Classified of the week: a 1950s Cadillac super-wagon

Not to be confused with the high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire, the Broadmoor is an ultra-luxe, 779-room hotel, situated on the shores of Cheyenne Lake, near Pikes Peak in Colorado. 

And, as befits a hotel with three golf courses and its own 25-store retail boutique, Broadmoor has a history of housing some fairly top-tier clientele. How top-tier? Well, none other than George W Bush decided to stop drinking after waking up in the Broadmoor with a hangover for the ages. 

Conveying the Broadmoor’s VIPs required a fairly serious bit of kit, then. And the 1959 Cadillac Broadmoor Skyview was certainly that.

In the 1950s, The US of A was booming. Winston Churchill said that “America stands at the summit of the world,” which was backed up by evidence all over the North American continent.

And nowhere was this more apparent than in American-made cars. With wings, fins and styling flourishes not found anywhere else in the world, these land yachts were the joyous result of a burgeoning economy, cheap fuel and optimistic customers.

At the top of the pile was Cadillac, the very last word in American luxury. The style revolution that the Caddy ushered in was thanks to Harley J Earl and Bill Mitchell, who introduced wraparound windshields, acres of chrome and tail fins that could double as wood splitters. But there was a small run of custom Caddys that made even the 1959 Cadillac look tame.

Just six of these coach-built Cadillacs have ever seen the light of day, each built specifically to ferry the elite from the Colorado Springs Airport up to the hotel lobby, and each custom-designed to make the journey as special as possible. 

An Ohio-based coachbuilders called the Superior Coach Company took the already lengthy, 5.7-metre Cadillac and stretched it out to nearly 6.4 metres long, basing the Skyview on their ambulance and hearse models. But, to ensure it didn’t look (or feel) like transport for the dead or dying, they installed three massive plexiglass panels in the roof, which helped bathe the interior in Colorado sunlight.

With a wheelbase approaching four metres (up from 3.3 metres for the standard ’59 Caddy), it was never going to be a sprightly handler, but the 6.4-litre V8 made for a sedate, powerful cruise up and down nearby Pikes Peak or Cheyenne Mountain, or through the exceptionally pretty Garden of the Gods public park. 

How sedate and powerful, you ask? Well, 345bhp was on offer at just 4,800rpm, and the four-speed automatic was geared for cruising and slurred, comfortable shifts. Power steering and power brakes made sure that no real effort was needed to keep things on the level. If anything was ever built to cruise, it’s the Cadillac Broadmoor Skyview.

But it’s not just 1950s American excess that made the Skyview a road-going leviathan. It was built so a driver could take 11 passengers at a time – just the thing if you travel with an entourage. 

Four rows of leather-wrapped bench seats isn’t the most avant-garde of interior packaging solutions, but we doubt that there’s any more comfortable way to fit 12 people in a Cadillac estate.

To prep the Caddywagon for sale, the current owner has refurbished the engine, transmission, brakes and exhaust, but the rest is said to be “totally original, with a wonderfully charming layer of patina throughout.” So, while it may look a little careworn at the edges, this is a properly maintained bit of kit in mostly original condition.

That, combined with its almost painful rarity and sheer devil-may-care desirability, is probably why Bonhams estimates that it’ll fetch anywhere between £140,000 and £200,000 when it goes up for auction at Amelia Island on March 9th. 

Still, as family haulers go, we’re struggling to think of any with more history, character or raw, unvarnished cool.