1961 Eldorado Concept Motorama Show Car

[N Kahn]

Fiberglass hood.

[N Kahn]

I found two golf balls and a Traverse City Golf and Country Club pencil in the trunk hinting at the possibility that this car might well have belonged to Walter Hagen as the previous owner told me.

[N Kahn]

Home

[David King (kz78hy)]

The trim looks like the markings on my Eldorado Brougham interior pieces on the B-side.  Those were noted by body number on the EB's and I would assume your car as well.  The markings on your car were for a SO car in my opinion, but the body should also be that same number.  That is how they are tracked for assembly.  These are stall built cars, they do not go down the assembly line, so the production body tag does not really work here (554).  The unique bits came from a SO/show car build.  Not sure how to square the that production body number mixed in with a custom/show car.  That is not how the system works inside GM.  I work there today, and some of the processes are the same as 50 years ago, so that production body tag is a real mystery.

David

[David King (kz78hy)]

If your search comes back with a standard car, then you might want to order another one using that number on the interior.  XP-50110 in front of the numerical sequence was a format used for a long time, so the five digits after XP might be a way to get a hit and I used yours here as starting point.

The service that deals with the research is working with retail sales records, so a true experimental car would probably not show up there, but what the heck, you might get lucky.

Cool car none the less.

Good luck
David

[Quentin Hall]

   David,  I can't see the issue with the car being a regular production body number and the data tag not being represented by a SO code. It's obviously never been rebodied. The condition and milage and patina point to a little used original car. Obviously it was pulled from the line at some stage of production and mods were carried out in house on the interior and exterior. It shares the generic body of regular production cars as it is a mild custom not a one off body like for eg the Brougham Town car, El Camino or La Espada etc.
    Nadeen, I'd be trying to preserve this car rather than restore/renew. The overused term"barn find" is probably best shown on this car. Once you replace all the trim and paint and patina it would no doubt be stunning but there is something wonderful about seeing Hudsons name on the wheelcover . . . how do you emulate that?   Q 
PS Walter Hagan was a member of Traverse City Golf and Country Club. He also lived at the Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit. He was probably in the country club "in crowd" with Harley and Bill . Those were the days.

[N Kahn]

If your search comes back with a standard car, then you might want to order another one using that number on the interior.  XP-50110 in front of the numerical sequence was a format used for a long time, so the five digits after XP might be a way to get a hit and I used yours here as starting point.

The service that deals with the research is working with retail sales records, so a true experimental car would probably not show up there, but what the heck, you might get lucky.

Cool car none the less.

Good luck
David

Having never owned a one off car and only my second Cadillac ever, I have no clue about the where and what of these things. The car isn't an absolute distinct show car like the Pontiac Club De Mer, but I have no doubt it is the 1962 Chicago Auto Show car, it seems really implausible that the one off pieces would be reattached to another chassis but I guess anything's possible. I really hope GM can help shed some light on to what it is I own.
All I know that today's short drive brought the memories of my 61 Sedan De Ville from 1986, a car I drove on a whim to New Orleans from Florida for my FIRST honeymoon.

[David King (kz78hy)]

Quentin,

That is whole reason why a production number does not make sense.  Those are are built at the production assembly plant and that body when through the normal ordering system of a dealer ordered car.  A special car might have a plant built body, but that would be considered a buck or non production car and handled with special paper work to get it shipped to the studio, proving grounds, pre-production operations, somewhere.  With that, it would be tracked under a special number, basically the account charged for the work/body.  So the body tag would be the unique number the job was ordered under and all the special parts tracked with it.  50110 was that number.

Back in the day, behind the scenes stuff happened and if that job (554) was a special custom ordered car prepared for the best golfer in the day, and to make it happen, the car had to appear at a show or two, then I could see that happening.  There should be a SO tag though to note that, and that is why this is a mystery to me.

The build sheet will be interesting to see on this.

Still confused, but that is OK.

David

[Bob Hoffmann CLC#96]

David & others,
You keep referring to a "build sheet". Can someone please tell us what it is? A picture would be REAL nice. After I receive an answer, I'll post more on my take of Nadeems car.
Thanks, Bob

[N Kahn]

   David,  I can't see the issue with the car being a regular production body number and the data tag not being represented by a SO code. It's obviously never been rebodied. The condition and milage and patina point to a little used original car. Obviously it was pulled from the line at some stage of production and mods were carried out in house on the interior and exterior. It shares the generic body of regular production cars as it is a mild custom not a one off body like for eg the Brougham Town car, El Camino or La Espada etc.
    Nadeen, I'd be trying to preserve this car rather than restore/renew. The overused term"barn find" is probably best shown on this car. Once you replace all the trim and paint and patina it would no doubt be stunning but there is something wonderful about seeing Hudsons name on the wheelcover . . . how do you emulate that?   Q 
PS Walter Hagan was a member of Traverse City Golf and Country Club. He also lived at the Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit. He was probably in the country club "in crowd" with Harley and Bill . Those were the days.

