in its historically strongest market — luxury cars.
My view is influenced by growing up on the West Coast
Perhaps if I had worked as an American automotive designer I would be inclined to defend my former colleagues. Whatever the limitations of the Seville, it was the first small luxury car from a U.S. automaker. Given the glacial pace of change in Detroit, one could argue that this was a meaningful step.
That’s true, but there is a difference between a first, halting effort to try catching up with the competition and the creation of an icon. My skeptical take on the Seville is heavily colored by growing up on the West Coast.
By 1975 imports made up almost 40 percent of car sales in Pacific Coast states (McElroy, 1981; Table 50). That was almost four times the percentage as rustbelt states such as Michigan (McElroy, 1981; Table 47).
My anecdotal sense was that this translated into high-priced brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Jaguar sometimes achieving greater stature than their domestic counterparts. That doesn’t mean they sold better, but rather that they often had more cachet. Cadillac was increasingly viewed as a maker of lumbering land yachts driven by little old ladies with pink hair and matching poodle.
Imports succeeded even when eschewing glitzy styling
The higher status of imports was heavily grounded in their greater focus on advanced engineering — and roadworthiness. So when the Seville was introduced, my biggest question was whether it had the technical chops to compete head to head. Alas, there’s only so much you can do with a Chevrolet Nova platform, so no independent rear suspension or four-wheel disc brakes.
One might reasonably debate whether these features made a tangible difference in the driving experience of many luxury car buyers. However, those features did become bragging points — helped along by at least some car-buff magazines.
That brings us to the Seville’s styling. To my eyes it was a competent design that has withstood the test of time better than the second-generation “bustleback” models. GM also deserves credit for investing more resources into the first Seville than Ford did with its badge-engineered Lincoln Versailles.
Where I part company with jm2 is with his contention that the 1975 Seville was iconic. For all of its charms, the car still reflected the malaise of the brougham era.
Upright C-pillar was too gimmicky and derivative
The idea of a compact Cadillac was so alien to the luxury-car brand that Richard M. Langworth and Jan P. Norbye called the Seville “astonishing.” They went on to describe the car as having “unflamboyant, European-like styling” (1986, p. 336).
It’s true that the Seville looked more understated than a big Cadillac, but I think it was a stretch to describe it as European.
A key reason why was the unusually upright C-pillar. Its severe angularity is arguably closest to the American neo-classical school of design. This certainly made the Seville stand out, but it was just as gimmicky here as it was when used on the Stutz Blackhawk (go here for further discussion).
Indeed, the Seville’s roofline arguably worked less well than the Stutz’s because a four-door body style gave it more awkward proportions. I also suspect that aerodynamics were problematic. Shouldn’t a car with “international” flavor have departed more from Detroit’s usual emphasis on form over function?
Yes, but the Seville looked like a Rolls Royce!
One could argue that it made no sense for Cadillac to directly compete against Mercedes — and that it rightly tilted toward a luxury vibe.
In addition, if Cadillac was worried that a compact would cheapen the brand, why not imitate the Rolls Royce, which was commonly viewed as the most prestigious car in the world?
The downside of such a gambit was the Rolls Royce Silver Shadow had one of the oldest designs in the western world. Although it had iconic qualities such a radiator grille and an upright C-pillar, it was still a rather austere and archaic look. Not the ideal car to even sort-of imitate if GM sought to create a new design benchmark.
Perhaps more significantly: Why was Cadillac — the self-described “standard of the world” — copying someone else?
GM’s compact body gave Seville old-school proportions
Even if you ignore the C-pillar, the Seville was still old-school in its basic proportions. This was because it was loosely based on GM’s compact platform — which was unusually old for a high-volume U.S. passenger car. The basic body was last given a substantial redesign in 1968. Back then long cowls and swept-back beltlines and greenhouses were more in vogue.
