Building the 1976 Cadillac SevilleBuilding the 1976 Cadillac Seville, the company's target car was now the 1973 Mercedes 280SEL. One preliminary styling proposal tried to make a Seville out of the German Opel Diplomat, per Templin's wish. This work was done in Cadillac's Advanced Studio, downstairs in the GM Design Staff complex. Cadillac Advanced was under the direction of Wayne A. Kady, creator of the 1971 Eldorado.
The Opel idea didn't last long, so Kady's staff next attempted to transform the X-car into Cadillac's new baby. Part way through that work, Kady got transferred to head up the Buick production studio, at which point Stanley F. Parker took over Cadillac Advanced, and started doing a longer Seville on the other side of Kady's Nova-like clay model. This version had longer doors and more rear-seat leg room.
Ed Cole questioned the cost of stretching the X-body, especially since an insert would have to be welded into the Nova floorpan, and the doors would have to be unique. "Well, Ed," said Mitchell's director of design, Irv Rybicki, "it will carry the Cadillac name." Cole promptly okayed Parker's longer format.
Meanwhile, before Kady left, his Seville theme car had been a semi-fast-back sedan. This sedan became a strong contender for production and eventually made it into fiberglass. The other serious candidate was Stan Parker's rendition of Wilen's La Scala.
Parker recalls that when Mitchell returned from one of his trips to England, " ... we had the [Seville] in clay, and Bill came rushing in and said, 'Goddamit, Parker, make that backlight damn near vertical. Make it look like a Rolls-Royce!' I said to myself, 'Well, maybe the guy's gone bananas,' but we tried it, and it worked."
In July 1973, Gordon Horsburgh, Cadillac's marketing director, held a research clinic in Anaheim, California. He trucked out the two full-sized fiberglass models of proposed Sevilles -- Kady's semi-fastback and Parker's notch-back -- and put them on display to sample the reaction of a specially selected audience. Half the participants were owners of European luxury cars, notably Mercedes, and the other half drove American luxury cars. Also on display were a new Mercedes and a BMW. Horsburgh recalls that, "The notchback Seville fiberglass model clearly won." That meant "go" for Stan Parker's proposal, the version that would see production.
By that point, however, all body-design work had to be finished in four short months, a seemingly impossible task. Donald W. Logerquist, who had been Kady's assistant on Cadillac's advanced staff, remembers the Seville program was so rushed that Parker's studio worked in two overlapping, 12-hour shifts, one directed by Parker and the other by Logerquist.
"Stan's people would come in at 8 A.M. and stay until 8 P.M. Our shift would start at 6 P.M. We'd work together with Stan's guys for a couple of hours, and then continue on our own until six in the morning." The pace was so grinding that a number of designers and modelers opted out. That's why Wilen called them "the poor guys downstairs."
Finally, Parker's people had the Seville in a near-finished state, and it went back upstairs into Wilen's studio for final release. Notes Wilen: "We had the first 10 minutes of the game and then the two-minute drill at the end. I only did the kickoff and the final drill. Parker and Kady did everything in between ... the whole thing, actually. The Seville had to be one of the toughest assignments I know about."
1976 Cadillac Seville StylingThe 1976 Cadillac Seville styling pioneered what came to be called the "sheer look," which turned out to be highly influential both within General Motors and throughout the industry. The term hinted at sheer stockings on a woman's legs: a smoothly filled, neatly packaged surface. It also took meaning from the sheer face of a cliff, as seen in the car's steep drops over fenders, grille and roof.
The Seville was designed to appeal to younger but conservative luxury-car buyers, so ornamental brightwork was limited to wheelcovers, rocker moldings and bumper strips. Early cars were even sold only with medium gray paint and gray leather upholstery. Like Mercedes and BMW, the new little Cadillac wore very little "jewelry" inside or out.
A padded vinyl roof was standard, however -- and had to be. This was because Fisher Body took the forward portion of the X-car roof stamping and simply welded on the Seville's unique sail panels and vertical backlight. There was no easy way to hide the welds except to cover them, so that's what Fisher did.
