“(T)he standard brakes on Cadillac’s spiffy new Eldorado are a treacherous, unsafe Achilles heel on an otherwise pleasant luxury vehicle. Even though the Eldorado is nearly identical to the Toronado in technical detail, we had expected some corrective measures would have been taken after all the car magazines and a few of the customers had griped about the Oldsmobile’s poor stopping power. But the Cadillac engineering department has such a fetish for smoothness and silence that it appears willing to subordinate all other automotive functions to placing the passengers in a silky, acoustically dead environment.
Unfortunately, this preoccupation with ‘ride’ and interior noise levels has distracted Cadillac’s engineers from other pertinent matters — like how to get a vehicle weighing 2 1/2 tons stopped from 80 mph. Our test car carried drum brakes all around and managed to smoke and slew to a halt — sideways in the road — in a pitiful 386 feet. The Cadillac people attempted to rationalize the difficulties of developing workable drum brakes for a vehicle of this size, which forced one observer to ask where they found the moral justification for marketing a car that they knew was too heavy for its brakes. The question prompted a certain amount of hand-wringing and eye-rolling, whereupon they produced a heretofore unseen Eldorado equipped with optional disc brakes. This car was much better — stopping in 312 feet with vastly improved directional stability — and was intended, according to Cadillac spokesmen, for the ‘performance-minded customer.’ This evidently means that the poor dolt who is not interested in ‘performance’ is also apparently not interested in being able to stop effectively, and would prefer a silent, smooth crash into some unyielding object rather than pay extra for a ‘sporty’ option like adequate brakes. This position is as obtuse as any that we have encountered, and the absence of disc brakes on all Eldorados is simply bad news, especially when the extra $100 added to the base price is relatively unimportant on an $8000 car.”
— Car and Driver (1966, p. 100)
RE:SOURCES
- Car and Driver; 1966. “Ford Thunderbird; Cadillac Eldorado.” November issue: pp. 42-47, 100. Posted on autohistorypreservationsociety.org.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES
- oldcarbrochures.org: Cadillac Eldorado (1967)
Also see ‘1970 Oldsmobile Toronado still suffered from handling and braking problems’
And how about the new Bronco’s brakes?
This hyped vehicle is one that falls down in the “braking department” as well. Car and Driver recently published 70-0 mph braking distance ranges for some of the Bronco models (page 58 of their Feb/Mar 23 issue) and the figures were 204 to 221 feet (the worst was the Raptor)! This is definitely on the poor side of today’s braking performance. Yes, trucks and big SUVs are the often the worst at braking, but even a Kia Forte GT stops 70-0 in 157 feet.
In fact, the Bronco’s figure is about the same as a 70 year-old car! Car and Driver (in it’s May 2023 issue) published an inquiry by “someone” as to why brake performance in general has not improved more over the past 70 years. A 1954 Studebaker Champion was cited as the US’s shortest distance record holder (by Motor Trend) at 150 feet from 60 mph in 1954. A 2022 Mercedes AMG SL63 $200,000 sports car stops in the same 150 feet (Car and Driver Oct. ’22) from 70 mph – just 10 mph more, despite huge performance tires, 4 huge rotors, ABS and 70 years of development.
Asked why this was, Car and Driver put it down to the increased weight of new vehicles, plus the 36% increase in kinetic energy at 70 vs 60 mph (most people are unaware that kinetic energy increases at the SQUARE of the speed – HUGE!). They also calculated that a ’54 Stude Champion (with 10 inch front drums and 6.40-15 bias-ply tires) would stop at just over 200 feet from 70 mph. My calculator shows that 1.36 times 150 feet is 204 feet – the exact SHORTEST distance that any ’23 Bronco stops from 70 mph as well!
So, folks, don’t condemn drum brakes JUST because they are drums, and don’t think you have the best there is in braking JUST because you have disc brakes. And please lobby Ford to fix the Brakes on Broncos.
P.S. And before you say it (about fade) – Studebaker V8’s with their finned drums had excellent fade resistance as well.
Science and Mechanics Magazine April 1956 tested both a ’56 Studebaker Golden
Hawk and a ’56 Chevrolet Bel Air Hardtop with Power Pack.
In their brake fade tests, the Studebaker was subjected to 12 consecutive tests, decelerating from 60 mph to 30 mph at a rate of 7 ft/sec squared. The pedal effort went from just over 20 pounds to just under 35. The testers remarked, “the Hawk was one of the relatively few cars we have tested whose brakes could be locked immediately
after our fade tests.”
The Chevrolet was subjected to the same test parameters. The pedal pressure’s initial 25 pounds doubled by the 10th brake application and almost tripled to just under 75 pounds by the 12th. The brake fade performance was judged as “good, though not spectacularly so”. Damned with faint praise?
The Eldorado’s brake performance sounds inexcusable!
Indeed — and GM knew it. This complacency helped fuel the rise of the imports.