What if BMW built a pickup truck? How might Mazda have tooled the Miata as a shooting brake? Suppose Ferrari built an SUV? Oh wait, that’s right, the Purosangue exists. But there are plenty of other provocative car concepts that manufacturers have passed on building, leaving outside fabricators to take matters into their own hands. Recently, we’ve been looking at creations like this from German specialist bb-Auto. When Porsche wouldn’t build a Turbo Targa and Mercedes didn’t consider retractable hardtops in the seventies, Ranier Buchmann’s firm made them a reality.
Today, for every well-crafted and fully resolved example of third-party realizations of visions left unproduced by factory engineers, there are countless privateers and home DIYers who attempt to do the same thing with far more questionable results.
Recently, on Facebook Marketplace, I saw a dubious concoction that would fall firmly into the questionable category (though I do applaud the builder for going for it). Instead of just looking at this monstrosity in disgust and moving on, I was inspired to imagine what an even more absurd factory interpretation of this theme might look like. Hold on to your seat, and your lunch.
A Frightening F-Car
I often see AI-generated “cars of the seventies” and wonder what photos of real vehicles were pilfered to form the strange uncanny-Detroit-valley images. Facebook Marketplace presented me with some photos last week of something that I could swear was not an actual car but, in fact, turned out to be as real as death and taxes.
Through a translation of the French-Canadian post, the seller in Quebec apparently has a “1986 Camaro” for sale. It’s a V6 and the Firebird steering wheel tells me that it likely started like as the Pontiac model instead. Here’s a six-cylinder SE model below:
The seller took this rather attractive car and made modifications to turn the sporty pony car into a sort of low-slung personal luxury coupe, as seen below. Exactly why someone would do that is nearly as befuddling as the certainly creative ways this backyard build seems to have been executed.
Boy, there’s a lot to unpack here. The seller has even placed a chair a few paces back from his masterpiece, perhaps so potential buyers can contemplate it more comfortably, and at length. Let’s give it a try from our own seats, be they in the office, living room, or … other rooms.
Assuming it’s a Firebird under there, the sleek pop-up headlight nose appears to have been replaced with a chopped and modified facia panel from a 1977 Buick Century and a chrome bumper of indeterminate GM origin.
The builder connected this fascia to the rest of the car with sheet metal that appears to have been formed on a bending brake. Like the similar-sized Chevy Monte Carlo, the Buick mid-sizers of this era had flowing “pontoon” fenders meant to evoke cars from days of yore. Even if the builder had Bentley-level metal forming skills on an English wheel, such a stamped-in shape would be hard to replicate. Naturally, a tool that can only do ninety-degree bends won’t be able to do this, so a hand-drawn pinstripe encourages the viewer to imagine a curvier shape. It doesn’t work at all, obviously – if anything, it highlights the straightness. Straight panels look just awful and aren’t even very car-like at all; can you imagine, say, a high-tech electric car company a car composed entirely of straight lines? Of course not.
The Monte-ruse is further attempted with strange patches of vinyl roof on the tops of the doors and rear fenders. Ah, but some real work went into chopping holes into the sides of the thick “B” pillars (and likely making it even less structurally sound) and putting in glass “opera windows.” The rub strip has been moved below the crease/character line on the side so now it serves no functional purpose.
Somehow the stock Firebird’s full-width taillight (or Camaro lights, if that’s what this is under there) didn’t fit the look the owner wanted so more flat sheet metal was thrown on, flanked by badge-modified taillights from Pontiac’s own luxo-coupe: the Grand Prix. In some ways, this thing looks kinda-sorta like Pontiac’s own NASCAR homologation glass-backed Grand Prix 2+2, except the factory-built fastback didn’t have an actual opening hatch since GM couldn’t do what some Canadian homebuilder was able to accomplish. The builder has also added a “Camaro” badge to his new sheetmetal. I’m so confused.
Do you think this madness stops on the outside of the car? Hardly. Take a look at this dashboard. Somebody busted out their woodworking skills here on a chunk of plywood and also proved why my wife always says to use wood conditioner before adding stain or you’ll get “a blotchy mess” (She’s right, FYI). These guys seemed to have skipped that step. I do like the silver pen used to create accent lines on the wood.
