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| Portrait of the blogger as a Young Man. |
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| MBAs, Condos, designer clothing. The YUPPIE dream. Welcome to the 1980's |
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| She set the bar pretty high. |
This was the period of my life that reflected my greatest era of optimism.
I had just completed a task that I thought would redefine my opportunities in the future.
I had finally graduated from college. It had taken seven years of part and full time effort.
Years of Community College prior to my transfer to a State University. It might have been easier if I had a clear career path, hadn't decided to change my major, and hadn't been working full time during most of this period.
This was the defining accomplishment of my life until that time, and maybe of my entire life.
I was twenty five years old. It was a very good year. It was time for a reward.
I wanted to portray the image of the dynamic young man on the way up. Designer clothes and an almost new (looking) 1977 Coupe de Ville.
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| Fussell had written this examination of the American Class system in 1983 |
Paul Fussel's somewhat humorous take on social class and John T. Malloy's earnest advice on managing your impression, did have an effect on my thinking, at least for a while. It is hard to be successful if you don't look successful, at least others have to think that you look successful. Managing your image is not just a conceited joke, if we don't communicate how we want others to see us, who will? So everything about us has importance, our grooming, our wardrobe, our demeanor, our behavior.
I remember that Fussell wrote that a woman dresses to impress other women. A men dresses to tell other men how he wants to be treated. Looking back at the experiences of my lifetime there seems to be a lot of truth in that.
But lets get back to the car.
Besides all of that background noise I was still a car guy, a Cadillac guy. My '70 Coupe had affirmed for me that the Cadillac could still be a dynamic, exciting road car. A '73 Coupe de Ville had been the winner of the 1973 Cannonball Sea to Shining Sea Trophy dash. So the Cadillac could still be a serious driving man's choice. These things could put down some serious miles.
Unfortunately, the de Ville had just kept getting bigger and bigger.
The smog choked motors got flabbier and flabbier. The 1976 Coupe De Ville was just a huge expanse of metal.
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| It can be argued that this is where the 1950's ended. |
I had become interested in other types of cars. The BMW Bavaria was a spacious and practical road car, one that could tame the Alps, When was Cadillac going to rise to the occasion?
Initially it seemed that the 1975 Seville was the first sign. Though it's presentation was purely American, it's primary virtue was it's more manageable size. The fact that it was based upon the under pinnings of the Camaro and Nova meant that it would be easy to improve upon it's suspension design. It was a revelation and a beacon of hope.
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| This was actually a pretty good first attempt. |
It appears the GM had been looking at this problem and had planned a remedy. The entire line of large cars underwent a downsizing. The 1977 Chevrolet Impala is a design icon for many. Looking at them today, it's easy to think that they were still too big, but if you contrasted them with their Lincoln and Chrysler competition you could easily grasp the extent of the great leap.
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| Now this is more like it! |
Like many new product cycles the first efforts were the best. In my opinion the '77 thru '80 models were cleanest and most athletic looking. These were powered by the 425 cid V8 sometimes optionally equipped with fuel injection. Lighter, with more responsive chassis tuning, they could be improved by borrowing even more serious hardware from the corporate parts bin. After 1980 the face lifted models acquired a more traditional, heavier appearing styling motif and the drivetrains took a serious nose dive, ending in the HT 4100 debacle.
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| Nice, but something was lost. |
Car and Driver magazine did a road test on a '78 Coupe de Ville and they were quite impressed. It was their conclusion that the new downsized C bodies were a substantial improvement over the Seville's platform. They were amazed at how the driving dynamics had been improved in just a couple of model years. As the byline to the test stated: Surprise; Opulence can be fun.
All of this just meant that this Cadillac was a real road burner like those of the early Fifties. The styling was classic, and the downsized platform delivered the utility and performance that had been missing from the Marque for decades.
I got a lot of pleasure from owning this car, and it made me feel like I was really going somewhere.
Driving in the afternoon sun and watching the silhouette of the car race across the center divider jersey wall ahead of me. The road was clear, the weather fair, and the horizon looked as welcoming as the future I was rushing towards.
It was a convergence of all the best forces that I hoped would play out in my life.
Even if the future did not turn out as well as I was imagining that day, driving that yellow Cadillac, was good enough. My ownership of that yellow Coupe de Ville encompassed the best period of my life.
That was almost forty years ago. An entire lifetime for some people. As much as I still enjoy cars, I no longer think that they are the main indicator of status or achievement. If you have more to spend, you probably will. But there will always be exceptions to that rule.
Well, what ever became of dressing for success? As I like to say in my self deprecating manner, "Once I realized that I wasn't going to be that successful, I realized that I could save a lot of money on clothes!
But it's always good to have at least one nice suit in the closet.
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