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Cadillac Ranch Cars

1. Cadillac Club Coupe (aka Sedanette) 1949

Chip Lord quotations:

„You can't really call it a "tailfin" but the little tail light bump on the 1948 Cadillac signals the beginning of the styling development that would come to represent the 1950's. Harley Earl, the head of styling for General Motors, was inspired by the P-38 fighter plane that performed so well during World War II.

This car was one of the hardest cars to find and it cost the most money - 700 US$ in 1974. The owner had done some "restoration" and he considered it to be a collector's car, so he wouldn't come down on the price. This fastback ran well and was in very good shape, but its silver paint job was amatuerish, and it wasn't well detailed. But we had to have it. Stanley suggested a prank be pulled on the guy, so when we went out to buy the car, we handed him the cash, and then proceeded to smash in the headlights and grille work with sledge hammers.

This was a pretty mean thing to do, but consistent with Texas style "bad-boy" humor and American rights of ownership. We left the poor guy and his girlfriend bewildered and open mouthed, standing in the alley behind his house.

A few days later we called the seller up and invited him to come out to the opening of Cadillac Ranch on Interstate 40, which took place on a hot Saturday, June 21, 1974. He showed up and had a few drinks and I guess he had some pleasure in knowing where his pride and joy ended up.“

2. Cadillac Series 62 Sedan 1950

Chip Lord quotations:

„This ivory Series 62 sedan had a green roof, and it wasn't running when we bought it at a junk yard in Dumas, Texas, fifty miles north of Amarillo. We towed it back to Amarillo. During the construction of Cadillac Ranch, we scavenged the hood ornaments and front hub caps from each of the cars as souvenirs, but we told people that breaking out the headlights was consistent with Aztec burial practices. Cadillac produced 55,352 of these sedans, making it their most popular model of the 1950's, but it is our least favorite of the ten cars. The model lineup did not change much in the first design cycle of the decade - 1950 to 1953. These four years are almost indistinguishable styling wise, and thus only one car is used to represent the cycle.“

3. Cadillac Coupe de Ville 1954

Chip Lord quotations:

„This Coupe de Ville hardtop was sky blue with a white roof and was purchased in Amarillo from a private party. We must have responded to an ad in the Amarillo Globe-Times and paid about 250 US$ for it. It was running but not very well. The car sat in the driveway of a modest house on the north side of town and it was a warm Saturday. We didn't tell any of the sellers why we were buying Cadillacs, and it was easy to look like car enthusiasts with a hankering for a Caddy.

Model year 1954 was a year of restyling at G.M. It brough longer, lower, wider, and more powerful Cadillacs. The 331 cubic inch engine got a boost in horsepower to 230. This year the gas filler cap was hidden under the tail lights - you would push in on the reflector and the tail light would pop up.

We had a little trouble lining this car up, and in fact had to take it back out of the ground after putting it in, which didn't work well at all - the frame was bent and we had to find another 1954 to take it's place.“

4. Cadillac Series 62 Sedan 1956

Chip Lord quotations:

„This was a Series 62 four door hardtop in turquoise that we rescued from a junk yard, possibly also in Dumas, Texas. It was not running and it cost 100 US$. The interior was real dusty - maybe some field mice were living in the seats. We had it towed to Amarillo where it sat in the front yard at Toad Hall, the home of Stanley 3 and Wendy Marsh, until we began putting Cadillacs in the ground on June 16. I found another '56 Sedan de Ville beside a glass shop in Amarillo, and I bought this one and drove it back to California after the project was finished. It was classic "Cadillac pink" (sometimes known as 'titty pink') and ran like a dream boat. I visited Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where the London bridge had recently been installed over a man-made lake on the Colorado River. Lake Havasu City is a place that would not exist and maybe SHOULD not exist, except for a developer's wild idea - to buy the London Bridge and transport it, stone by stone, to Arizona.“

5. Cadillac Sedan 1957

Chip Lord quotations:

„For some odd reason we couldn't find a '57, and we started building the Cadillac Ranch without this car. We knew it was absolutely neccessary to portray the styling model changes from 1956 through 1960 - these were the years when Detroit changed their designs yearly*. so we left a hole in the ground, waiting for a '57. Then on the fourth day of construction we found this salmon colored four door hardtop, also not running, and had it towed out to the site on Interstate 40. (It used to be eight miles west of the Amarillo city limits, but now the Cadillac Ranch sits on the very edge of town.) This was the trickiest installation because the car had to be put in the ground next to its final resting place and then pushed over to align it with the others. This was done with a truck winch and other primative Texas panhandle technology. But you can't tell today that this was a late arrival because it lines up perfectly with the other cars.

