Remember when - Cadillacs were THE car

[packman]

Vintage ads for the apex luxury car of the 60's:

http://flashbak.com/it-commands-respect-wherever-it-travels-cadillac-ads-1960-62-379719/

I remember riding in one back then, and they were special. However, I also remember the secretary of where I worked saved for years to buy one. The glow lasted a few months and then she complained almost daily about the upkeep and the care the beast needed.

[greymattermom]

1. Yeah

My Dad could afford one, but he always bought Lincoln Continentals and Chrysler Imperials because he didn't want to look pretentious. My aunt had one that had little air conditioning vents in the back seat. I thought that was really something.

[csziggy]

2. About 1964 my parents bought a 1961 Cadillac Sedan deVille

For our trip to Washington, DC, and New York City for the World's Fair. It had been the family car for a funeral home in Panama City, Florida, and my Dad spent a whole day peeling off the funeral home logo on the back bumper.

It looked a lot like the last car in the OP, but the fins were slightly different. A black car in Florida - how stupid was that? It was the first car we had with air conditioning but during the summer it took at least twenty miles of highway driving for the thing to cool down - farther than between the nearest town and the one where we lived.

It was a great car for a long trip - my little sister sat up front with Mom & Dad and my two older sisters and I got the back seat to ourselves. If two of us crunched up a little, the third could lay down and take a nap. We could play all kinds of games as long as we didn't get noisy enough to disturb my father - and since he was going deaf even then, that was usually not a problem. The luggage for six people fit comfortably in the trunk, even on a long trip.

After that trip, the Caddy was Mom's car. I got to practice for my driver's test in it - and I took the test in that behemoth. I got extra points from the examiner for being able to parallel park that land yacht.

[rurallib]

3. Johnny Cash's story of getting his Caddy