Have you ever wondered or looked for legacy Cadillac design cues and hallmark ergonomics of your Cadillac FWB?

I started looking over my Cadillac and thinking about that after reading those Talisman posts last week - boy, those seats (the pattern at least) sure reminded me of my FWB.

I guess it's those deliberate, designed-in similarities that make a Cadillac a Cadillac.

The Talisman seats, mid 70s odometer cluster, and mid 70s door panels all share design similarities. Hell, if you even look at the facets of the metal work leading up to the brake light, you can even see a 62 fin!!

What have you all come to notice?

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd251/tenmark262/DSCN7258.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd251/tenmark262/7666_3.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd251/tenmark262/DSCN7249.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd251/tenmark262/9914_3.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd251/tenmark262/DSCN7259.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd251/tenmark262/CIMG4515.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd251/tenmark262/DSCN7237.jpg
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd251/tenmark262/1ff3_3.jpg

I must admit I had not noticed such similarities on the seats . They are almost same pattern lol .

The steering column is exactly the same.....

Egg crate grille, fins...

The centre crease or "spine".

Continuity of design, both inside and out, was one of the keys to Cadillac's dominace of the US luxury market in the post-WWII era until the engineering and marketing fiascos of the 1980s that nearly killed GM (and from which GM has never recovered). The egg crate grille; thin vertical tail lamps, the unbroken belt line accent crease that flowed from front to back (like the tailfin, inspired by the P-38), the center spine that runs down the center of the car. Inside, the look of the dash remained remarkably consistent over nearly four decades, especially the type fonts used for lettering and numbering. The whole point was to make the cars contempory for their times while maintaining a reassuring "Cadillac feel" that remained constant from year to year. Cadillac owners knew their cars would be fashionable while still being comfortably familiar. It was one of the things that contributed to Cadillac's high resale value. Eldorado99's SDV is a perfect example. Though clearly a product of the mid-20th century, the design is timeless, elegant, and still looks fresh today. Most importantly, it's instantly identifiable as a Cadillac.

I love how they used "Twilight Sentinel" on the switch for automatic headlamps even in the 90s, 30 years after it was introduced on the Cadillac. I actually had to look it up to see what it did...

Eldorado99's SDV is a perfect example. Though clearly a product of the mid-20th century, the design is timeless, elegant, and still looks fresh today. Most importantly, it's instantly identifiable as a Cadillac.


Thanks for the kind words :). You made some excellent points in your post, I agree with you entirely. Another thing, which may be just boiling your points down to a less elegant level: The traditional Cadillac design cues identify with a primal part of man. The size, expense (and therefore power and influence), complexity (for their time), and flowing styled lines, at least for me, feel like they are part of existence as a human, an expression of art, feeling, and emotion. They are like a fine sculpture, only better.

God I need a new driver's side door insert... Mine ripped. by the control panel.

But mine is for a 71 coupe deville.