That wasn’t the case anymore among European luxury-car brands. By the mid-70s Mercedes, BMW and Jaguar had all gravitated to variations on the “wedge” shape. Here was a key way that the Seville reflected an American retro design language rather than what was trendy internationally.
One could argue that GM designers deserve extra points for making the best of an old platform, but that’s not the same thing as suggesting that the Seville represented a new benchmark. If anything, it was a stylistic dead end in an era where space efficiency and aerodynamics would be increasingly important.
The Seville pulled in two different directions
Another weakness of the Seville’s styling was its lack of brand DNA. Aside from an eggcrate grille and a subtle peak in the hood, the car’s exterior was strikingly generic. For example, the taillights and wheel openings could have just as easily been used on an Oldsmobile.
One might give GM credit for avoiding baroque flourishes such as thrust-forward fender blades like on the Eldorado, but the Seville’s fascia was basically a bunch of rectangles . . . that would end up looking remarkably similar to many other American cars in the second half of the 1970s.
That doesn’t strike me as iconic, but rather lacking in imagination for a brand which had an unusually good track record of maintaining its design individuality.
Perhaps part of the problem was that designers were trying too hard to counteract the automaker’s recent stylistic excesses.
“We put round wheel openings on because we’ve overdone wheel openings recently and we avoided kooky taillights,” head designer William Mitchell told Motor Trend magazine. “We felt like we were designing for someone with very conservative tastes, the kind who doesn’t change his lapels with every new fashion” (Ludvigsen, 1975; p. 58).
Seville’s interior looked like a shrunken Cadillac’s
Motor Trend’s article about the Seville was mostly positive, but writer Karl Ludvigsen suggested that “grand exterior styling” was not matched by its interior.
For example, a “simple instrument cluster has only a speedometer and gas gauge, and resembles a smaller version of the normal Cadillac dash.” In addition, there were “none of the map pockets, cubbyholes and other conveniences that make a luxury import such a pleasure to drive over long distances” (1975, p. 60).
What was particularly remarkable about the Seville’s lack of import-style interior features was that this was one of the most expensive Cadillacs. Did GM assume that its target market was still obsessed with form over function? Or did corporate cost cutting prevail?
A Cadillac for those who didn’t want to be seen in one
In short, the Seville wasn’t so much a direct competitor to foreign luxury brands as it was a smaller car for previous Cadillac owners.
What’s particularly curious about the Seville’s exterior design is that it was so generic that it could have been an Oldsmobile. Yet on the inside the Seville looked like a Cadillac in a dwarf’s suit.
More than anything else, the Seville’s styling reflected a crisis of confidence at GM. Management was apparently embarrassed enough by traditional Cadillac exterior styling that they felt the need to run as far away from it as they could. Yet they couldn’t bring themselves to copy even the most modest practical features of foreign cars such as map pockets.
I grant you that the Seville’s upright C-pillar may have sparked one of the bigger design trends among U.S. automakers. However, that strikes me as an evolutionary dead end that was neither aesthetically pleasing nor very aerodynamic. If the Seville was a new benchmark, it highlighted how GM had lost its way.
NOTES:
This article was originally posted on March 25, 2025 and expanded on May 5, 2026.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- m2; 2025. “The Hissing of Summer Lawns: Part II.” Driven to Write. Posted March 15.
- Langworth, Richard M. and Jan P. Norbye; 1986. The Complete History of General Motors 1908-1986. Publications International, Skokie, IL.
