A Super Rare Diesel Gucci Cadillac Is For Sale With The Worst Engine GM Ever Built

Automakers have always collaborated with outside companies in interesting ways. Toyota gets JBL to do their audio, AMC got Levi to do their seats, and Cadillac famously teamed up with the Italian fashion legends at Gucci. There are plenty of designer collabs out there, but it’s hard to imagine two bigger names coming together, nor that you could one day sit in the vehicle of their creation.

And yet, you can! That’s because someone down in Indiana is selling a rare Cadillac Seville on Facebook Marketplace—the one ‘designed’ by Gucci. You know what’s even better? It’s brown and diesel to boot. I’m not even making this up.

This is probably one of the coolest Malaise Era cars you could possibly own. The result of a team-up between two heavyweights in their respective industries, it was a lavish and exclusive thing. Only a handful were ever made in the late 1970s, and precious few remain today.

Gucci Goodness

The collaboration was the brainchild of Aldo Gucci, eldest son of Guccio Gucci (who was really named that, we checked). Aldo famously forged the Italian brand’s strong presence in the US market, and he set about getting a collaboration off the ground with America’s premier luxury automaker. Cadillac was on board, and the task of bringing it to reality lay at the feet of International Automotive Design Inc., a US firm. Cars were shipped from GM, and given the Gucci goodness in the firm’s Miami facility.

The first example was unveiled by Aldo himself at the Fontainebleau Resort in Miami Beach in 1978. As you might expect, it didn’t come cheap. The ‘Cadillac Seville designed by Gucci’ would set you back $19,900— or roughly $96,000 in 2024 dollars. That was a full $7,000 more expensive than the standard 1978 Cadillac Seville. The price stepped up to $22,900 in 1979, equivalent to $99,295 today.

Regardless, this special edition model did come with some fruit to sweeten the deal. The whole interior was trimmed in luxurious leather, with Gucci’s famous green-and-red stripe motif adorning the headrests. There was a Gucci hood ornament, too, and interlocking Gs on the wheels, along with lots of other gold badges inside and out. You also got a five-piece set of Gucci luggage, too, and the vinyl roof also bore Gucci’s classic Double-G motif.

You could have this thing in just three colors: white, black, or brown. Few were built; depending on who you talk to, there were 25 examples built, or perhaps 200. The former perhaps seems more likely given how rarely these things turn up for sale.

The Indiana Example

So what do we know of the car for sale in Indiana right now? Well, we’re told it’s got the infamous Oldsmobile diesel V8 under the hood. Objectively, that’s not necessarily a good thing—the engine, derived from a gasoline design, was famously unreliable and GM killed it off in the early 1980s after much public humiliation. But if you’re an enthusiast? It’s cool, in an oddball, check-out-this-running-disaster kind of way.

We’re told this car has 33,000 miles on the clock. That suggests it may have had work done to bring it up to the later revision of the engine that blew fewer head gaskets and was far more reliable. In any case, the seller says it is “mechanically perfect.”

You’re probably wondering what kind of performance that engine would get you. Well, despite its 5.7-liter displacement, it was only good for about 120 horsepower. At best, you might sneak up to 60 miles an hour in just under 20 seconds or so. She’s a cruiser, not a bruiser—but you’d beat the gassers on fuel economy every time.

While we’re told the mechanicals are humming along just fine, for the interior that’s not quite the case. We’re told it needs a new vinyl top, which would require an experienced shop to refabricate the special Gucci material—if they’d even be willing to do so. The interior is similarly worn, though most of the damage is to the leather. This would be relatively straightforward to get retrimmed.

A Lead?

The one thing we’re missing is good wide shots of the exterior. However, I may have some that you can look at. See, in 2023, someone posted on CadillacForums.com that they had a 1979 Cadillac Seville by Gucci, including “a few pieces of the luggage set.” They noted the vehicle had 33,000 miles on the clock—the same on this example!—and it appears to be parked in a very similar location. They show the vehicle to be in good cosmetic condition on the outside. I’ve reached out to this forum member for more information to explore if this really is the same car or not. I can’t be sure, but some of the creases in the leather seem to match up, and could be telling.

In any case, the images from that forum did end up in this YouTube video. Is it the same car? Some details look similar, but parts of the interior perhaps look too clean to be the same vehicle. For your viewing pleasure:

In any case, you’re wondering whether you should buy this car. Well, it’s not cheap. The current seller is asking for $55,000. Sevilles from this era typically go for less than $20,000, so that’s a fair chunk of change. But if this really is the rare Cadillac it claims to be, that’s not so bad, and we’re told this is even a runner. For weird enthusiasts like us, the fact that it’s brown and burns diesel only adds to the joy.

I say, if you’re madly wealthy and you won’t miss fifty-five grand? Get down to Indiana and claim your glory. Then, I want you to take a whole ton of photos and send us your story. You know where to find me!

Image credits: Facebook Marketplace, Cadillac