You’ve heard of Pierre Cardin, haven’t you? Of course you have. The man was a fashion icon, and there’s no way you didn’t notice the fantastic flight attendant uniforms he made for Pakistan International Airlines in 1966, because you’re not some heathen animal. Did you know that Pierre dabbled in automobiles, too? He did, with special edition cars for AMC, a one-off Sbarro Stash, and the car I want to talk about today, the Cadillac Eldorado Evolution by Pierre Cardin.
The 1981 Cadillac Eldorado Evolution by Pierre Cardin (I’m going to shorten that to something, if I have to type that out every time I’ll pee myself in rage) was about three times the cost of a normal Eldorado at $58,000 (that’s over $200 grand today!) and was pretty significantly modified from a standard Eldo.
The Cardin Caddy (there, see, I knew I’d come up with a shorter name) took the regular, FWD Eldorado and crammed it absolutely full of luxury:
Look at that list there: lambswool carpets, a VCR (under the dash) and TV (in the rear), a wet bar with Waterford crystal and a pewter flask, 22 karat gold accents, 30 coats of lacquer, some ads not a fridge (which may be in the trunk?), and that’s not even talking about the significant body changes, like the full-width horizontal taillight replacing the vertical units of the Eldo, and a massive add-on nose with grille-covered headlamps.
Here, look at this thing next to a normal, plebian Eldorado:
Look at those side mirrors! Hot salad, this thing is bonkers. Of course, it also had GM’s legendarily lousy 8-6-4 engine, so not everything was lambswool and Waterford. But, this thing was still a remarkably grand study in opulence.
For a two-door car, a lot of that luxury was shoveled into the rear seat, because I guess you’d still expect to be driven around even in a coupé? The rear armrest seemed to house the wet bar accouterments, and even though you had to shove in your VHS copy of An American Warewolf in London in front (because the VCR is under the dash) the color television itself is between the front seats, for the rear seat passengers.
The Cardin Caddy also seems to include something that is driving me absolutely crazy, because I can’t figure out what it is:
Okay, so that’s a little Sony Trinitron TV there, and then in front of it is a glossy black panel that, when you push down on one end, pops up to give you access to … whatever that thing is?
What is that thing? It’s shaped sort of like an extruded, bold number 1, and has six black, unlabeled buttons on it, in a vertical row down the left side. The buttons seem to be the type where, when pushed, they stay in the down position, possibly until another button is pressed, which then pops up the original. I think.
I think the logo there may say “TELCO”? Could this be some sort of telecom equipment? It doesn’t appear to be any sort of car phone or anything? There aren’t enough buttons to dial, and there aren’t any grilles for speakers or microphones.
Is it somehow related to the TV or VCR? The TV’s controls are on the set itself, and while I suppose it could be a strange remote for the VCR, why not label the buttons? And it seems too big and ungainly for that.
Is it a drink dispenser of some kind? Do the buttons select one of the bottles stored in the in-trunk cooler/refrigerator? If it is a drink dispenser, wouldn’t you want some sort of drain in there, somewhere?
Maybe that’s it?
Anyway, I welcome your speculations, because I’m kind of baffled here. If it is a drink dispenser, I’d love to see how it’s actually used. If not, someone, please, tell me, what the hell is it? My local Cadillac dealer says “they don’t know anything about this car” and “please stop calling us” and “if you don’t leave the premises we’ll be forced to call the police” and all that bullshit.
Let’s figure this out.
I think it’s a radio and those are the preset buttons.
About the right size and shape for a stock market ticker tape machine.
This is a case where the sketch doesn’t quite match up with reality, seems sleeker and more modern in the rendering, but more like a gawky kit car in reality
Also, maybe this was a thing back then, Elvis’ last new car purchase before he died was an Eldorado fitted with a bar and TV in the back seat, which I assume meant he intended to be chaffeured in that as well, though there’s no records he actually ever used it before death (was stored in Colorado for use on vacations). His was, of course, the big boy model before the 1979 downsizing, but I don’t think they actually had much more interior room, if at all.
Also I had no idea the mall pizza place made cars
I was thinking drink dispenser
Man alive that front overhang.
Have you seen the cologne bottle? This was a man who knew Phallic.
