The 1955 Eldorado Brougham dream car debuted a number of features that would be found on future Cadillacs, and one that never went anywhere: its pair of distinctive and dramatic tailfins.
Introduced at the General Motors Motorama, the 1955 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham was essentially a prototype for the 1957-58 Eldorado Brougham production car. Many of its innovations foreshadowed the eventual consumer version, including the suicide doors, quad headlamp scheme, stainless roof panel, and stylized bumperettes front and rear. Still, we’ve always been intrigued by one design element that never found its way to any production Cadillac: the unique, razor-edged tailfins with top-mounted tail lamps, as shown above. We like them, maybe only because they’re different. We can almost picture them on a ’57 Coupe de Ville, even if it never happened.
The Eldorado Brougham was one of 14 Cadillacs prepared for the ’55 Motorama tour, and one of four one-off dream cars on display, including the Sixty Special Westchester with rear-seat television, the Coupe de Ville Celebrity with it red leather-covered top, and the Eldorado St. Moritz, a showboat trimmed in ermine and white pearl.
Special details on the Eldo Brougham, known internally at GM Styling as XP-38, included swiveling front bucket seats and an aptly-named custom paint called Chameleon Green—it appears as both green or blue in period color photographs. The first showing was to an exclusive audience at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on January 19, 1955, followed by appearances in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston. As with so many GM Motorama show cars, the fate of the ’55 Eldorado Brougham is unknown.
A pretty boat. Cadillac knew how to execute these. They don’t build them like that any more. Notice the jet port faux exhaust discharge at either end of the massive sculpted rear bumper. Imagine trying to straighten and re-chrome that assembly! Thanks to Mac’s Motor City Garage for posting this item.
I’ve no reason to believe those exhausts ports were faux, in that Cadillac had been using functional rear ports since ’52, IIRC. Only caveat I would include is that I’m not sure the ’55 EB was actually a running car.
Count me in as a fan of these tailfins, especially with the tail lamp sitting at the top. I’ve read that the 1957 Cadillac was not all that popular, due to the reverse slant tail fins. To some, it had the effect of making the car look shorter. I guess the thinking was that Cadillacs were supposed to appear as large as possible, befitting their status as the ultimate luxury barge. In any event, the fins were reversed for 1958, and that year’s model seems to be considered more desirable to today’s collectors. To each his own, I guess.