1969 Cadillac DeVille Wagon Is an 89k-Mile Head-Turner With Two Owners Since New

A rumor has been breezing around since before the days of the internet about a specific batch of fourteen Cadillacs commissioned by the General Motors luxury division to be converted to station wagons. Allegedly, the cars were destined to shuttle VIPs to and fro during the Indy 500 race in 1969, after which the automobiles were sold.

There isn’t much information about this occurrence (not from official sources anyway), but the cars are real. Cadillac didn’t build station wagons back then, but it allowed dealers to take orders for conversions. The retrofitting of a roof over the rear deck was then contracted to a coachbuilder. In certain instances, Cadillac backed the vehicles with a factory warranty.

In 1969, the fourteen luxury wagons project was entrusted to National Coaches, a custom body shop in Knightstown, Indiana. A thorough search for the specifics would reveal that the cars used for conversion were either four-door Fleetwood or four-door Sedan DeVille models. With an extremely low number produced, running into one nowadays is about as probable as being struck by a shooting star.

First, converting factory Caddies into something GM didn’t offer is a long tradition. Still, wagons were among the least requested body modifications customers would demand for their personal luxury automobiles. Since the customer is always right in matters of taste, coachbuilders were happy to oblige, and this is one of those oddities.

This Cadillac was originally ordered new by a stomatologist in Fargo, North Dakota. Probably, people there had very bad teeth around that period. Whatever the backstory, dental practice must have been good business in the late sixties, too, to allow the man to buy this one-in-few automobile. The car started as a 1969 Cadillac Sedan Deville, and the base price for one was $5,950. As for the conversion itself, that’s a separate story with its own additional cost.

Cadillac offered commercial chassis to coachbuilders who would turn out limousines, ambulances, or funeral service cars. It even backed the construction of a pick-up, with Evil Knievel ordering the first of the 1975 Cadillac Mirage examples. The main character in this story was born a pillarless four-door DeVille (which Cadillac counterintuitively called Hardtop Sedan).

The absence of a crest on the hood indicates that this was not a Fleetwood but the best-selling DeVille – the highest-production luxury car model in the world at the time. Nonetheless, it is a Cadillac, and it came with standard features like air conditioning, power steering, power brakes, power windows, leather upholstery, and plenty of creature comforts that really made it the Standard of the World.

However, the most non-world-standard feature of it – or any other of its division siblings, for that matter – was lurking upfront under the helipad-sized sheet of metal atop the engine bay. The eight-cylinder powerplant in 1969 Cadillacs was the almighty 472 cubic-inch behemoth that delivered locomotive-level torque (525 lb-ft) and a respectable 375 hp. That’s 712 Nm and 380 hp – it matched the 440-4v V8 from Mopar horsepower for horsepower. Still, its crank-spinning capability vastly outgunned anyone else (the 426 Hemi included).

Naturally, a 7.7-liter motor from the late 1960s Detroit was the oil producing and exporting countries' midsummer night's dream, and the Cadillac averaged around 10 miles to the gallon on the highway, going downhill with a strong tailwind. However, at 35 cents per gallon, fuel economy was the least of a Cadillac owner’s worries.

The three-speed Turbo Hydramatic 350 was the only transmission available (luxury and manual shifting were natural-born enemies). This example shows that the bulletproof gearbox still runs strong, even with 88,980 miles on the clock (143,200 kilometers). See the videos below for a demo drive of the head-turning Cadillac with three rows of seats (the third one facing backward so that the rearmost occupants could get a broad view of where they’ve been driving through).

The middle and rear benches would fold flat down and create a landing strip of real estate behind the driver – big enough to fit four-by-eights with the tailgate closed. Some ingenious owners went as far as shoving twelve-foot piping from the console between the front seats to the power rear window, only to drive home in style as if they were just attending a royal wedding.

The vast Cadillac (129 inches of wheelbase – 3,276 mm – is aircraft-carrier proportions) even comes with an extra luggage rack on the roof. I openly admit that the build quality of the rear half of this car is nothing short of Cadillac’s standards of the day, right down to the white vinyl top (that probably hides some unsightly welds of other metal joinery underneath).

Frankly, the one thing missing from this outstanding station wagon for tycoons is a CB radio for the driver and back seat occupants. Or maybe Truman Tryus—the original buyer—had other means of communication to keep in touch with the far-end passengers during cruises. At some point in its life, the car moved to a dry climate, which explains its rust–free condition (check the gallery for photos of the underside).

The North Dakota dentist leased the Cadillac wagon, bought it when the lease period was over, and brought it to the family cabin in Arizona. It remained there until the dentist’s daughter sold it to the current owner. The man who now has this magnificent Cadillac in his prized possession in Nampa, Idaho, has decided to let it go into the care of a new proprietor. The vehicle is sold via an online auction, and the present asking price is $38,500. The $25,000 high bid placed on this spectacular rarity was well below the seller’s reserve, but the Make an Offer button is active.