Even the door panels are decidedly not Firebird pieces and were pilfered from some baby land-yacht:
The crowning glory is in the back seat where you’ll see the lengths the builder went to – lengths that didn’t go quite far enough. Somehow the inside pillar covers were stolen from a Grand Prix or similar car and then crudely chopped and squished in place to fit around the glued-in opera windows.
The amount of time invested in this bizarre conveyance is truly impressive, and the effort to render the design in three dimensions (and as a functional vehicle, no less) was certainly a task many orders of magnitude more difficult than dashing off silly drawing to realize automotive dreams, as yours truly does. Speaking of which, what if I tried to make an even more absurd factory F-body from a higher-level brand?
Trading In A Chevy For A …
In making a higher-end GM F-body, I just don’t see Buick or Oldsmobile as brands that could work with a sporty GT car; besides, let’s go big or go home, right? Yes, we’re going to make the Cadillac of Camaros.
Attempting to differentiate between F-body siblings is not a new idea; most memorably, the pop-up headlights of the third-gen Firebird helped separate the Pontiac from the Chevy Camaro. To help breathe Fire into the Bird as sales dwindled in the back half of the 1980s, Pontiac offered the high-performance but luxury-oriented GTA model for the 1987 model year to help set it apart and elevate it from the Camaro IROC-Z – but some within the division wanted more. The answer was the “notchback” GTA model for 1988, which featured a new fiberglass hatchback to replace the all-glass rear window. It’s bit of a love-it-or-hate-it addition; for me, the notchback looks better than I thought it would, yet it still seems a bit wrong. Only 718 units were sold before the notchback disappeared in 1989.
My Cadillac Camaro is the Solitaire, a name taken from the late-eighties show car that we’ll steal some design details from.
I’ve kept the notchback idea but continued the sail panels back very slightly from how they are on the Firebird, and I’ve made them a bit less upright. A new rear tail and an angled upper section that fits better with the new rear hatch than the abrupt Kamm tail of the Firebird create a more integrated look. Black “fake window” trim panels have never been my favorite thing, but here I’m using them to lighten the look of the thick “B” pillar in a manner not unlike the early Fieros did.
The nose is inspired a bit by the Solitaire show car with a low, rounded grille and thin composite headlamps. They’re so thin that 1980s technology would likely have required power-raisable “eyebrows” to hide actually-taller headlamps to create the squinty visage. (But the lamps could still work as flash-to-pass lights in the daytime with the eyebrows lowered). Wraparound turn signals feature cornering lights, and the smooth-faced Cadillac alloys are a tasteful addition that I fear some owners will shitcan and replace with chrome wire rims shod with Vogue whitewalls. That’s a yikes for me, but hey, when you buy a car, you get to do what you like.
The back of the Solitaire show car would be echoed in the Camaro Cadillac’s clean rear shape with a high-mounted full-width thin taillight “bar” and even a central pointed crease that even recalls the iconic tail of the 1967 Eldorado. Note that the car in this view has the F-body “T” top option, and another twist: the rear backlight can open. As you’re putting the roof panels in the trunk, you fold around and click the backlight in place under the flat part of the hatchback, giving you the equivalent of a convertible with a large targa bar.
Inside, we’ll start with the typical Firebird/Camaro F-body dash, like this top-of-the-heap GTA instrument panel:
The all-new dash would utilize a Buick Reatta/Rivera touchscreen for climate and radio functions, with the added benefit of being hooked to an industry-first rear-view camera (the camera would be mounted behind the electrically pivoting logo in the taillights to keep it clean so you don’t get a big blurry screen when you pop it in reverse as on most modern cars). Digital instrumentation includes a speedometer and warning lights on an “upper” level and a full set of reconfigurable displays below (push buttons next to the speedometer switch modes of the gauges below). For fun, we could make stick available as a no-cost option over the automatic even if they would likely only sell a few dozen of them. I tried going full Knight Rider with the dash but that just isn’t Cadillac.
Better Than A Cimarron, At Least
None of the technology or tweaks to the F-Body would have been inexpensive, but compared to building bodies in Italy and flying them to Detroit (as was done with the infamous Cadillac Allante) the Solitaire would have been dirt cheap. Rear wheel drive and some semblance of a back seat would have been Solitaire features lacking in the Allante that likely helped to kill sales of that car as much as the stratospheric price. Like a Saab 9-2X or a Lincoln Mark VII LSC, you would have essentially been getting a fun car in a fancy suit from a far more upscale retailer.
