Submitted by David Drucker
I want to tell you about the 1951 Cadillac sedan I bought in 1970. Not because it was such a wonderful car–although it most definitely was–but because of a defining experience I had behind its enormous, non-power-assisted steering wheel. First, though, let me introduce the car.
I was 21, living in Brooklyn, and needed something to replace the ‘65 Dodge Custom 880 that I had, in a fit of pique, sold. For a while I looked at first-generation Corvair convertibles which, thanks to Ralph Nader, were as cheap as cheese. I was about to answer an ad for a red four-speed when a nearby listing caught my eye. It read, “1951 Cadillac 62 sedan. Black. Good shape. $150.” I was intrigued, and not just by the price. You see, in 1970, a car from the early Fifties looked positively ancient. It made a fashion statement that your average late-Eighties sedan wouldn’t begin to duplicate today. Today, such cars seamlessly blend into the overall mix. But in 1970, a ‘51 Cadillac turned heads, big time.
So I called the number in the ad, and later that day took a look at what I knew right away was going to be my next car. Although the enormous chrome bumpers were badly pitted, the rest of the body was, indeed, in good shape, with no visible rust at all. In even better shape was the cavernous interior, which sported seat covers that, by the looks of them, had been installed when the car was new. I took it for a spin around the block, offered $125, and-–thanks to a borrowed set of dealer plates–-drove it home. There, a more thorough inspection revealed that the tires were tired, and the exhaust nearly exhausted. A quick visit to Tires Incorporated endowed the Caddy with four brand-new blackwalls, which cost me-–I swear that this is true–-$40, installed. The exhaust was merely noisy, so I left it alone.
It took me several hours to remove the seat covers, but the job was worth the effort. They had done their job very well, keeping the original wool broadcloth in as-new condition. Because the original owner had elected to save a few bucks, my Caddy had wind-up windows instead of the optional ($139) hydraulically-operated power windows. This meant that they still worked, and that the door panels hadn’t been stained by leaking hydraulic fluid. The sofa-like front bench seat, by contrast, was hydraulically operated, powered by a pump under the hood. (The same pump would have operated the windows, had that option been chosen.)
My Caddy was also equipped with the optional heater, which lived under the front seat. Its ducts sent warm air in equal measure to the front and back compartments, which is more than you can say about most contemporary heaters, and the fan was whisper quiet even at full speed. Wonderful!
Less wonderful was the steering, at least when parallel parking was part of the plan. While Chryslers could be had with power steering in 1951, it wasn’t until the following year that Cadillac offered it as an option. On the road, the big wheel and favorable steering ratio made for easy cruising. Parking, by contrast, called for serious upper body strength, or it did until I learned a) to keep the car moving while I turned the wheel, and b) to choose my parking spots with care.
Despite its 126-inch wheelbase and 225-inch overall length, my Caddy was a relative lightweight. Tipping the scales at just over 4,100 pounds, it was a full half-ton lighter than the 1966 Imperial I bought just a few years later. The 331 cubic-inch OHV V8 put out 160 horsepower, and the four-speed Hydra-Matic drive’s stump-puller first gear allowed the Caddy to leap off the line with surprising enthusiasm. Once moving, the Caddy’s most comfortable cruising speed–its “groove”–-was in the 65-70 mph range. It’s worth noting that the same basic package, in coupe form, took 10th place overall in the previous year’s 24-hour LeMans race. Clearly, choosing an old car wasn’t going to relegate me to the slow lane.
Which leads me to experience that prompted this reminiscence. I’d had the Caddy for a little more than a year, and had driven it nearly 10,000 trouble-free miles. In other words, I was comfortable with the car, and the car was comfortable with me. We (for by then my Caddy and I were definitely a “we”) were westbound on the Long Island Expressway, somewhere between the Worlds Fair site and the Maspeth tanks.
So, we’re cruising along in the left lane, doing about 65 in moderately heavy traffic, when kapow, the Caddy’s hood flew open. It cracked the windshield pretty good, and then remained in full upright position, blocking my view of the road ahead (as naturally it would, being nowhere near as transparent as the windshield). At this point, any number of scenarios could have unfolded, and all of them depended upon how I reacted to this sudden change in circumstances. I could have gone into full-on panic stop mode, standing on the brakes and hoping for the best. I could have thrown my hands in the air, closed my eyes, and screamed like a little girl.
Here is what I did: I took my foot off the gas, gently tapped the brakes a few times, and stuck my head out the window to scan the road conditions up ahead. By then I was doing about 40, still in the left lane. Next, I hit the right turn signal, twisted around in my seat and, looking out the back window, eased the Caddy into the center lane; then the right lane; and finally onto the right shoulder, where I hit the brakes hard.
All of this couldn’t have taken more than ten seconds, and none of it involved any conscious thought on my part. It was as though the initial event–the hood flying open–activated a separate part of my brain, and it directed the proceedings. I didn’t experience any adrenaline rush, and my heart rate stayed absolutely normal. It was one of those rare lessons in self-awareness, and decades later its memory gave me the confidence to put 100,000 miles on a series of huge touring motorcycles.
The ending of this story is anticlimactic, as all such endings tend to be. I climbed on to the roof of the Caddy, leaned into the hood, and managed to force it into some semblance of its original position. After tying it down with a length of rope that had been in the trunk when I bought the car, I got back behind the wheel and continued on to Brooklyn. I drove the old dear until its state inspection came due, and then the price of a new windshield forced me to scrap it. I remained Cadillac-free for a good five years, until a 1952 Fleetwood 60 Special beckoned. But that’s another story.
–David Drucker
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