Pinin Farina’s Missing Cadillacs

The car is a very restrained design, from the side looking sort of mid-60s Oldsmobile-ish. The roofline is very thin, similar to what Tom Tjaarda was doing at the time.
The car was originally shown during the 1961 Paris Auto Salon.

Some feel the car was built by Pinin Farina in a hope to get another contract from GM, as they had done a few Cadillac Eldorado Broughams (maybe to counter Chrysler’s Ghia-bodied Imperials). When it went up for auction in Paris at Bonham’s Paris sale on Feb. 5th 2011, the prediction was it would take in €200,000 – 300,000.

Jackie had several precedents, pardon the pun. This effort was shown at the 1958 Paris show and was known as the Skylight.

Bonhams said it was one of four Cadillac-based styling exercises built by Pinin Farina between 1958 and 1961, but this author has found a Pinin Farina Model 62 Cadillac made in the year 1954. Ironically, while researching this story I came across pictures of other Pinin Farina-built Cadillacs that preceded the Jacqueline, including one called the “Starlight.” This might have been commissioned by Cadillac, as General Motors introduced it at the Paris Motor Show in October 1959.

This is the coupe version of the Skylight, shown first at the 1958 Geneva show, and in this lighter color in 1959.

The story went on to say that before that there was another PF Cadillac prototype called the Skylight, which was an open car of similar styling.

The Starlight’s big innovation was a coupe roof of Plexiglas, which could be covered with four metal plates inside. That in turn was preceded by a coupe version of the same car, which also was shown at the European Auto shows at the same time.

The immediate predecessor to Jacqueline was the much improved Starlight from late 1959.

Jacqueline History

“Jackie’s” history involved a stay in the Pininfarina Museum for three decades, then bought as a rolling “pushmobile” by Belgian Ferrari dealer, Philippe Lancksweert, who some experts say might have paid around $40K.

In the mid-1990s it was purchased by the President of Cartier and noted car collector Alain Dominique Perrin, who sent it to Florida to be made roadworthy by Frank and Tiano Tetro of Harbor Auto Restorations in Pompano Beach, FL using a 1960 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz chassis. Be forewarned, buying a car like this is an expensive proposition as you are finishing the engineering where the creators stopped just at the styling. In 1996, it was converted at considerable effort and powered by a 325 hp Cadillac motor. The result was a fully drivable car, but it has only covered delivery mileage since its mechanical restorations.

I saw the car at the RM Auction in Monterey in 2007. There they estimated the value at $350,000 – $450,000. Bidding reached $260,000 but it was not enough to meet the seller’s reserve. At the conclusion of the auction, the car left unsold and the next auction listing I found for it was in Paris in 2011, where it sold for 213,000 Euros (roughly $289K). It didn’t appreciate much in five years.

This writer’s conclusion: with the Jacqueline, Pinin Farina made the mistake of pandering too much to American taste when it was conceived, thinking if they made it “look American” GM would buy it. I think if Pinin Farina would have done something more boldly Italian (and forget those quad headlamps for starters) it would be a more sought after car. At any rate, Cadillac lost money on every one of the 200 Broughams they had built at Pinin Farina earlier, so were not about to jump into the pool a second time.

Early Pinin Farina sketch of a Cadillac, but was it ever built?

Some questions that come to mind are: who was the Italian car nut within GM? Was it Harley Earl? Or his right hand man Bill Mitchell? Was Detroit shoving money at Italy an attempt to counter what Chrysler was doing with Ghia?

Built for jazz recording whiz Norman Granz, this PF Caddy was much like the Lancia Jets of the mid-fifties and is still around. It wil be the subject of a future story on how a King ran it off the road.

And, where did these Cadillacs go, the Skylight, the Starlight? Do they still exist–are they hidden deep within Pininfarina’s works? Or GM’s? Or were they melted down to make a dozen Fiats? To this writer’s knowledge, only the Jacqueline and the ’53 PF-designed and built three-seater have reappeared on the show/auction circuit. There is a possibility that the Starlight was for sale in NYC for $9000 at one time as a running car, but their is no confirmed reference yet. Readers?

According to Michael Frostick, some 200 Cadillacs were constructed by PF in 1959-60 and shipped back to GM. Where did they go?

Decades later, Cadillac did award a production contract to Pininfarina for the Allante, a two-seater reportedly designed in Italy. There’s no doubt it was bodied in Italy, and that, for a time, fulfilled Cadillac’s ambition to have an Italian-connected car to sell in the U.S. (Read about it)

THE AUTHOR:Wallace Wyss’s first book in the Incredible Barn Finds series is now available from Enthusiast Books (715) 381-9755.