Overall, the 1976 Seville looked nothing like the inexpensive Nova. Its styling won a number of awards soon after the car's debut. Among them were Fortune magazine's designation as one of the 25 best-designed products in the U.S. and the Parsons School's prize as one of the 10 most beautiful automobile designs of the previous half-century.
The squarish, uncluttered sheer look appeared next on GM's downsized 1977 full-size cars, among them the Chevrolet Caprice and Impala, as well as Cadillac's own DeVilles. It also turned up at Ford on everything from the Fairmont to the Continental, and at Chrysler in the 1979 New Yorker/Dodge St. Regis, which were unabashed copies of the Seville.
The Seville ended up 27 inches shorter than a 1975 Sedan de Ville, eight inches narrower, and nearly 1,000 pounds lighter. Even at that, it still weighed 4,341 pounds. Some of that weight came from sound deadening and extensive rustproofing. The cowl, both rear quarters, the wheelhouses, and all door outers used Zincrometal-steel coated with zinc on the inside. Inner and outer rocker-panel surfaces were fully galvanized, as were most rear-end sheetmetal stampings, and hot wax was sprayed into all hidden body cavities.
1976 Cadillac Seville Specifications and FeaturesThe 1976 Cadillac Seville specifications and features included interesting innovations. One was body bolts that used micro-encapsulated epoxy. When these bolts were tightened at the factory, the little capsules popped, the epoxy oozed out, and then hardened in place. Lock washers weren't needed. GM soon began using micro-encapsulated body bolts on other car lines.
Oldsmobile supplied the Seville's 350-cubic-inch ohv V-8, but Cadillac added an intake manifold of its own design, plus Bendix electronic fuel injection. The latter employed sensors for engine and ambient-air temperature, throttle position, vehicle speed, and manifold air pressure, plus a computer (or ECU, for "electronic control unit") that rested underneath the passenger's seat. Two fuel pumps, one inside the 21-gallon gas tank and the other mounted to the chassis, along with a pressure regulator and return line, fed the engine fuel rails. Each of the eight injectors shot atomized gasoline into the manifold just ahead of an intake valve.
This Bendix system was a speed/density type rather than the more modern mass-airflow design, which requires more computer memory. The Seville's ECU had to compute only one thing: injector band width (duration) versus manifold pressure. The number of injections per unit of time was tied directly to engine speed. The Seville V-8 delivered 180 horsepower at 4,400 rpm, 10 more than the Olds version with four-barrel carburetor.
Although the Seville arrived with a catalytic converter, fuel metering was so precise that the engine could pass 1976 California smog standards without one. But the main benefit of electronic fuel injection was improved drivability. Cars of the early Seventies typically suffered from hard starts, hesitation, and dieseling. The Bendix system solved those ills, although a few early CPUs failed in the field. The failures prompted Bendix and GM to add redundant and "limp-home" circuits.
The Seville's only available transmission was the three-speed Turbo Hydra-Matic 375, a smaller version of the THM 400. Brakes consisted of 11-inch discs up front and wide 11-inch drums aft. The live rear axle came directly from the Nova, but used a relatively high 2.56:1 differential ratio, which helped fuel economy. Mileage estimates ranged from 17 to 21 mpg, which for a 1976 Cadillac was phenomenal. Full-sized Cads were still turning in single-digit fuel figures.
Seville road tests put the car's 0-60-mph acceleration at around 13 seconds. Top speed ranged from 112 to 118 mph. These numbers rivaled those of the Mercedes 450SE. Magazine editors agreed that the Seville had better handling than most U.S. cars, but still wasn't up to its European competitors. The variable-ratio steering was admirably fast but lacked precision. Other than that, the car was quiet, the ride felt good, and the entire package seemed amazingly well put together. Assembly took place at Cadillac's Clark Avenue West plant in Detroit at the rate of 14.5 cars an hour.
One thing the Seville didn't lack was standard equipment, though a few journalists wondered whether Cadillac had not substituted gadgetry for substance. Where were the four-wheel disc brakes, they asked. And this was Detroit's idea of an "international" sport/luxury sedan's instrument cluster? The panel contained a speedometer, a fuel gauge ... and that was it! Where were the tachometer and gauges for oil pressure, volts, and temperature? Why must America's most expensive car have idiot lights?