Successful or not, there’s one thing I’d really like to see built, and it isn’t this. What do you say we give our Québecois builder an old C4 Corvette, a beat-up Cadillac Coupe DeVille, and let him go to town with a sawzall?
Our Daydreaming Designer Imagines Corvette Sedan And Wagon In 1978 – The Autopian
What If Ford Had Made The Mustang Mach-E A Torino Instead? – The Autopian
Is it weird I don’t hate a F body Cadillac? I mean, it’s the exact opposite of what anyone would buy from Cadillac at the time. But imagine, a roaring TPI V8 doing burnouts while having the plushiest seats and CRT, touchscreen technology blasting a “Speak and Spell” type of warning about traction control.
Your offering suffers the same issue as the Solitaire. The grille just doesn’t jive well with the rest of the vehicle; otherwise, they’d both be solid beauties.
Kind of like how I think donks, stancing, brodozers (etc) are ridiculous creations to be mocked, this rat-rod thing is a small part of car culture. I think it’s hideous but I also respect that someone had the inclination to make this crude, hand-crafted caricature of a car. Someone had a car idea that they made a reality.
Now I must rinse my eyes with bleach.
Was this car owned by Bob Zimmer’s younger brother Bubba?
Now this is the content I wanna see. Half shitpost half 1000 IQ.
Why? This Facebook Marketplace rando managed to carve two real, perfectly functional windows out of nothing on their own, so surely imaginary GM in all their industrial might would be able to do the same. Then again, maybe you’re just trying to give it some ‘Cadillac heritage’.
https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/2024-cadillac-ct5-v-blackwing-100.jpg
As a point of order, I think there could be room for a decent GT at Buick or Olds, it wouldn’t be that big of a stretch from something like the Toronado Trofeo or Riviera T-Type (or the Reatta or later Aurora). But, between a worthy competitor to the Mark VII or something to draw a few import buyers, it absolutely makes sense to go with the top tier brand. I want a Mark VII, so I’m a bit sad this doesn’t exist.
Also, I’m listening to the C4/DeVille mashup, sort of an update to the Corvorado.
http://imcdb.org/vehicle_17906-Chevrolet-Corvette–Corvorado–1973.html
This is fun. Cadillac a Fiero next, then an El Camino.
Somebody Already Cadillac’d a Fiero.
Its called the Zimmer Quicksilver, its on a stretched Fiero platform:
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1809730665107140608/_G2fz5Ie?format=jpg&name=small
They made a few, when they do come up for sale they’re less than 20K and are pretty freaking retro-cyberpunk. Almost Syd Mead.
At our local Cars and Coffee gathering is a 60’s Ford Falcon with a newer (probably C6?) Corvette drive train, the whole thing. The seats and dashboard are pushed back to accomodate the larger engine. The local builder got tired of being pulled over in the Corvette, so crafted a sleeper Falcon. He said it took him 12 weeks to build it. The only outward giveaway is the wider wheel width.
Actually those front end pieces including the fenders and maybe a bit of the hood are from a 1980 or so Eldorado, not a midsize Buick. https://www.hagerty.com/valuation-tools/cadillac/eldorado/1980/1980-cadillac-eldorado that has the right grill texture and V shape, they seem to have cut it on either side of a pair of the horizontal pieces and then trimmed some off of each end.
Got to admit they did a lot of work and were committed to their vision, which may or may not have been affected by apparently strong mind altering substances.
I am going to have nightmares.
Also… if you want to daydream about something… my vote is Modern cars as 70’s Group 5 sportcars like the Porsche 935.
You know what’s amazing? The miracle that I was able to type this comment despite, just mere seconds ago, gouging my eyes out after having gazed upon that abomination. I’m blind and writhing in pain and trauma, and yet I can still type with minimal mistakes.
Too bad I didn’t get to see the Cadillac/Camaro mashup, I think it could have been cool.
Beautiful, I’ll take that Caddy and give you good money for it! For our backyard artisan, I’ll take that one too for much worse money. Nicely done by both of you!
I like everything but the grille on your design. It makes the front look like it has buck teeth. Was there an alternate that toned it down?
I think the original car would fit the Ambitious, but Rubbish from the Top Gear folks.