My friend Brian, whose family owe a Corvette restoration shop is of the same opinion as you and and I. Obviously there are areas that are too damaged to be ignored but I think we I can fix those areas and still preserve the character of the car. I always gravitate towards the original cars at car shows, they are my favorite like the lines on a beautiful woman's face.

[N Kahn]

Dave, I don't think the car was built for Walter Hagen, I think he acquired it somehow, if indeed he ever did. Supposedly he donated it to his church before he died and that's where the previous owner got it. That's the story I got, I'll scan the paperwork and post it here.

[76eldo]

I agree and retract my earlier post.  Cleaned up pretty well and if you can fix a few little things and keep the original patina it makes a lot of sense.

Really cool find there.

Brian

[Guidematic]

All I can say is WOW!

Mike

[wrefakis]

back in the day a a car like this could have been customized for a high profile client thru the zone,in this case detroit,then shown at the auto show prior to delivery to the customer,cars done at the plant has a shop order with an "so" code on the vehicle,if it was done at the plant that would be the case,done at an putside vendor thru the zone,your hidden numbers could be anything from an ro number to a stock number,see shop order for 59 eldo produced with custom paint for gm engineering use

[N Kahn]

Took this picture of her last night, that's water on the ground coming out of the water pump which I'll yank tonight and send off to get rebuilt.

[Walter Youshock]

I've been following this story since day one and I really am amazed by the whole thing!  This car is truly a treasure.

I notice it looks like it has 4 fog lights and the whole front end is 1962.  The seat design really looks like the 1962 Sixty Special-series "75" broadcloth pattern.

While the car did appear at the Chicago Auto Show, with photographic proof, I wonder if it wasn't originally intended to be a Show Car but could it have been a one-off for A Cadillac or GM executive (ala LeSabre) and the car was "borrowed" for the show circuit?  Tracing it back to the factory is only part of the story.  Finding the first titled state/owner might shed far more light on the history of this magnificent automobile.  Unfortunately, title searches aren't as easy today as they were years ago.  I was able to get a copy of the original title for my '57 through PA DMV but I'm not sure they still provide that service anymore.  Each state would be different.

I have a group of photos of a '57 convertible with cloth/leather interior and the Eldorado Brougham glove box and Eldorado hard boot.  The car was called "Allegre'" but I've never found anything else about it.

[N Kahn]

I've been following this story since day one and I really am amazed by the whole thing!  This car is truly a treasure.

I notice it looks like it has 4 fog lights and the whole front end is 1962.  The seat design really looks like the 1962 Sixty Special-series "75" broadcloth pattern.

While the car did appear at the Chicago Auto Show, with photographic proof, I wonder if it wasn't originally intended to be a Show Car but could it have been a one-off for A Cadillac or GM executive (ala LeSabre) and the car was "borrowed" for the show circuit?  Tracing it back to the factory is only part of the story.  Finding the first titled state/owner might shed far more light on the history of this magnificent automobile.  Unfortunately, title searches aren't as easy today as they were years ago.  I was able to get a copy of the original title for my '57 through PA DMV but I'm not sure they still provide that service anymore.  Each state would be different.

I have a group of photos of a '57 convertible with cloth/leather interior and the Eldorado Brougham glove box and Eldorado hard boot.  The car was called "Allegre'" but I've never found anything else about it.

The front end is very reminiscent of the yet to be released 1962 but it actually isn't, the bumper and grille are unique and the hood is fiberglass laminated to the steel inner structure but it's more like a 1963 hood not a 1962. The steering wheel IS a 1962 put on the car 10 months before being put on the production models.

It's an odd specimen, that's for sure.

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

David & others,
You keep referring to a "build sheet". Can someone please tell us what it is? A picture would be REAL nice. After I receive an answer, I'll post more on my take of Nadeems car.
Thanks, Bob

Here you are Bob. It's the build sheet for my '62 Coupe deVille.

[Eric DeVirgilis CLC# 8621]

The steering wheel IS a 1962 put on the car 10 months before being put on the production models.

It's an odd specimen, that's for sure.

That's right, however the center hub medallion is unique and not used on any other production model as far as I can tell.

Hope that damn build sheet comes soon. I'm burning up with anticipation myself.

BTW- Thanks for posting all these other pics, Nadeem.

[N Kahn]

I've been waiting a long time, I don't know what's up.