- Ludvigsen, Karl; 1975. “Cadillac’s 1976 Seville The Big Gamble.” Motor Trend. May issue: pp. 52-
- McElroy, James R.; 1981. “Automotive Trade Statistics 1964-80.” U.S. International Trade Commission. Series B Passenger Automobiles. No. 1023 published in December.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- autohistorypreservationsociety.org: Mercedes-Benz (1979)
- oldcaradvertising.com: Cadillac Seville (1975)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Buick Century (1973); Cadillac Seville (1975, 1976); Mercury Monarch (1977); Rambler (1963)
I’ve been following links about the senior Packard and luxury cars, etc. This was you could say the second European invasion, the first 20 years earlier with small, inexpensive and well made compacts. The second one with the cars you mentioned. They brought styling up to date, got styling up to date, went high tech, and had interiors that looked like airliner cockpits or English clubs instead of French bordellos. Compare the instrument panels. Something is needed to draw the passenger’s eye, that is something besides the parts bin air vents. Now in the first invasion GM at least got creative, Chrysler got true Euro and advanced, and Ford made a little Ford. Which one was the best seller? Lesson learned? Just take what you got and make it smaller. It probably would have helped to git it the blade style taillights
Premise:
From the 1930s and onto the early 1960s the full-size American car underwent drastic changes in terms of proportions, and elements such as fenders and headlights merged with the main body.
Now, in the 1970s and 1980s GM had a taste for neoclassical styling, be it ” baroque” or “understated” depending on the model. However, my opinion is that cars such as a 1940 Buick Super look SO MUCH BETTER than a 1975 Cadillac Seville or the 1986 GM C-Bodies.
The 1940 Buick Super is to my eyes a very pleasant car, the sort of car I’d drive with a tweed suit and a French language novel in the glovebox. The other two cars I mentioned… I would never drive them, they are simply the polar opposite of where my taste resides.
I agree with everything you suggest about this generation of Seville. I even think the ‘luxury Novas’ of the period presented a more Euro look, in fact. Seville was not Euro or technical; it was simply smaller and plainer than other Cadillacs. To this day I’m astonished they were able to miraculously set the price at the top of the range.
The Seville was, and remains, great. It brought in the sheer look and used subtlety in design treatment – look at the hood with the subtle crease versus the offset surface approach. When the Seville came out it immediately became a common car in the West LA area – Beverly Hills to Santa Monica. Had friends that were buying the Seville rather than the E and S class they would have otherwise chosen (except for those getting the SEL 6.9).
I will agree that the instrument panel should have had an assortment of real gauges and used a floor shift versus the column. But to compare its interior to even a Mercedes of the time, excepting the gauges and floor shift, the MB was actually quite austere. An IRS would have been nice but a well located solid axle wasn’t a terrible solution. It handled pretty decently too. Do remember that in 1975 BMW did not have a V8, nor did the MB E Class. Jag did offer a V12 if one could stand its pitfalls and the typical service issues. Something most must have forgotten over the years is the difference is service costs. It was routine to have $1,000 service bills at the MB dealer as soon as the car got a few years old.
Can’t remember which magazine did it (could have easily been MoTrend or C&D) but they did a test of the Seville and the E Class. At the time I thought that the better comparison would have been with the S Class as my feeling is that was what that buyer would have really been deciding between. None the less, as I remember it, the Cadillac aquited itself well in the comparison.
Steve continues to have a problem with the stiff C pillar. It was not a problem at all and was a completely valid different solution on what to do with the backlight. Do you hate the Silver Shadow Rolls Royce too?
The real shame with this Seville is that its humpback successor gave up the Euro appeal of the original with the baroque approach. By the time the 3rd gen came out Cadillac had already lost the connectionto the market that the 1st gen had established.
My point about the West Coast was that imports weren’t an asterisk like they were in Detroit — and so basic attitudes about automobiles could be different. That didn’t mean Sevilles weren’t bought, but it did mean that Cadillac didn’t utterly monopolize the market — particularly with younger buyers. Imports making inroads in the high end of the market was an important step in Detroit’s decline and fall.
You make a big deal about the Seville’s “sheer look” when it was actually a fairly pedestrian design approach. It’s not like Cadillac invented relatively rounded wheel openings and flat side surfacing. GM was essentially solving a design problem of its own making by stepping back from overly busy side styling.
