In 1957, Cadillac didn’t merely lead the Motor City’s luxury class. It dominated and defined the category.
As we page through Cadillac’s catalogs and advertising materials for 1957, we can’t help but notice the spirit of downright arrogance. Amid the images of millionaires in Homburgs and Stetsons and ladies in fur coats enjoying their Cadillacs, the headlines swagger: “Magnificent beyond all expectations,” and “A single glance tells the story.” One of the more modest lines, in fact, is “You will make motordom’s soundest investment.”
Boasting is never good form, or so they say, but here you can see how Cadillac felt entitled to crow a little. With calendar year sales of more than 150,000 cars in 1957, the General Motors premium brand didn’t just lead the Motor City’s luxury class. It towered over the category with 50 percent more volume than Packard, Lincoln, and Imperial combined. In sales at least, Cadillac owned the U.S. luxury car market in those days, leaving the other three brands to clean up the scraps.
Underneath, Cadillac in ’57 was the first GM division to employ the cruciform or X-style chassis frame, developed in partnership with the industry’s leading frame manufacturer, A.O. Smith, which allowed GM body engineers to drop the footwells and roofline several inches. The Eldorado Brougham (above) also used GM’s new pneumatic suspension on all four wheels, while the rest of the line got by with leaf springs at the rear that year. Neither the air springs nor the X-frame ultimately proved out, however, and Cadillac adopted a conventional perimeter frame in 1965.
The brand’s all-new sheet metal for ’57 was crafted by veteran Cadillac studio chief Ed Glowacke and crew, blending elements from previous Motorama show cars. Cadillac’s semi-custom Eldorado models, the Brougham, Seville, and Biarritz, were treated to their own unique sheet metal as well. The Eldorado Brougham (see our feature here) was the first GM production car to wear the industry’s new 5 3/4-inch quad headlamp system.
The base model Sixty-Two four-door hardtop was Cadillac’s biggest seller in MY 1957 with more than 32,000 vehicles delivered. At $4,713, it cost more than twice as much as a new Chevrolet Bel Air, and when we say “base model” we note that Hydra-Matic, power steering, and power brakes were all standard. The most expensive Cadillac for ’57 was the limited-production Eldorado Brougham, which at $13,704 cost more than the average new home that year ($12,200). The well-dressed Fleetwood Sixty Special (above and below) was another big seller at 24,000 units—despite the steep list price of $5,539. But then it was motordom’s soundest investment.
