1964 Cadillac Coupe Deville 2 Door on 2040-cars

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Kia Seltos, electric Cadillac and a looming Bronco | Autoblog Podcast #615

In this week's Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder, and Associate Editor Byron Hurd makes his ABP debut. This week, they start with the cars they've been driving: the Jaguar XE, Kia Seltos, Hyundai Venue and Ford Escape. Then they dig into the news, including an upcoming Cadillac EV, Lincoln and Chevy sedans and the Ford Bronco. Finally, they help a listener replace his Jeep Patriot in the Spend My Money segment. Autoblog Podcast #615 Get The Podcast iTunes – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown Cars we're driving: Jaguar XE 300 R-Dynamic S Kia Seltos Hyundai Venue Ford Escape Cadillac bringing EV to New York Auto Show Chevy and Lincoln dealers say they still want sedans Ford tells dealers the Bronco is weeks away from its global debut Spend My Money Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on iTunes Related Video: 2020 Ford Escape 2.0T #POV drive

Liberace's gilded Cadillac could be yours

With their chrome grilles and oversized wheels, it's hard not to notice a Cadillac these days. But this one is even more blingtastic on account of the 23.75-karat gold-leaf bodywork.
The 1931 Cadillac Golfer's Drop Head Coupé is said to have belonged to the inimitable performer Liberace, who didn't just have it covered in gold - he also had the exterior door handles plated in silver and the inside handles in 24-karat gold as well. It's also got a white leather interior and headlights that - well ahead of their time (if you'll pardon us, Mr. Tucker) - pivot with the steering wheel. All that bling is powered by a 5.7-liter V8 mated to a three-speed automatic transmission that pales in comparison to the seven, eight and even nine-speed gearboxes appearing on luxury sedans today.
The project was undertaken over the course of three years in the 1970s by one Jack Smith from Kansas. Smith (if that was his real name) sold it at auction in 1975, and it was most recently displayed for 12 years at a museum in Germany which claimed it was Liberace's own. The car is now going up for sale by Barons' at the Sandown Park horse racing track in Surrey, England, on September 17, when bidding starts at 85,000 pounds - equivalent to over $130,000 at today's rates.

Junkyard Gem: 1976 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible

Convertibles rode high well in 1960s America, with Detroit selling more than 500,000 ragtops in 1965, but sales collapsed by the early 1970s and tightening federal crash-safety regulations made it seem less worthwhile to even bother producing new ones. Chrysler halted convertible production after 1971, with Ford following suit by 1973. By the 1976 model year, the Cadillac Eldorado was the last new American car you could buy with a convertible top from the factory, and it appeared that none would ever be built again. I've found one of those "last convertible" Eldorados in rough-but-identifiable condition in a Denver junkyard. As it turned out, the convertible never really died in America. Car shoppers could still buy new European-made convertibles after 1976, coachbuilders modified new Detroit cars with factory-grade drop-tops, and then Chrysler began selling K-Car convertibles starting with the 1982 model year. Because the '76 Eldorado appeared to be the absolute end of the convertible line, however, buyers thought they were investing in a sure-fire collector car that would be worth vast sums in the not-very-distant future (this belief led to lawsuits against GM later on, when the Cadillac Division resumed production of the Eldorado convertible for 1984). While a one-of-200-made Bicentennial Edition Eldorado with red-white-and-blue trim really is worth plenty these days, an ordinary 1976 Eldorado in beat-up condition doesn't seem worth restoring. This car appears to have sat outside in Colorado with the top down for decades, filling with snow each winter and enduring high-elevation solar irradiation each summer. A 1960s GTO or Camaro might be worth fixing up after falling into this state of disrepair, but not one of 14,000 "last convertible" Eldorados made in 1976. GM's Unified Powerplant Package front-wheel-drive system, which used battleship-strength chains to transmit power to the drive wheels, proved to be extremely reliable on the street, joining the small-block Chevrolet engine and Hydra-Matic transmission in the pantheon of The General's Greatest Engineering Hits. Even gigantic motorhomes used this system. In 1976, the Eldorado got the last of the 500-cubic-inch (8.2 liter, or litre as GM's marketers spelled it) V8s, rated at a disappointing 190 horsepower and an impressive 360 lb-ft of torque.