I think that the Silver Shadow’s styling works fine for that car’s positioning in the marketplace. In general, I’m not big on copycat exercises, particularly when the result is awkward. And I would continue to argue that a compact Cadillac should have moved closer to the international mainstream in its basic styling. That partly meant something more aerodynamic. Mitchell was too deep into the neo-classical school of design to give aerodynamics its due in a luxury sedan.
Sorry, Steve, but I can’t agree with your assessment of the nearly vertical C-pillar as an expression of “form over function” paradigm. Outside the US this Americanesque design feature is usually considered to be ugly, but practical, as it provides some additional interior room at the cost of look. Volvo used a similar treatment on its 7** series of cars for this very reason. Form follows function – definitely not vice versa.
I don’t publish Indie Auto because I expect agreement; often it is to give voice to a “minority” view one may not see on other automotive blogs.
Did Volvo use an upright C-pillar primarily for practical reasons or because by that point it was considered conventionally stylish? I don’t know, but I suspect that William Mitchell’s primary motivation with the Seville was not to be more practical. And, again, I doubt that it helped aerodynamics, particularly when squared-off so sharply. At least the 1994 Chrysler LHS put some curvature into their design, which presumably helped aerodynamics. (I think it also looked better, but in the end aesthetics are subjective.)
Be very careful about making assumptions on aerodynamics without having the numbers and even the pictures of the flow patterns. That still backlight might be better at getting quick separation like a Kamm back versus a sloping roof that has separated air flow its whole length. Understand that the numbers may be from the clay and not from an actual car. It might also be wise to question if some of the European cars that have quoted numbers were for home market where the big US bumpers of the 1970s and 1980 were not needed. Those cars might also have the more flush headlights that were not US legal too.
I’m not saying that the Seville is or isn’t aerodynamic or the extent to which some of the solutions are good or bad for aero. I wish that John Manoogian would make some comments here as he was in the wind tunnel refining designs so has experience of what one may think is good that turn out to be wrong or how some little tweak made a outsized difference.
One should also be aware that there is more to aero that just Cd. There is C for lift front, lift rear and in yaw. Do not forget that with Cd the calculation is for total frontal area. So a smaller frontal area car might have a higher Cd number but actually have less total drag.
Ultimately, in my view, the biggest problem with this Seville was that GM didn’t immediately build upon the car’s sales to chart a new direction for Cadillac. Whatever we say about the Seville today, it did sell well, and opened a path for Cadillac to revitalize its image.
But even during this generation, GM added a cheesy Rolls-Royce style grille for 1977, and then cluttered up the clean, basic design with two-tone paint jobs, wire wheels (both real wire wheels, and fake covers), fat white walls and extra chrome. What it needed to do was bring out a version without a vinyl roof, and with styled road wheels, black-wall tires, a more subdued grille, bucket seats and a floor-mounted shifter.
That opportunity was never pursued. GM then completely threw away whatever momentum the first Seville had by bringing out the tacky bustle-back model for 1980.
1977 did offer a no vinyl roof. [Doing this required changes to the roof as the vinyl covered a roof extension].
Some of what you complain about with the fake Rolls Royce grill and wide whitewalls were dealer installed items that had nothing to do with the GM option list.
As I remember it the only two tone offered by GM was the 1978 and 1979 Seville Elegante package in only 2 choices – black & silver or a brown/saddle. It also got a different front seat with bucket seats instead of the standard 50/50 split seat which were completely separate seats.
In 1976 the MB 450 SEL had wheelcovers as standard, not cast road wheels.
I wholehartedly agree then and continuing today, that the humpback successor destroyed what the 1st gen Seville had achieved as a different direction that could and did appeal to those that did not want their parents and grandparents Cadillac.
An interesting what-if would be over how GM had for a while considered using the Opel Diplomat platform instead of the X body as the basis for the Seville. That would have meant solving the US tooling issue of metric vs SAE and building to the tighter German tolerances. The Diplomat already had a De Dion rear suspension and 4 wheel disc brakes. Might it have made the Seville a US and German market car (through Opel dealers)? Since the diplomat had not sold particularly well, would it have salvaged that segment for Opel and become a regular competitor in the upper end German and other European markets?