It’s a Thomas Electronic Corp (TEC) PERM-A-PUB! Here’s a shot of the interior of one of the Tangerine Nazi Lover’s old limos. You see the same buttons, logo, etc
yep – appears it had little glass bottles of booze (with plastic tubing to that contraption) in it where you could push one of the buttons and get the party started
These bottles? I found the listing Torch got the photos from.
https://safrocars.com/sold-vehicle/1981-cadillac-pierre-cardin/
Not exactly roomy back there…
https://safrocars.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/81-Pierre-8.jpg
I’m thinking you pop in some steamy Cinimax movie, hop in the back seat with you date, have a few drinks and see where things go. There’s precious little room back there for an adult, much less a captain of industry being drive to the latest board meeting
You see, old boy, I have my racehorse jockey as a chauffer; with the driver seat moved forward thusly, yards of legroom abound.
genuine chuckle
If it is a drink dispenser, wouldn’t you want some sort of drain in there, somewhere?
Young man, if you pour a glass of scotch you drink the glass of scotch!!
As well, it looks like the company still exists and has a few pictures of an identical unit on their website.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT6iD2cj_Fpp-GtsFHyTsItR7ygosiTlNS1fg&s
Tangerine Nazi lover, well said.
A tiny wang seems to be a thing with despots and dictators.
Now let us kneel and pray.
Nov 5 comes fastly, and bigly, and the ramifications are weighing bigly.
Not sure which foreign country to escape to should things go bad.
Alaska or Puerto Rico? Decisions, decisions.
I wonder if I can buy one of these drink dispenser things somewhere?
Hate to break it to you about Alaska and Puerto Rico there…
Should have indicated the sarcasm once again.
lol.
But 45 says PR is a giant shit hole. Whilst tossing paper towels.
Ding ding ding! You are the winner. Here’s a page with an exact match: Linky
There are no lights in the pics Jason found, but if there were, you’d be able to see that the buttons light up and there’s a place for a glass behind the panel. If the picture had been taken from the passenger side, it might be more obvious.
Could you type this with the accent of the great actor?
Personally, I’ve never made it past the backseat center armrest drinks cooler.
Your abbreviation is right there in your own text: Pierre’s Eldorado Evolution.
Also, love the unholy Eldorado/Lagonda lovechild vibes I’m getting from this thing.
Radio station presets?
Or VCR controls. Goes in this order:
[ ] Play
[ ] Pause
[ ] Fast forward
[ ] Rewind
[ ] Eject (tape)
[ ] Eject (seat, front passenger)
That’s a big box for just remote buttons.
Man, the amount of cocaine done in the 1980’s was insane. This is clearly a cocaine dispenser. Glossy glass table included.
Maybe it’s a placeholder for an early carphone that they didn’t end up installing? The shape resembles this 1970s Siemens car phone. And the contemporaneous pre-cellular Mobile Telephone Service was operator-assisted, which would have negated the need for a dial.
8-Track controller?
Only six buttons, not eight. Also, ’81, not ’71.
It is an automatic drinks dispenser, but Cadillac did offer 8-track players into the 1983 model year – Lincoln did until 1984 – though, in both cases, it was using up existing inventory with no guarantee on continued availability
Wow. The malaise era was weird indeed. Now I want to know when the last factory record player was installed. I know van customizers were still installing them in the eighties.
The last factory, or factory-sanctioned dealer installed, record player was 1961, but they were always very uncommon and never quite got beyond expensive novelty status.
The last cassette decks were in fleet model 2012 Town Cars, with consumer availability ending with Lexus in 2010
Thanks! 🙂
You seem to still be running quite well.
8 tracks only had 4 selectable music tracks (each with left / right). They only ran in one direction, so you just got 1/2/3/4/Eject. Now there’s one button too many.
Cassette Changer/Auto-loader.
This is one of the dumbest cars I have ever seen.
Pushing the buttons would fax, “YOU’RE FIRED” to one of six preselected candidates.
I have a Sbarro Stash at home, but the pepperoni is starting to reek.
Sbarro still exists in some form. I know I ahve seen them in travel plazas or airports long after they were gone from malls.
I just checked and there are 2 MA locations, one at the airport and the other is actually still in a mall.