The eighth-generation Cadillac Eldorado is the car I picture when I hear the word “Eldorado,” often shouted at the top of someone’s lungs in a tone that wavers between mournful and reverential. To me, this Eldorado, the one built between 1967 and 1970, is the archetypal Eldorado — the platonic ideal. This was the first front-wheel-drive Cadillac, based on the amazing Oldsmobile Toronado platform, and was a car with real presence. It also had rear quarter windows that opened like no other car I can think of.
The Eldorado was a personal luxury coupé, but not a small two-door — we’re talking a two-door with doors the size of kitchen islands and the ability to comfortably seat six non-waifish people. The flat floor helped, because, remember, this was a FWD car with no need for a driveshaft and its associated hump, but also because the whole car was, you know, huge.
Maybe “huge” isn’t the right word, because that just implies some sort of all-over bulk. The Eldorado carried its size and mass in places designed to maximize drama, more than anything else. Just look at the initial clay models for the car that would become the Eldorado, then known just as XP825:
(photos: GM)
Dear lord, look at that thing! It looks like someone swabbed the inside of Syd Mead‘s cheek with a Q-Tip, then shoved it into a pile of clay, and this thing grew out of that, after a month of carefully tending and soaking in gin.
The production car wasn’t quite that dramatic, but it was pretty damn close:
(image: Cadillac)
That wildly long hood, big enough to let a kids’ soccer team practice on it, housed the amazing Toronado-derived FWD drivetrain, but with a longitudinally-mounted engine specific to Cadillac, a 429 cubic-inch V8 (that’s over 7 liters!) making 340 horsepower and sending its power in a sort of U-shape to the transaxle mounted next to it:
(image: Cadillac)
It’s a pretty incredible layout; transverse FWD setups would soon make this sort of thing pretty much extinct, but let’s just take a moment to appreciate the madness of it all…
OK, with that out of the way, let’s try to get back to my main point here, which has to do with the design of the car. As you know, this was a coupé, and as such just had two doors. Oh, and since we’re talking about those massive doors, I have to point out something incredible: If you were in the back seat, and needed to get out, you weren’t dependent on the whims of whoever was sitting up front to open those massive doors. That’s because each door had two door opening handles, one for the front seat passengers and en extra one for the rear:
(screenshot: YouTube)
Look at that! I love it. You may also notice in that picture there is a little window switch on the armrest, or in the 1967 Eldo (the one up there is a ’69), a cute little crank:
(screenshot: YouTube)
The point of these switches and cranks is, of course, to open and close that tiny sliver of window near the rear. It’s so small you wouldn’t think it’d do much for ventilation – and, besides, this is a Caddy, it damn well better have A/C – but it’s more about this:
See that beautiful, pillar-less opening of the windows? You cant have that if there’s a little chunk of glass messing up the look. So that bit needs to go away. And that’s where we get to the unique bit.
Because look at where that window is; it’s right above where the door meets the body. If it rolls down like a conventional window, where the hell are you going to put the glass in there? It doesn’t look like there’s room!
And there really isn’t! Unless you do this:
(screenshot: YouTube)
See that? The glass retracts rearward, into the C-pillar! Amazing! Here it is again, this time powered, courtesy of YouTube channel Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History:
While there are plenty of other cars that open their windows by sliding sideways – I’m thinking like early Minis and Renault 4s and early Microbuses – but this may be the only example I can think of where a window retracts rearwards into a body panel? Maybe there is another – the automotive universe is so vast there likely is – but I can’t find one so far.
There is a sort of precedent, though, from Cadillac themselves, and while the goal was slightly different, the action of a bit of rear quarter glass sliding rearward is the same. In that case, on the 1960 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham (of which only 107 were made) there was a little pointy window pane that retracted a bit into the C-pillar when you’d open the door or lower the window, mostly so it wouldn’t stab you when you got into the car. The owner’s manual describes it:
(image: Cadillac)
It’s not exactly an opening window, but it does show Cadillac had some experience with rearward-sliding windows.
But back to the 8th-gen Eldo’s windows: it’s just such an incredible little detail, and somehow it fits with the whole tone and feel of the car – elegant and powerful and unexpected, somehow. In case you weren’t aware of this before, I hope your life is a little improved for knowing about it now.