1976 Cadillac Seville ProductionNow we consider the 1976 Cadillac Seville production details.
For starters, there were some raised eyebrows about the Cadillac Seville's base price of $12,479. That seemed very steep when Cadillac's full-size 1975 Calais started at $8,184, the Eldorado coupe cost $9,935, and the Eldo convertible $10,354. Says Bob Templin: "There were still some people in the marketing department who maintained that smaller's got to be cheaper. They felt the Seville had to come in under the DeVille if it's going to sell.
"Well, by the time we put in all the engineering effort, even though we got the Nova body shell, but after we reskinned it and spent all that money on the exterior tools and stuff, the numbers were adding up. It was not going to be an inexpensive car. We said, 'Okay, let's throw the book at this car, put on every goody we can think of ... let's doll it up and make an absolute slick thing out of it, and price it above the DeVille.' So that's where we ended up."
"We introduced the Seville on the West Coast," Templin continues, "and I went to a couple of dealer introductions. These were by invitation only. The dealers had invited all their loyal customers. One dealer in Burlingame [just south of San Francisco] actually had a fountain with running champagne. It was a real event.
"The car took off in California like gangbusters. If a customer came into a dealership for regular Cadillac service, they'd let him drive a Seville home as a loaner. After his wife drove the Seville, she wouldn't give it up. The car was an absolute revolution for a lot of people. The thing was just so solid on the West Coast and, of course, it became a financial success very quickly. Any doubts anybody had about paying for the Seville's tools or about the car not succeeding in the marketplace [were erased once] the car took off and was very, very successful."
That's certainly true. According to Automotive News's annual industry reviews, Seville calendar-year production came to 36,826 in 1975; 39,275 in 1976; 49,190 for 1977; 59,794 in 1978; and 48,295 for 1979 (during which production shifted to a front-wheel-drive second-generation model). California remained the Seville's main market, consistently capturing 35 percent of total sales. Demand was also strong in Florida and along the upper eastern seaboard. It tended to be weakest, according to Gordon Horsburgh, in middle America, where large cars still ruled.
The 1977 Cadillac Seville Around the WorldWhat was the impact of the 1977 Cadillac Seville around the world? The Seville nameplate was not exactly a novelty when it was applied to Cadillac's new challenger to the luxury imports. The division had previously used the name from 1956 through 1960 on the two-door hardtop in the Eldorado line. But neither was it an automatic choice for the new car.
Two other names seriously considered were St. Tropez and LaSalle. But F. T. "Ted" Hopkins, Cadillac general sales manager, and Gordon Horsburgh, the division's director of marketing, dissuaded those who favored LaSalle by pointing out that the original LaSalle automobile had failed in the marketplace, whereas the Seville had not.
Besides, LaSalle was the name of a then-prominent French communist, and the term la salle ("the room") was also used for "bathroom" in French. St. Tropez fell away, and Seville won out.
A little-known sidebar to this success story began in 1977, when the Shah of Iran suggested that Sevilles be built in his country. According to Templin, "The Shah wanted a more cost-effective luxury car for his generals, and we heard that he had 1,000 generals in his army. Complete cars were delivered CKD [completely knocked down] in wooden crates and reassembled in Iran. The assembly operation was owned by a friend of the Shah. We don't know how many got built or paid for, because the Shah was deposed soon afterward, and the operation closed. The CKD kits had a special engine, however, with no emissions or fuel-economy constraints to meet which gave it a much higher top speed."
Cadillac's "international" car was also sold fully built in England and continental Europe, though with just 2,000 units assigned for export during the first production year. The UK price was £10,000 (then equal to around $20,000) fully equipped, including right-hand drive. But the car still impressed the normally nationalistic British. Autocar even dared a comparsion test between the Seville and the vaunted Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, judging the Cadillac "more modern in line and styling" and "a vastly different animal from the average mass-produced American car." A bit later, Britain's Car magazine praised "very good steering" that "lets you use every inch of a narrow road with precision. There is so little body roll that passengers are scarcely aware of it, and the all-disc brake system is beyond criticism."