An interesting side note for the Seville it that it was exported to Iran during the Shah’s years in knock down form for assembly locally. So the Seville did have some international appeal with an estimated 2,500 built before Iran’s revolution.
The 1977 model featured a grille design, with a chrome “header,” that was obviously inspired by Rolls-Royce. It was not an improvement over the original design – if anything, the chrome piece over the grille looked cheap and tacked-on. This was straight from the factory.
The Elegante version is not what the Seville needed. It did not need two-tone paint jobs (regardless of the color combination) or wire wheels (even real ones).
Mercedes offered road wheels during this era on both the E- and C-Class. That is what Cadillac should have offered with the Seville. There was nothing wrong with the Seville’s standard wheel covers, but Cadillac offered wire wheels (both ersatz, and the real thing) instead of styled road wheels. That was not taking the Seville in the direction it needed to go.
To me the 1976 Seville – and the later 1977 downsized full-sizers and 1978 downsized intermediates – was the wrong solution to the problem of GM’s cars in those segments becoming really excessively bloated: the cars were so large – and the proportions off – that curves were overstretched or boxy designs looked ponderous.
Size was trimmed (right move), but the boxy styling really inched very closely to me to not being styled at all: yes, the side sculpting of the Seville is very nice and delicate, but the boxy greenhouse and the trunk really nullified it. I would have rather went for something like an “S” semi-fastback shape like the 1968-72 intermediate coupes, or a slightly more pointy version of it if you will, with the benefit of also having a larger trunk.
In May,1975, the owner of Fairbanks Broadcasting, Richard M. Fairbanks, drove up to WIBC-AM/WNAP-FM in the first customer-delivered 1975 Seville in Indiana. Dick Fairbanks was a true blue-blood “son” of the American Revolution, a direct descendant ofJonathon Fairbanks, who built in 1636 the oldest surviving frame house in the U.S, (Dedham, MA) and who owned the Old Post Office in Boston where Ben Franklin was one of the original postmasters. Mr. Fairbanks was “old -money” and my boss’ boss. R.M.F. was the grandson of The Pennsylvania (Railroad) Company’s legal counsel in the late 1800s and rose in politics to become Teddy Roosevelt’s Vice President (1905-1909). Mr. F. loved cars and owned several, mainly Audis and Benzs and two perfect Chrysler “Town & Countrys”. Indianapolis during the month of May is always a car spotter’s dream with the local “who’s whos” driving 500 Festival “official” pace cars, but Mr. F. and his new black over silver Seville were the talk of the town, which he loved. He made it a point to get a new Seville every model year until 1980. (He hated the “bustle-back” which he called a “pimpmobile”.)
In 1975, the Seville’s style was unique, but the 1977 G.M. down-sized standard all had a passing resemblence due to dual rectangular headlights at each corner.hhh
I have a vivid memory of seeing my first Seville somewhere in or near Beverly Hills as a 7 year old on a family visit to my relatives in LA. It seemed very fresh and new to me then, and I seem to recall it did also to my non-car obsessed family. And I was really only into Euro sedans at the time. I think it’s hard today to appreciate the impact the design had in its first year because of how ubiquitous its themes became in the next decade.
But in the Mitchell pantheon I’d say it ranks with the 1938 Cadillac Sixty Special and 1963 Buick Riviera in terms of being at the vanguard of American design. The difference is that it came at a time when American engineering and quality were being surpassed. Had that not been the case, I think it might be remembered as a classic on par with those others.
The other reflection I have about 1976 is that the W123 Mercedes had yet to replace the W115, the latter of which itself was a rather formal design, particularly at the front.