The builder put a lot of work into that…vague resemblance of a car.
The design of the Cadillac would have made young me say “Cadillac’s aren’t just for old people” and have me trying to figure out how to afford one.
That converted Camaro really brings out the hefty, deep-throated “ick” in Buick.
Otoh, I dig the Firellac Broghoumaro. And you’re god-damned right I’d be putting a set of Vogues on that thing. I’d keep the rims though – they look F’n sweet!
I’m most struck by how the interior looks like a better version of an actual period Cadillac. I remember the flushness of everything and how they had a certain non-fussy, clean look. This takes that to a level beyond GM’s then-quality.
It’s a bit angular even for my tastes but you know that’s what they would do and I had to stay true to the 80s aesthetic.
I think the camaro looks way better as a cadillac than a buick…
https://24hoursoflemons.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lemons_NCM_Caddy017.jpg
https://24hoursoflemons.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lemons_NCM_Caddy033.jpg
(from https://24hoursoflemons.com/blog/greatest-lemons-cars-2017-season/)
and that they’re also almost always one of the top 5 cars helps too.
I have seen that car in action. It hauls ass.
I vote “yes” for the Cadillette.
I had a friend who had a dark red GTA with the gold BBS like the one pictured (except with the glass hatch) and another who had a Formula 350 in blue and I thought those were decent looking for what I took as otherwise pedestrian cars for the ubiquity at the time, but now that there aren’t so many of them around anymore, I realize that they deserved more appreciation from me, at least in terms of aesthetics.
What they be smoking up there in French Canadia?
Something in-between the backyard pookie and the dankest shit if experience is anything to go on.
My God, that is so much work for such a horrendous result. Was the Firebird really that much cheaper than just buying a used Grand Prix or Toronado or Regal or Cutlass Supreme? Unless the car was totalled and this was a case of piece it back together with what was sitting around the yard, but there’s too many small details for that
its here and I can are often justifications for terrible ideas. 😀
It looks like something built by someone who had a lot of parts, but only a vague idea what car looks like. Sorta like that that twisted sister in the Star Trek episode, “The Menagerie.”
I think those taillights are actually from a Chrysler Cordoba. https://www.flickr.com/photos/myoldpostcards/7674078276
possibly, but look at that bend on the front surface about a quarter way up from the bottom.
The seal in the middle throws me. It isn’t a coin like the cordoba.
Maybe not!
Too bad the Autopian didn’t have a tail light obsessive to consult on this issue.
Honestly, I think I would have bought it if someone had shown me that design of yours and told me it was an “almost built” Caddy in the 80s. Well played good sir. Well played.
Never seen the GTA notchback before. What an odd horrendous and amazing factory option. Thanks for that tidbit.
It actually ended up looking a bit too much like a toned-down Zimmer Quicksilver.
Yeah the notch’s were pretty rare but they are so fugly but there are turd gen guys that love them I am not one though.
It also looks very much like the fiberglass that it is.
They seemed to disappear quickly, too. I remember there being a couple around when they were new, then poof, like Keyser Soze, they were gone and I haven’t seen one since. I guess they were lighter, but they lost weight where one probably wanted it, the B pillar looked way too big and the cut line made it look cheesy, but perhaps the worst part was that the fiberglass looked like it was a kit that came from a JC Whitney catalog, and they had problems with them. I didn’t even know they were a factory (outsourced) thing until someone told me and I was skeptical due to how cheap it looked.
I mean, it was “factory” as in factory sanctioned but very much an aftermarket piece. F cars of this era did seem to disappear pretty quickly, likely due to theft and overzealous drivers.
Yeah, I think it was ordered through the dealer and some outsource company built them. I don’t know if they built up stock or they were all special orders and I don’t know if that’s because I forget or never knew. IIRC, the deck looked wavy or saggy or something that marked it out as cheap and my original thought was that someone broke their hatch and that (what I thought was a) kit was a cheaper solution. Then I saw another one and I started to wonder about the local tap water quality.
If you click on the link in the post, you’ll see that it was a company called Auto-Fab in Auburn Hills that made the parts for them.
OK, yeah, it appears it was special order only and there were aftermarket versions. No idea which I saw if the aftermarket ones looked close enough to the OEM outsourced ones.
That Buickamaro needs to Banzai itself across the 8th dimension.