Cadillac V 16s Lost And Found

For eleven years prior to World War II, Cadillac defied the norms of practicality and produced an extravagant supercar, a 16-cylinder luxury automobile that could be tailored to the customer's every want. Big, thirsty and lavish, it cemented Cadillac's place in the top tier of motoring magnificence. Each of the cars has its own colorful and fascinating story to tell. Driven by a life-long love of the V-16 and an interest in the history of his own car, the author has assembled more than 65 of these tales, gleaned from interviews, books, periodicals and documents, into a liberally illustrated book. Each story is shaped by the people a particular car touched, and the events they lived through together. All are an important part of our automotive and cultural history.

In 1930, Cadillac rolled out a line of new cars of unsurpassed elegance and craftsmanship that would launch the company into the top tier of luxury carmakers. While competitors produced models with eight or twelve-cylinder engines, Cadillac offered the smooth, powerful performance of a V-16. Over the next 11 years, each of the more than 4000 V-16s was as close to hand-made as a commercial auto manufacturer could come. Their drivers included statesmen, celebrities, businessmen and, sometimes, well-heeled ne'er-do-wells. Many of the cars survived wartime scrap drives, obsolescence, lack of replacement parts, neglect and the elements. This follow-up volume to Cadillac V-16s Lost and Found (2014) documents the individual stories of 67 more of these magnificent machines.

Into the light By popular demand comes the sequel to the original “Lost and Found†from the publishers of Old Cars Weekly magazine. This collection of great automotive discoveries reminds us yet again that you never know where a prized old car might be hiding. Corvettes, Cadillacs, Packards, coveted muscle cars, even Duesenbergs seem to somehow emerge from hiding from us for years and even decades. Find out where some of them have been in Lost and Found 2nd Edition.

The Cadillac V-16 was conceived in secrecy in the middle of the Roaring Twenties, when incomes were rising, prosperity seemed endless and the car business was beginning to break from a traditional emphasis on function over form. But by the time the Cadillac V-16 reached showrooms in 1930, the nation was falling headlong into the Great Depression, and it soon became a rare relic of the boom before the crash. That is why in the mid-1960s, when Christopher Cummings was an adolescent car enthusiast, the oldest Cadillac V-16s were a dream just out of reach. This memoir tells the story of a boy who grew up loving cars, learned everything he could about them, and acquired quite a few impressive models for himself, while always looking forward to the day he would, by surprising circumstance, find the automobile of his dreams. Early chapters reveal the adventure Cummings underwent renovating his first car at age 13. Over the course of his teenage years he would work to acquire three classic Cadillacs: a 1941 Cadillac Series 7523 seven-passenger touring sedan, a 1941 Cadillac Series 61 coupe, and a 1931 Cadillac Series 355A Fleetwood Cabriolet. Later chapters recount the painstaking effort he put into renovating and maintaining those coveted vehicles. The story culminates with Cummings' unexpected acquisition of the car that earned the motto "Standard of the World," the 1930 V-16 Imperial Sedan limousine. In all, this memoir bears witness to an elegant sample of the best that the Classic era of automotive history had to offer.

A photographic tour through Clive Cussler’s outstanding collection of antique automobiles, including those featured in his #1 New York Times bestselling Dirk Pitt series. Fans of Clive Cussler's bestselling Dirk Pitt series know that his hero has a soft spot for rare and classic automobiles...and that the vehicles that appear in the novels are actually part of Cussler's own vast collection. Through stunning color photographs and warm, informative commentary, fans of Cussler and Pitt can see fifty-six of these automobiles in all their glory, and learn about the history and acquisition of each classic car. Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Touring . . . Mercedes-Benz 630K . . . Duesenberg J-140 . . . Cadillac V-16 Roadster . . . Ford Cabriolet Hot Rod . . . Packard V-12 . . . it's a car lover's paradise!