* The line was restyled again for 1957, inspired by the Eldorado Broughham and the Park Avenue show cars.“

6. Cadillac Sedan 1958

Chip Lord quotations:

„This was a four door sedan in sky blue that we rescued from a junk yard, possibly also in Dumas or maybe Milford, Texas. The tires were flat, so we had to pump them up, but then amazingly we were able to get it started. (With the aid of a can of carburetor cleaner). It cost 120 US$. The interior was real dusty. It was no fun driving this car the fifty miles back to Amarillo, since it had been exhumed from its grave and still gave off smells of death. Cadillac's durable V-8 was developing 310 horsepower by 1958, but this one barely made it to Cadillac Ranch. All 1958 models were available with cruise control, two speaker radio with signal -seeking, and automatic parking brake release, none of which worked on this particular car.

Previously owned by a small town Banker, or the owner of an insurance agency.“

7. Cadillac Coupe 1959

Chip Lord quotations:

Stanley Marsh 3 assisted by Hugh Russell bought a brown four-door sedan de ville with a "square top" as the first purchase towards the construction of Cadillac Ranch. The square top was a design feature that included a wrap-around rear window. When we got to Amarillo, we decided that the 1959, being the most important of all the Cadillacs, since it had the largest tail fins, should be represented by a Coupe de Ville. We searched for one, and finally found a white one in a junk yard on the north side of town. The salesman said: "it ain't got no papers, and I'll give it to you for a hundred bucks". We replied - "..if you deliver it, you got a deal." I guess he towed it over, but then we were able to get it running, and when it came time to bury it, we staged a "drive-up" for the benefit of a film crew, put a brick on the accererator, and waited for the enguine to seize- up, but it didn't. Just sort of sputtered to a stop, and we started to back-fill.

This is the car that became the logo for Cadillac Ranch and the same model that Peter Morton put on the roof of his Los Angeles Hard Rock Cafe. We sued him in 1984 for ripping off the Cadillac Ranch idea, but that's another story. The other four-door wasn't wasted - we filmed a scene with Stanley playing a drunken Leo Wyoming out at his ranch, Toad Hall. Stanley doesn't drive, but the shot called for him to get in the car and drive off. He did this on a hill, and the car rolled all the way down the slope and into a pond, where it sank with the tail fins sticking out of the water as Stanley crawled out.

8. Cadillac Sedan (Flat top) 1960

Chip Lord quotations:

It was the first car we bought when we got to Amarillo and it was purchased from 6th Avenue Motors owned by Dutch Allee (pictured). It was a four door hardtop Sedan de Ville that was white with a black and white interior. Probably cost 250 dollars. This was the first year of decline in size for the Cadillac tail fin, the styling being a refinement of the outrageous '59. Had a big trunk and also featured the square back rear window.

9. Cadillac 4 Window Sedan 1962

Chip Lord quotations:

This yellow Sedan de Ville, four window, was a cream puff that we bought from an Amarillo used car dealer, Guy Mullins Motors, for 300 $. It was the car that we drove everyday while we were making preparations for the construction of Cadillac Ranch. We probably put three hundred miles on it. It ran like a charm and the interior, in yellow brocade, was immaculate. It was kinda sad to drive this beautiful boat up to the grave, and then push it in, but that is what we did on June 19, 1974.

On Saturday, the 21st of June, Stanley threw a party to celebrate the opening of Cadillac Ranch. Luckily I had that pink 1956 hardtop, so we were able to arrive in style, in rented tuxedos and a Cadillac.

10. Cadillac Sedan 1963

Chip Lord quotations:

This gold sedan de ville was also purchased from Guy Mullins Motors in Amarillo. While it ran OK, it was way too ostentatious and piggish for us to consider driving it, so it sat in front of Toad Hall until the day of its burial. We had to jump start it, and it bucked all the way out to Helium Road, but when all was said and done it went into the ground smoothly. Cadillac upped the displacement of the V-8 to 429 cubic inches this year, but the tail fin was on the way out - a mere shadow of the space aged '59 fin. We could have kept going, but the 1966 Cadillac is really the last of that era. It has a full metal grille dashboard, and the next year they started substituting plastic knobs and dodads for the high quality interior details. From this point it was all down hill for the Cadillac and General Motors. Surprisingly, they are still in business in 1997, and they even still make Cadillacs, but I would never own one.