Cadillac Club Estonia

This dream car was first shown in New York to a discrete audience of 5100 people starting at 4 p.m. on 19 January 1995 (the public only got to see the car next day in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf). It was the center-piece of the GM Motorama in 1955. A publicity shot shows Cadillac President and General-Manager Don Ahrens holding the door open to a pretty model; it shows also the swiveling driver"s seat, facilitating entry and egress; this interesting feature was not retained for the production Eldorado Brougham two years later, but Chrysler Corporation seized on the idea [or was it a Chrysler idea in the first place ???] and incorporated it in all their production models for 1959. The tail-fins and recessed tail-lights are in the purest Cadillac tradition; this particular design was never used on any later production models. Exhaust gasses were channeled through the ports in the rear bumper; while this arrangement eliminated ugly exhaust pipes hanging below car, it caused severe corrosion of the rear bumper ends in earlier and later production cars that used that arrangement.