There was always a Suburban or a conversion suburban

I disagree...by this time Mercedes and BMW's were all over the road in Dallas and separated the haves from the have nots.

I remember visiting Dallas in the 80's, and yes LOTS of Cadillacs on the road in that part of the country in those days. As a kid I could not separate Texans from their Cadillacs. Out here in the Pacific Northwest, we saw these quite a bit, but the most popular family haulers were Suburbans and Wagoneers.

@@TVHouseHistorian I grew up in Dallas. By the 80's Cadillacs were very much on the downward spiral as many well heeled were buying Mercedes and BMW by that time

Grew up in Plano. And yes. I remember seeing Caddys all over the Dallas/Ft Worth area at that time. Mom and dad had an 83 Seville they bought brand new. It wound up being my high school transportation. I drove that thing into the GROUND... Seemed like every other household inside our little subdivision had a Cadillac. Guess it was a "thing" for people our parents' age at that time.

I had a 93 Deville 4.9 did the water pump and it kept overheating until i went to Gm and got those 6 tabs for the coolant. Crazy

How did you do the LS swap? I have a 1984 convertible and I am interested in doing the same

No, the HT4100 was the worst engine Cadillac ever made. No redeeming qualities like the V8-6-4 and Northstar. They actually made it into a good engine with the 4.9L version.

@@maineiacman Agreed! HT 4100 is a joke for a heavy car, not enough power. GM let "Caddy Nation" down from '81 on. The '79 and '80 Eldo had a 350 Olds engine.

that HT engine blows head gaskets left and right

I'd love to see someone LS swap one of these old 70s and 80s boats and see what they can do with 400+ bhp. But unfortunately it seems like no one is doing this, cause I can't find a single video of such a vehicle. Damn shame.

I like originality. Reliability was good if we’ll maintained. We towed a boat with our 1985.

1986 Fleetwood came equipped with a 5.0 liter 307 cu.in. Oldsmobile V8. NOT the 4100 engine.

@@k.c.marshall921 I owned one. You're wrong.

I remember doing that on ours.

but you could pull what ever , an over lander with a camper trailer

The Lincoln mark vi was a way better car and way more reliable

@@warrenwinslow4266 yes but usual ugly dumpy Ford styling that ages on the showroom floor. A 45 year old GM, like a '78 Caprice, still looks good today. GM tends to out-style everyone, they had the cash, at the time.

'80 Lincolns and Marks had haunting electrical gremlin issues.

I wish the big boaty American style of luxury would come back. The closest thing we still have is the Escalade and Navigator. I don't why it was decided that luxury has to mean sporty suspension and hard seats with tight leather. I want a seat that I sink a couple inches into and can cruise for hours on the highway not feeling a thing.

@@bwofficial1776 My point exactly! Escalades and Navigators and Silverados all prove that the American love affair with big cars has not disappeared. I’ve always said if Cadillac would again build a traditional big highway beast but with modern engine, electronics and other technology, it would sell like hotcakes.

Considering the Northstar's reputation for blowing the heads, that's impressive.

@@bwofficial1776 Ikr, these old HT engines blew head gaskets more frequently than an early Northstar I'd wager, made like a third of the power, and got worse economy. It's impressive really

Northstars??? Until around 2003 their head bolts were too small resulting in head warpage and oil leaks and overheating at about the same rate as the HT4100. Sure they were bigger, faster, more powerful, but they weren't much more reliable until a lot later. There's Cadillacs from the late 90s in junkyards with less than 100k on the clock because the proper fix is about $7,000 and thus totals the car.

@@joe6096 soooo they were bigger, faster, more powerful, more efficient, and had the same level of reliability. Sounds like a massive improvement to me

The 4.9 was a nice engine in the Seville and El Dorado.

Good point. This El Dorado seems like just the car one of the older characters from The Sopranos would ride around New Jersey in especially if it is black. A mafia gangster car.

The blocks "weeped" because they were horribly cast. The casting process GM used resulted in less than solid block, that was a known issue, and GM shipped and built them anyways. The coolant would seep through the block from the water jackets into the cylinder walls. You can imagine all the fun that happens after that. Those coolant pellets were GM's answer to "fix" the weeping because in theory they dissolve and chemically bond to the metal, sealing the pours. Whether they really helped or not is debatable.

Yeah but you have to keep in mind, many of the customers going to these "slow" Cadillacs were coming from pretty darn quick ones built in the late 60s and early 70s. The Caddy 425, 472, and 500 pre-emission were all torque monsters and tire shredders. Grandpa might not have driven fast in his '70 Eldorado, but that's not because he couldn't. Then he goes to trade it in for an '83 Eldorado, and when he DOES want to go fast, he can't. Big difference in customer satisfaction there.

@@joe6096 Yes you're correct.👍 I owned a 1970 Cad Cpe Deville. Crimsom red paint job with gold metal flakes in it. Black vinyl top & black leather interior. I think it had a 472 cu. V8. Rode like silk and had giddy yap when I floored the accelerator💭.60's Eldos were nice but from 71'- 78' are by far the toughest ones ever on the road. Been hearing rumors Caddy might revive the Eldo. If in fact they do just 3 words for them...do it right! Recall Ford tried to revive 2 seater T-Bird in mid 90's? It was a flop.👎 The car was visually great looking but didn't seat tall people good and engine was very underpowered. Ford had good intentions on it but poorly executed them. Had reliability issues & didn't sell well as anticipated. Got shelved in few short years. Now Caddu is coming out with super luxury electric car, can't recall name. It's supposed to take on Bentley & Rolls Royce. Est.cost about $300+K... Uh okay now we've been down this road before with Cadillac. Remember the Allante, XLR... They've done this before tried to take on ultra, ultra luxury cars and always got mixed results at best. Don't know if a car buyer in that very exclusive car market would throw down that much on a Caddy. Guess we'll eventually see. But bottom line is Caddy needs to go back to it's roots. Stop trying to imitate German & Japanese competition so much. I'm old school as you likely can tell.😉

If I buy a luxury car, I don't want stiff suspension and hard seats. I don't care how tight it can corner. Luxury should mean sinking a couple inches into soft leather and cruising on the highway for hours without feeling a thing through the suspension.

Emission regulations, if that's new to you. They didn't have the tech to make power with low emissions unlike today. Plus the US market had got used to big engines, mostly V8's so the result was unnaturally lazy V8's & some 6 cyls.

Murica

Because GM sucked at adapting to change.

Back in the 70's and 80's it took larger displacement engines to make decent HP figures with several exceptions. Ford's 5.8 liter 351 made all of 132 HP as used in the Lincoln Versailles in the mid to later 70's. Chrysler could only manage 120 horses from a 1980 New Yorker with a 5.2 liter 318 or 130 from the 5.9 liter 360. So looking at many of the emission choked 70's and 80's V8's this much smaller 4.1 liter engine wasn't all that bad by 1982-85 standards. Note that Ford/Lincoln were only getting 140 HP from a much larger 5.0 liter 302 V8 these same years.

@@piuthemagicman Still bad even with emissions

Yeah they really are.