Why was Wayne Kady’s favorite design the 1971 Cadillac Eldorado?

In a recent interview, Wayne Kady was hesitant to name his favorite car design among those he had worked on during a 38-year stint at General Motors, saying that was like picking a favorite child. However, he ultimately pointed to the 1971 Cadillac Eldorado.

This was partly because the second-generation Eldorado was “the first car that I was responsible for,” Kady told moderator Ken Gross at a Savoy Automobile Museum (2024) event in Georgia. His challenge as chief designer was to “make a car with what we had to work with.”

That included using GM’s B-body as well as a portion of the regular Cadillac’s front bumper. The Eldorado had previously shared the somewhat smaller — and sportier — E-body with the Buick Riviera and Oldsmobile Toronado.

Kady acknowledged that GM could have done more

In a separate interview with Adam Wade of Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History, Kady said that coming up with a unique look was particularly important because the Eldorado shared major components such as a windshield, cowl and convertible roof with GM’s full-sized cars from Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac.

“There were so many parts that were common between all the other divisions that there might have been more money to spend to make it more unique,” Kady said with understated diplomacy (Wade, 2023b).

Kady liked the proportions of the longer wheelbase

The Eldorado initially had a regular hardtop roofline that was reportedly shared with the Oldsmobile Toronado (Wade, 2024). However, late in the development process the Cadillac was given an opera window. Kady didn’t know whether this was a cost-saving measure, but it did eliminate the need for roll-down quarter-window mechanisms (Wade, 2023a).

Although the 1971 Eldorado was less than one inch longer than the previous year, its wheelbase was stretched 6.3 inches. Kady did not know if that was due to cost considerations or packaging, but he said “that was a good thing because I think that the proportions looked better with a longer wheelbase” (Wade, 2023a).

Among the design features Kady appeared to be most proud of were the beveled hood and side sculpting that evoked the outboard fenders of classic cars. “I was pretty happy with the look of the car, what for all we had to deal with,” he concluded (Wade, 2023a).

Eldorado was overshadowed by Lincoln’s Mark series

The second-generation Eldorado was produced from 1971 through 1978. Kady described it as a success, telling Gross that its sales were much higher than the 1967-70 models (Savoy Automobile Museum, 2024).

That was true — luxury personal coupes saw booming sales in the 1970s. However, from 1972-78 the Lincoln Continental Mark IV and V consistently outsold the Eldorado. This was the first postwar Lincoln that beat Cadillac, which had utterly dominated the luxury-car market. This key fact did not come up in either Gross’s or Wade’s interviews of Kady.

1967-78 luxury personal coupe production

GM blurred brand DNA of Eldorado and Toronado

Another topic that deserved more discussion was why the Eldorado’s styling was a “complete departure” from the previous generation, to quote Motor Trend magazine (1970, p. 69). This deviated from Cadillac’s longstanding practice of maintaining more consistent styling themes than any other U.S. brand.

Also see ‘1971-78 Cadillac Eldorado: Collectible Automobile tells only part of the story’

Meanwhile, the 1971 Toronado adopted so many design cues from the first-generation Eldorado that, at first glance, it could have been mistaken for a new Cadillac. This represented a big shift for GM, which had tended to be more careful than other American automakers in protecting the distinctiveness of its passenger-car brands. Was Mitchell primarily behind that shift or did it come from the divisions?

1971 Cadillac Eldorado

1971 Oldsmobile Toronado

1970 Cadillac Eldorado
From top: 1971 Eldorado, 1971 Oldsmobile Toronado and 1970 Eldorado (Old Car Brochures)

I get that there was pressure to give the Toronado a more mainstream persona given the weak sales of 1966-70 models. Even so, the third-generation models introduced in 1979 hinted at how it was possible do brougham while carrying over some design elements of the first-generation Toronado, such as a lower body-side crease and relatively rounded wheel openings.

Indeed, GM arguably did a better job of differentiating the third-generation luxury personal coupes than the 1971 Eldorado and Toronado.

1979 Cadillac Eldorado

1979 Oldsmobile Toronado

1979 Buick Riviera
From top: 1979 Eldorado, Toronado and Riviera (Old Car Brochures)

How did the regular Cadillac inform the Eldorado?