I remember seeing my first Seville shortly after they were introduced. I thought it was a definite step in the right direction, especially because I didn’t like the styling of other Cadillacs in that period. I considered it a clean and attractive; the interior was just too much like other Cadillacs to my eyes. Overall I was pleased, but I also felt it was no threat to the ascendancy ofMercedes and other European sedans. I was 17 at the time, and big American cars were not my thing, nor were they of any interest to my friends. The Seville really didnt change that.
Barn Finds has a long thread going on a 2200 mile Seville that parallels this thread. Cadillac wanted a sports sedan to go up against the smaller luxo krautmobiles. By this time the Cadillac in most people’s minds were pimps and the “my next car is a hearse” crowd. They have a huge perception gap to leap if they are going to grab the BMW 3 and 5 series, and the Mercedes C and E. To get past the perception you would have to be better technically and aesthetically. Come up with an unoffensive body, drag it through the GM parts bins and throw in some leather seats and shelf paper wood trim and you have something that looks like the European sports sedans. Fine for the shuffleboard crowd that wants to look cool, but they’re not taking anyone out of the import show rooms.
“so no independent rear suspension or four-wheel disc brakes”?? Well, it’s true that this generation never got independent suspension, but according to Wikipedia (and my vague memory), rear disks were standard by 1977, as they were on the Lincoln Versailles. In fact, both cars, especially the Versailles, have been targeted by parts vultures looking to put the rear axles on Mustangs and Camaros, contributing to the low survival rate of the luxury cars. As for the roofline, it can be argued that unless a car is a hatchback, the nearly upright C-pillar offers the best combination of rear headroom and trunk access possible. The aerodynamics of that feature, as Jeff Kennedy points out above, are a little harder to guess. But it’s worth noting that when GM re-styled their full sized cars to be more aerodynamic for the 1980 model year, they made most of the nearly vertical rear windows even more vertical, suggesting the possibility that the vertical rear glass allowed a cushion of nearly stationary air to build up behind it, making the car behave more like a teardrop shape than the box-on-wheels it resembles. Maybe someone with more experience in aerodynamics will chime in on the plausibility of that.
Bill Mitchell’s decision to imitate the Silver Shadow was sort of a double sided coin. While the 60 inch-tall 1965 ‘Shadow had one of the most conservative shapes in the industry, its chassis, with its initial 4-wheel-semi-active independent suspension was everything the the Nova-based Seville’s wasn’t, though the Rolls would later revert to a more conventional 2 wheel semi-active configuration. Maybe that combination of cutting edge technology and retro styling was just what Mitchell thought perspective Cadillac buyers craved at the time, even if they had to overlook the cars rear leaf springs.
You know, I came into this updated article fully prepared to be talked out of my admiration for the original Seville. I had my sleeves rolled up, coffee hot enough to dissolve a spoon, ready for Steve to march me down to the courthouse square and publicly explain that I’d been looking at that first-generation Cadillac through a windshield coated in nostalgia and reflected disco light.
I finished the article and am still sitting there like Rusty Hammer after a city council meeting, waiting for the important part to finally arrive.
To claim Cadillac “would have trouble responding to the rise of imports even in its historically strongest market, luxury cars” because the Seville didn’t look enough like a Jaguar XJ feels like judging a ribeye by how poorly it impersonates quiche. By the time the Seville debuted, the XJ itself was already an eleven-year-old design. Elegant? Certainly. Timeless? Arguably. But let’s not act like Jaguar had descended from Coventry carrying tablets from the mountain while Cadillac was out behind the dealership trying to weld opera windows onto a lawn tractor.
Cadillac was attempting something much trickier. They were trying to build something entirely new while still making sure a man pulling up to the valet at the Cattle Baron Hotel didn’t have to explain to people what he’d bought. It had to be smaller, sharper, more manageable… but still unmistakably Cadillac. That wasn’t cowardice. That was threading a needle in a windstorm out behind Eggs & Ammo while Delgado hollered that your breakfast burrito was getting cold.
