World's most expensive Cadillac: $1.275 million, gold-plated, one-of-one

Cadillacs were all the rage back in the day. Everyone had one, and those who didn’t have one wanted one. At the peak of their popularity, GM was selling hundreds of thousands of Cadillacs a year, turning the brand into the ultimate American symbol of wealth and success.

But if a regular Cadillac wasn't quite extravagant enough for you, there was always the option of doing what Harry Birdsall and Joe Mascari did: take one, throw virtually every restraint out the window, and build your own. That's exactly how the 1953 Cadillac Elegante came to be.

This wasn't a secret GM concept or some forgotten production model. It was a one-off, privately commissioned grand tourer built on a Cadillac Series 62 chassis, with its body designed by Albrecht von Goertz and hand-formed in Italy by Turin coachbuilder Carrozzeria Motto. It took 30 months and a reported $30,000 to create – an absolutely eye-watering sum in the 1950s – before making its public debut at the 1955 New York International Auto Show.

And "extravagant" barely begins to describe it. There's an electrically/hydraulically operated disappearing hardtop, a Lucite steering wheel, Italian leather, a wraparound windshield, and enough gold-plated trim to make Midas blush.

The whole thing was essentially an American Cadillac crossed with an Italian coachbuilt exotic, at a time when Detroit was already going completely bonkers with automotive excess. Seven decades later, the Elegante has finally been put up for public sale for the first time.

And when the hammer fell at Kruse Auctions' Auburn sale, it brought in US$1.275 million, making this bizarre one-off the most expensive Cadillac ever sold at public auction. Which raises an obvious question: what makes this particular Cadillac worth more than a million dollars?

The answer involves a legendary designer, an Italian coachbuilder, a very wealthy American dream, a 16-year restoration, and a car that was apparently too outrageous even for Cadillac's golden age.

The project started with an unlikely foundation: the remains of a 1953 Cadillac Series 62 convertible that had been caught in a fire at a White Plains dealership. The bodywork was essentially a write-off, but the underlying chassis and running gear offered Birdsall and Mascari exactly what they needed for their ambitious creation.

Powering the one-off was Cadillac's own 5.4-liter overhead-valve V8, the company's latest-generation V8 for 1953. It was fitted with a four-barrel carburetor and paired with GM's four-speed Hydra-Matic automatic transmission. In standard Series 62 form, the engine produced around 210 hp, giving the big Cadillac plenty of muscle for its era.

But this wasn't built to be a sports car; the Elegante's party trick was effortless high-speed cruising rather than corner-carving. The combination of a large-displacement V8, automatic transmission, and enormous proportions was what 1950s American grand touring was all about.

For the styling, the pair brought in Albrecht Goertz, a designer who was still some way from becoming a household name in automotive design. Goertz took Birdsall's basic ideas and refined them into something far more cohesive, blending the visual extravagance of 1950s America with a distinctly European sense of proportion. A couple of years later, he'd become famous for the BMW 507, but the Elegante was one of the early projects that helped establish his reputation.

The finished shape was anything but subtle. Its body sat unusually low for a Cadillac of the period, with dramatic rear fins, a long sweeping profile and a custom four-headlight arrangement that gave the car an almost futuristic, aircraft-inspired appearance.

Turning those drawings into reality was the job of Carrozzeria Rocco Motto in Turin. Italian craftsmen spent about 30 months hand-forming the Elegante's aluminum body, while lowering the chassis by eight inches to give the car its rakish stance. The body was then finished in an iridescent mother-of-pearl white, providing a suitably extravagant backdrop for the jewelry-like detailing.

And then there was the gold. The exterior hardware wasn't merely polished or chromed. Custom bronze components, including the headlamp surrounds, door handles, and windshield frame, were all finished in 24-karat gold, giving the already outrageous Cadillac the sort of visual bling you'd normally expect from a particularly unhinged 1950s concept car.

The engineering was almost as extravagant as the bodywork. It had to be.

Partly owing to the roof. The Elegante used a heavy retractable hardtop operated by an elaborate electro-hydraulic mechanism, with the entire operation taking roughly two minutes. When the sequence was complete, the roof had disappeared into the rear of the car, turning this enormous Cadillac into an open-top grand tourer.

Step inside, and the cabin followed that excessive theme. The seats and interior were trimmed in deep burgundy Italian leather, while the steering wheel was a particularly spectacular piece of custom work: a transparent Lucite wheel with an illuminated Saint Christopher medallion embedded within it.

The car survived Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but its luck ran out shortly afterward. It had been stored beneath an open-sided Florida carport when the storm's violent winds brought the structure crashing down onto it. The damage was substantial, crushing and badly distorting parts of the carefully sculpted coachwork, including those spectacular rear fins.

It eventually found its way back to the Birdsall family. What followed was a painstaking 16-year restoration, with the aim not simply of making the Cadillac presentable again, but of returning it as closely as possible to the extraordinary machine Harry Birdsall and Joe Mascari had imagined more than half a century earlier.

The work was finally completed in 2014, and what you see here is the result. Inconspicuous luxury, exclusivity, and theatrics like no other. You’re looking at $1.275 million on four wheels.

Source: Kruse Auctions