Another lingering question I have is why was the styling of the 1971 regular Cadillac arguably cleaner — and even sportier — than the 1971 Eldorado, which was given a baroque look more akin to the 1969-70 DeVille/Fleetwood models?

Was the basic design of the regular Cadillac solidified first, so Kady’s prime job was to differentiate the Eldorado from it? Or was head GM designer William Mitchell fixated with the outboard-fender look for the Eldorado, so Kady needed to figure out how to make that work?

1971 Cadillac Coupe DeVille

1970 Cadillac
From top: 1971 Eldorado, 1971 Coupe DeVille and 1970 Coupe DeVille (Old Car Brochures)

Kady’s interviews illustrate how corporate decisions could interact with a design team’s sensibilities to create a car. I wouldn’t describe the 1971 Eldorado as successful of a design as he did, but I can appreciate the challenges Kady went through in coordinating the project.

NOTES:

Hat tip to Dean’s Garage for reposting the above-discussed interviews (Kady, 2024). The Savoy Automobile Museum is an impressive organization in northern Georgia. Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History is an equally impressive YouTube channel produced by Adam Wade. Both have been added to our “Bibliography of Links.” Production figures are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Gunnell (2002) and Flammang and Kowalke (1999).

Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.


RE:SOURCES

Encyclopedia of American Cars

ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:

  • oldcarbrochures.org: Buick Riviera (1979); Cadillac DeVille (1970, 1971); Cadillac Eldorado (1970, 1971, 1979); Oldsmobile Toronado (1971, 1979)

5 Comments

  1. The “Four Fendered Farkle” lived in the 1971-1976 Eldorado. The rear fender vertical trim harkened back to the 1950-1956 Cadillac trim.

  2. I would be cautious about over analyzing what a designer may claim as his favorite design. Lots of factors which may be quite personal can be what is making their choice. Kady mentions a few of the items such has his first design he “was responsible for”, and the challenges he had to solve to cloth a platform that came with imposed issues. We don’t know but maybe it garnered special kudos from Mitchell among a multitude of personal reasons that might also include who was in the studio team, the subtle surfacing the clay modelers achieved, or other inside the studio items. Although, I do agree that this is not the car that I would want to claim as my great achievement.

    There was an article on John Betz, Oldsmobile General Manager/president or whatever was the then used title. years back in one of the automobile magazines; tried to find it on line by was unsuccessful. I remember that part of his responses was about the second generation Toro design. He had seen what the new Eldo design was doing during its development and made the decision to make more of first generation Eldo look since he believed that the new Eldo look would leave behind enough 1st generation owners that he could get them with the new Toronado.

    Although the 1966 and 67 Toronado are beloved today for their purity of design, their sales success was a challenge. In all the subsequent years of the 1st generation the revisions worked hard to obscure that original look. My read is that those in charge were not trying to honor the 1st generation’s design but to find a new solution that would have a higher acceptance.

    I do believe that the downsized versions were great. The Riv, Toro and Eldo each got unique sheetmetal and each were well done designs for their time.

    • Jeff, I dug through Motor Trend’s archives and found a road test that summed up Oldsmobile’s spin on why the 1971 Toronado looked so much like an old Eldorado. I’ve added some new text to our Toronado story (go here).

      I’m surprised that GM management allowed such blatant brand cannibalization — and that Cadillac mostly walked away from the first-generation Eldorado’s iconic styling. That went against Cadillac’s postwar commitment to design continuity. I think that this represented one of Mitchell’s bigger mistakes.

  3. Great entry on Wayne Kady and the Eldorado. I’m curious where you found the link to the Savoy’s Lecture Series event, as it’s not one the Savoy has shared-out on it’s YouTube Channel or even followers of its Facebook Page. My wife and I are members of the Savoy and attended the Wayne Kady event and I’m glad to see the video of the lecture has been posted! It was one of the missing pieces of my own blog entry on the Wayne Kady exhibit at the Savoy.

    Anyway, you have an amazing resource and I’ve enjoyed exploring it. Seeing the piece of Wayne Kady and the video pop-up in your recent article was a wonderful find.

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