And the dashboard criticism? That one nearly caused me to snort Folgers through my nose.
Yes, the Jaguar dash had real wood. Gorgeous wood. British wood. The kind of wood that probably had a family crest and unresolved colonial opinions. But beneath that? A parade of black plastic circles scattered across the instrument panel like checker pieces at the Pecos County Senior Center after somebody was accused of cheating.
Meanwhile, criticizing the Seville dashboard for looking like “a smaller Cadillac dash” ignores the entire point so thoroughly it ought to qualify for an agricultural exemption. A smaller Cadillac dash was exactly what they were going for. Cadillac wasn’t trying to build a Germanic penalty box for wealthy West Coast humanities professors who discussed Bergman films while parallel parking their emotions. They were trying to give traditional Cadillac buyers something trimmer and more maneuverable without making it feel like they’d accidentally wandered into a foreign car dealership looking for aspirin.
But the wagon really lost a wheel when the article declared, “The 1973 Buick Century Regal hints at how GM styling had become unduly busy compared to, say, a 1963 Rambler.”
Now hold on.
That is the automotive equivalent of saying, “Sure, Angie Dickinson turned a few heads… but she’s no Ethyl Merman.” Angie and her Buick Century Regal should never be spoken of in the same sentence as Ethyl and her Rambler unless a court reporter is present and objections are being entered into the record.
The ’73 Century Regal wasn’t “busy.” It had swagger. It looked like it knew where the party was and already had a cigarette lighter in its pocket. The Rambler, meanwhile, looked like the assistant manager at a feed store who says things like “Let’s not get carried away” while buying mayonnaise.
And then came the lament over the Seville lacking “map pockets, cubbyholes, and other conveniences that make a luxury import such a pleasure to drive over long distances.”
That line absolutely sent me.
I can picture it perfectly. A fellow in a brand-new 1975 Cadillac Seville has just stepped out front of the Ritz after crossing half the country in climate-controlled serenity. Bell captain opens the door. Our hero stretches, removes his Foster Grants with grave disappointment, and says:
“Trip would’ve been wonderful, Earl, but there wasn’t a single damn cubbyhole in the whole automobile.”
That conversation has occurred exactly nowhere outside an import brochure written by a man wearing a turtleneck indoors.
I truly wanted to buy into the premise. I really did. But I still think Cadillac hit the mark almost perfectly with the original Seville. It was restrained without being apologetic. Formal without becoming funereal. Smaller without surrendering its identity. It looked expensive in the way successful oilmen, bank presidents, and discreet divorce attorneys wanted expensive to look in 1975.
And apparently I’m not alone in that assessment.
Between 1975 and 1979, Cadillac sold 215,659 first-generation Sevilles, with sales climbing every single model year. That’s not a fluke. That’s not nostalgia. That’s a whole lot of people walking into Cadillac showrooms and deciding, “Yep. That’s the one.”
Granted, that’s just my opinion, and what do I know?
I still think the boat-tail Riviera is one of the finest things Buick ever unleashed on an unsuspecting republic. Some folks see excess. I see rolling sculpture with hidden headlights and enough presence to make a Lincoln nervous at a stoplight on Dickinson Boulevard.
As a point of process, it may be helpful to know that I’m not trying to change your mind. Indeed, that kind of rhetoric reminds me of the “debate me, bro” tables on college campuses.
My main goal with Indie Auto is to put on the record alternatives to conventional wisdom when I think they are needed to advance automotive history. Will anyone agree with my takes? Coming out of the journalism profession, that’s not something I care all that much about. However, to the degree that I do, I am primarily writing to those who don’t already have hardened opinions. My perception is that those are not typically the same folks who tend to comment.
I am back in Olympia doing another round of fix up for a house I am about to put on the market, so my access to the Internet will be sporadic for the next few days. Don’t expect much in the way of new posts or comments.