I had one of these in my twenties. 🙂 This was in the nineties and I daily drove a 1970 Eldorado in Firemist Red, with a white vinyl halo top. Of course it had 500 CID, 8.2L V8, 4bbl Quadrajet Rochester carb and Borg-Warner chain drive. Front torsion bar suspension and mono-leaf rear. Dear lord was it smooth and quiet running. Red interior with front bucket seats and red plush carpet. Awesome car. Fuel economy for commuting was okay, but cruising on Friday nights meant refueling Friday and again on Saturday. Ouch. 🙂 Bought it for 600 USD. Sold it for twice that. Then I had a 1974 Eldo. That one wasn’t as exciting.
My neighbor bought a 40 Ford 2 dr sedan as a project (we were in high school). It was someone’s abandoned project w/a 283 Chevy under the hood. I remember one of the cool features was; the rear windows rolled down into the body like a normal sedan, but if you kept winding the handle as the window rolled up in its channel, it would retract about 3”’into the C pillar for ventilation w/o the buffeting associated w/ the lowered glass.
Boy, didn’t it also contribute to the most anticlimactic car chase start scene in movie history 😀
https://youtu.be/e_9c1bzwJQs?t=149
That, and the thingie trying to escape the flamethrower in MadMax 2 are the most “This feels wrong” wheelspin scenes in my book.
https://youtu.be/yFvqj8hJaS4?t=126
Interesting. To me, the exemplary Eldorado is a 59 in pink with a ragtop down.
Exactly, I have 1/18 Maisto diecast model of it since I was 10. I still think this is the most outstanding production car ever made, although later models surely were more elegant.
The concept reminds me of the boat from that one TV show with Hulk Hogan
I actually did feel my life improve ever so slightly,thanks Jason.
The 1956 Imperial four door hardtop rear quarter windows rotated forward and down moving to the inside of the door window to give that nice hardtop look!
The 1960 Cadillac Brougham four door hardtop (the only style) had a rear quarter window that went down a couple of inches allowing the rear doors to open!
One of my favorite Cadillac designs of all time. Was watching an episode of Columbo recently that featured one of these as the baddies car, just perfect.
My 67 Riv has those rear interior door handles too. They’re a lot of fun!!
Can’t speak for these Cadillacs but the Toronado version made kick ass demo derby cars.
Big V8 front wheel drive, not having a driveshaft and rear drive axle to break made them very durable.
Please remember at the time they were not collectable classics, just used up daily driver junk.
That Eldo is massive, probably near impossible to drive anywhere, good luck parking, and compared to my current cars would be utterly impractical.
God I want one.
A friend dailied a 71 Riviera in L.A. Parking was a challenge
It’s only about the same footprint as a daily driver spec pickup (I, for one would prefer to see suburbia littered with stuff like this Eldorado instead).
Not to mention ever-increasing height of the front end amongst latest pick-up trucks…
The real story about these Helldorados is the engines. The 429 had 340 horses and 480 foot-pounds or torque. In ’70 the 500 CID monster arrived with 400 hp and a tire gobbling 550 ft-lb. There was a 472 in the mix too.
The 500 was a straight up beast… and honestly, had no business in a passenger car, yet, that’s exactly what happened.
One might surmise that many a two-martini lunch went into making that decision.
Actually, three-martini lunch. IRS changed the rules in the late 1980s for the business expense so it went from three to two…
Confirmed – I had an old Caddy with the 472. It was a brute. Pulled like a freight train.
I drove my grandfather to doctor appointments in and eventually inherited his Gen 2 Toronado. Going from my Datsun 510, it was terrifying.
But, I love these deep, really deep, rabbit holes you got down, Jason.
Your writing style is incredibly entertaining and infectious.
what a nice thing to say! You’re a peach!
7L V8 making 340HP? That sounds fun. Was it? I’ve never seen one of these.
For maximum exotic side windows, think 1934 Chrysler Airflow. The front doors had wind out quarter vent windows, as well as the main roll down glass. But you could also roll the whole thing down, quarter windows, frame and all, and have a larger window opening.