Sorry. My bad.

 

I stumbled on a show you guys probably never heard of from when I was a kid, so I have recorded and watched a few episodes. Highway Patrol, starring Broderick Crawford was on around 1958-60. Interesting to see the old cars. Another old show was 77 Sunset Strip. Apparently most folks on TV back then drove convertibles and got in from the passenger side!

 

I watched Highway Patrol as a kid! Out of curiosity I looked it up and it was on from 1955-59. Yikes! I wonder why they got in from the passenger in movies and on TV?

 

I still watch some of the old Highway Patrol re-runs, late at night, on You-Tube before I go to bed. Yeah, I like to see those old Buicks, Dodges, and Mercurys in the show, too.

Don't want to get too far off-topic, but Crawford was somewhat of a hypocrite. In the shows, on camera, he played a No-Nonsense, Obey-the-Law, Make-no-Excuses, Tough-Guy cop who would close each show, at the end, with a short sermon, looking at the camera to the viewers, of the necessity of safe driving and living a clean life. Yet, in real life, as an actor, he was a noted alcoholic, got several drink-driving charges, and, with the real California Highway Patrol of the time, was known as "Old 502"...their legal code for DWI. He even briefly lost his Drivers' License at one point. And, from what understand, they had to cancel a couple of the shows because he was simply too drunk to act on the set.

 

argument #476

 

So I don’t want to start a new thread. But, this Fleetwood is a cool car.

64db interior
18.4 cubic feet of trunk

Just wait till the handling. Yikes.

 

To put the 64 db interior into context, a Camry is quieter today

 

The new Lincoln Navigator has the quietest cabin I have heard of. 62 or 64lb according to C & D.

 

dB readings are highly variable based on the equipment used and the environment of the test. For instance my meter reads quite a bit lower than that. My LS measures 58 dB at 70MPH cruise, the Navigator I drove also measured 58 dB. My Pacifica measures 63. You can't really compare dB readings from different sources, best to stay within the same source. Edmunds for instance when they published dB readings were similar to mine, they measured 58 in their LS.

So MotorWeek getting 64 dB 30 years ago and C&D getting 64 dB today in a Navigator shouldn't tell you anything. It also doesn't tell you anything that I got 58 dB in my LS and C&D got 64 in their Navigator. What tells you something is that I got 58 in both my LS and the Navigator which tells you they are similarly quiet.

But it Is definitely true that mainstream cars today are as quiet as luxury cars from that era. Tolerances and sealing are much better, technology has improved a lot as have aerodynamics.

 

My grandparents neighbor owned an advertising firm and from my understanding Oldsmobile was one of their accounts back in the 80s. She was gifted an 88 Olds Cutlass Ciera Brougham and didn't want it (she had a Mercedes 560sl at the time), so my grandfather bought it from her for next to nothing. My grandparents used the car very sparingly, as they always had 3+ cars, and in 2012 it only had 70k miles. My grandfather was outside working in the yard one day and someone drove by and offered him $1000 for it. He accepted on the spot and the person drove off in it less than an hour later. The car had the most comfortable blue leather seats (similar to those seats in the 80s Caddys), but beyond that it was nothing special. I remember it rattled like crazy and it had those wire hubcaps that would make a clicking sound as you drove because the wires were loose.

 

What this video didn't tell you, though, is that GM and Chrysler cars of this period had notable build-quality problems......some of which did not manifest themselves during testing-videos like this, as brand-new products. Not all, of course, were as bad as my Citation, there was a reason that car-buyers, during this period, were converting to Japanese vehicles in droves. in fact, the very next year (1990) would see the first serious Japanese competition to the big Cadillacs...the Lexus LS400.

It also doesn't tell you that, for substantially less money, one could get virtually the same car as the Fleetwood in the Buick Electra/Park Avenue and Olds 98.....the thread-topic. That's one reason why I had a big Buick in college instead of a Cadillac.

 

I just enjoyed the video for what it was.

 

Well, no arguments there. I know John Davis...not really well, but I've met him a number of times at the auto shows, and we have done a fair amount of car-talk. I always liked him because he isn't full of himself like some other auto-journalists, is a nice guy, and talks down to earth. He's not quite as gifted as Alex Dykes when it comes to a thorough review of the vehicle from stem to stern (one reason is that the Motorweek videos are usually too short)....but he compensates wth a super-nice personality and character.

 

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Here is a great example of things of past that were here, then went away, then came back . Notice the GM engine oil monitoring system from 1988.

 

The Calais was originally a Cadillac nameplate...it's entry-level model.

John's correct that the Quad-Four was technically advanced for the time (especially by GM standards), but it also had a reputation for being unreliable, noisy, and and unrefined....just like most of the other GM fours.

Notice how much nicer, though, tires and alloy-wheels were back then (I say alloy-wheels because the stamped-steel wheels and plastic wheel-covers were cheaply-made and often out of round, causing vibration and shimmy). Even on this performance-oriented package, there is plenty of nice sidewall on the tire, not today's rubber-bands.