To me the car needed more Cadillac visual cues. As someone mentioned earlier, the Olds taillights had to go, and figure out somehow to do a vertical blade. The grille looks too much like the Chevies of the era. Perhaps bring the grill edges more inboard, with a hood bulge above? If it didn’t offer a 4 speed or 5 speed tranny, offer one even if no one buys them. It will look good in the ads and brochures. Actually I like the C pillar. It gives it a nice formal touch.
I was 12 in 1977 when my family upgraded to a better house. The broker who handled the listing on our starter house drove a Seville. He seemed younger than my parents who were in their mid 30s at that point. I was very car aware at that time, so I distinctly remember that car. It was several steps above the foreign cars my parents and their friends were driving. It was also leagues above the Fury and Impala station wagons my friends’ parents were driving. Even though this model of Seville has never interested me personally, I can appreciate the fact that Cadillac broadened its scope from its stodgy offerings with this car.
Cadillac was trying something entirely new for the era born out of the energy crisis and larger market share from European entities. As noted in above posts it worked for this 1st generation Seville with increased sales in each few years on the market.
Compared to their proper full size Coupe Deville and Fleetwood with 130″ wheelbase/5,000+ # big brothers I’m sure they did handle better. That stated they had 10 bolt rear axles held up multiple leaf springs, shared similar construction as. Chevy Nova and and suspension parts from the 2nd Camaro/Firebird. Some of the part designs were from the 1968 Novas. So they were part sharing with budget constraints. It was a decent first try from GM that was bungled by the 2nd generation Seville.
To me minus the stretched out front clip of the Seville, GM borrowed the overall aesthetics for their downsizes mid size G Body sedans for 1978 through the early 80s. Overall I think Steve is on the whole on the right track on the Seville as a mixed bag from Cadillac.
The 2nd gen Seville went in the wrong direction but it sold okay The FWD E bodies were hot at the end of their lives in 1985. Sales were limited by transaxle production. Buick, Olds, and Cadillac could sell every E body they could build. Cadillac was dividing its share into two models.
The Seville should hav had a more aerodynamic and sleeker modern design ala the La Scala concept car (how do I post a pic?), which would have been a new benchmark in progressive yet tasteful automotive design, imo superior to the various Euro brands and worthy of becoming the icon that Cadillac once was. It should have been combined with an aluminum ohc V8, IRS, injection, hydraulic suspension like the DS, and an interior with proper gauges and seating. Such a car would have truly help to elevate Cadillac to the iconic Standard of the World it had once been, unlike the feeble and inadequate attempt that was the production Seville.
BTW I should mention that from 1975 to 1979 I was driving a 220SE and a BMW 2800, and my wife a Volvo 122s. However II would have readily bought a La Scala, had one actually been produced, but not a Seville, though I did admire the Olds 350 with fuel injection that propelled it. Imo it may have been the best GM V8 ever built, and as an Olds OCA chapter founder, I’ve had 5 Olds with Rocket 350s, it is a truly superb automobile engine and the best choice possible for the Seville.
The Seville of 1975 was a great success considering the great trepidation given to Cadillac executives. A ‘Small ” Cadillac ? at what price ? using what platform?.
Utilizing the Nova frame was definitely a surprize but the car itself managed to beat all expectations. The pillared design was a throw back but brought that long discarded body-type back into vogue – across the industry.
The cars styling was revived in the 1985/86 de ville downsize. The same size boxy shape and upright pillars were obvious reminders of the 1975 halo car.
Today there at many echos for the the original Seville – the SUV XT4 and XT5 among others share the sharp mitred roof pillars of the Seville.
Today – Lincoln badly needs a styling lead ship because it has none. Lincoln appears to be reliving the 1950’s by trying one thing then another to create a Lincoln look – that finally happened in 1961.
Until Lincoln fnds its rainbow connection I beleive it is doomed. As Bill Mitchell said – ”A car has to MEAN something”.