In 1961, the USA had a new First Lady who captivated the world—including the Italian coach house Pininfarina, which named its latest Cadillac show car the Jacqueline.

General Motors and the coachbuilding firm of Pininfarina in Turin, Italy have a long and productive history together, teaming up to create a number of memorable vehicles over the years. (For example, see our feature on the Buick XP-75 Skylark III prototypes here.)  We don’t know the precise arrangement between GM and Pininfarina that produced the 1961 Cadillac show car shown here, and in this case, it appears quite likely there was none.

However: One motivation for the car’s creation can be found in the name. Reportedly,  the Jacqueline was named to honor the new First Lady of the United States, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. The design is quite unlike any Cadillac of the period. It was understated, restrained, refined—not unlike the classic style of the First Lady herself, who from the moment she arrived at the White House became known for her remarkable taste.

First shown at the 1961 Paris Auto Show, the two-door, two-passenger coupe was constructed on a 130-inch wheelbase, like a production Cadillac. But under the hand-formed steel body there was no chassis, and no engine or drivetrain either. Striking as it was, the Jacqueline was a show glider, a pushmobile, with a mocked-up instrument panel and plastic windshield. Still, it made a favorable impression on the Paris show visitors and it was maintained in Pininfarina’s private vehicle inventory for three decades. It was there, reportedly, sometime around 1991, that the original Cadillac Ermine White paint was changed to a pale antique gold, but the stainless steel roof panel was left unchanged.

From there the Jacqueline passed on to private hands, and in 1996, the car was transformed into a running, driving automobile by Harbor Auto Restorations in Florida, using a 1960 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz chassis and assorted components, along with a base-version ’59 Cadillac engine. At the Bonhams Paris auction on February 5, 2011, held at the Grand Palais, the same venue where the car was first displayed in 1961, the Jacqueline was sold on to a new owner, reportedly in Germany, for $249,300, where it presumably resides today.

You can find a remarkably detailed, exhaustively researched history of the Cadillac Pininfarina Jacqueline at The New Cadillac Database.