Rear discs were substituted for drums on the 1977 Seville, which also wore a grille composed of fine vertical bars instead of the 1976 model's Cadillac-traditional eggcrate format. Also new were two extra-cost wheel covers, one with a turbine-vane look, the other simulating wire wheels. Finally, a painted metal roof became available as a no-cost alternative to the padded top, Fisher having by now found the money to tool a weld-free roof. Air conditioning and automatic level control remained standard. A power trunk-lid pulldown and power-sliding glass AstroRoof remained among the few factory options. Base price rose to $13,359.
The 1978 Cadillac SevilleA more luxurious 1978 Cadillac Seville, the Elegante, arrived after its debut the previous April at the New York auto show. The production Elegante came with a non-padded roof, chromed Dayton wire wheels, full-length brushed-chrome beltline moldings, and a choice of two color schemes: Sable Black over Platinum, or Western Saddle Firemist metallic over Ruidoso Brown.
Inside were perforated leather seating areas trimmed in vinyl, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, and a center console with a folding armrest, a writing tablet, and space for a phone or cassette tapes. The standard Seville got the chrome wires as a new option, and sail-panel opera lamps became available, as on larger Cadillacs. External changes on the standard Seville were limited to rear accent paint stripes and engraved taillight emblems, shared with the Elegante.
Another 1978 addition was the Seville's optional Delco trip computer. This presaged modern trip computers and could be called upon to provide information on instant fuel mileage, overall fuel mileage, fuel range, and estimated time of arrival.
But perhaps the most startling 1978 news was the midyear addition of an optional diesel V-8. This, too, was a 350 built by Oldsmobile to Cadillac specifications, but delivered only 120 horsepower versus 170 for that year's gasoline V-8. It made considerably more torque, however, and returned far better mileage: 21 mpg city and 30 highway by EPA estimates.
That extra thrift didn't come for free, however, the diesel adding $2,286 to the $14,161 base-model price. In retrospect, the diesel option seemed another timely move in 1978, considering the energy crisis that was about to break the following year. The engine was soon offered in other Cadillacs, but almost from day one, the Olds diesel was plagued by all manner of troubles that frustrated customers and tarnished Cadillac's reputation.
Lincoln, meanwhile, had followed the Seville's lead by introducing the 1977 Versailles, essentially a Ford Granada sedan with plush interior and full-house equipment. But this Lincoln was no threat to Seville, which outsold the Versailles in 1977 by three to one, and in 1978 by about seven to one.
The 1979 Cadillac SevilleThere were virtually no changes for the 1979 Cadillac Seville, though inflation swelled the base price to $16,224. Cadillac's emphasis that year was on its first downsized Eldorado, hence the lack of attention to Seville. The Elegante was still around, though as a $2,755 option package.
The 1976-1979 Seville proved to be highly profitable, according to Gordon Horsburgh. It was also extremely influential, not just in terms of styling but also in making it easier for GM to downsize its other big-car lines with no loss of sales. Indeed, to the delight of all concerned, Cadillac's new 1977 DeVilles and Fleetwoods were even more popular than their larger predecessors.
Before the Seville, downsizing was a topic of tremendous controversy. More was riding on this gamble than just the Seville, but its swift, clear success helped make the case for smaller cars throughout GM and, in fact, throughout the U.S. auto industry.
The first-generation Seville continued in production for more than four years. By 1979, the K-car platform, as it was called, was starting to look dated, so Bill Mitchell added two doors and a distinctive bustleback rear end to the trim new E-body Eldorado coupe and turned it into his last noteworthy production car, the 1980 Seville.
Interestingly, this second-generation model had originated in Wayne Kady's advanced studio at the same time as the original 1976 Seville. It had what Mitchell called the "London look," which mainly referred to a sloped trunklid and deeply drawn "knife-edge" C-pillars in the style of certain Hooper-bodied Rolls-Royces. The 1980 Seville received mixed reviews at its launch and still provides a controversial cap to Mitchell's GM career. Even so, the 1981 Imperial and the 1982 Lincoln Continental copied the bustle-back, and the second-generation design lasted six years before Cadillac returned to a more 1976-like theme with a smaller new Seville for 1986. That season, though, the sheer look took a definite hit as Ford introduced the next styling trendsetter, the first Taurus.