1978 Cadillac Coupe de Ville Archive Road Test

Car and Driver

24-05-2025

From the June 1978 issue of Car and Driver.
It's a dirty shame that Cadillacs aren't built in England or Germany. Their hum­ble Detroit birthplace means that they nev­er get taken seriously as automobiles. Rich Republican burghers want them because they've always believed that a Cadillac was their due, a perk, baked into the deal along with the country-club membership and the GOP-camouflage Hickey-Freeman suits. The nouveaux riches want them because the rich Republican burghers have them. People who read Road & Track magazine detest Cadillacs, their hatred falling only a few points short of that regis­tered by the eco-troops, those sons and daughters of wealthy orthodontists, who long for pre-Industrial Revolution America and dream of wilder­nesses organized along the lines of a Mon­tessori school.
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Larry Griffin
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For all their prejudiced points of view about Cadillacs, none of these people ever think of them as cars. Status symbols, sex symbols, power symbols, energy-consump­tion symbols, decay-of-the-American-­dream symbols, but never as sublimely comfortable ways to get from Point A to Point B in a seated position. The Cadillac people must bear some of the responsibility for this state of affairs, of course. They've never really sold Cadillacs as cars. The bland, Osterized sales pitch for The Stan­dard of the World generally tells the prospective buyer a great deal about Cadillac's assessment of him, but precious little to help him assess the purchase of an automo­bile. What must the prospective Cadillac buyer feel who does not meet Cadillac's re­search criteria? Does he look guardedly over his shoulder as he reads the ad, know­ing himself to be an impostor? Does he dart nervous glances around the room, half expecting to see the Cadillac-intender to whom they were really addressing their message, and does he feel like an eaves­dropper? Does he lie awake at night and wonder if the Cadillac dealer will accept his order? (Maybe they have a list of names.) Imagine the embarrassment of be­ing turned away, referred to the Buick dealer down the street. The pain!
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Larry Griffin
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Why should this very nice car-that-is­-not-perceived-as-a-car mean so much to so many? It certainly doesn't hurt that it's a very good car, reliable to a fault, unde­manding to live with, and loaded with po­tential resale value, but these are not the virtues upon which legends are made. Is it enough that it was the first car in the world with a self-starter, that it introduced the concept of parts interchangeability to Europe? Does it have something to do with the fact that Cadillac not only pioneered tail fins but also held on to them longer than the rest of the automotive world? Probably none and all of the above is the correct answer. The real reason is that Cadillacs really used to be something spe­cial. They were faster than less expensive American cars. They held the road better (see "A heavy car holds the road," "More road-hugging weight," et cetera). In the 1950 Carrera Pan Americana, 21 of 126 starters were Cadillacs, and the big beasts took second and third places overall. Mr. Briggs S. Cunningham put a whole slew of European hotshoes on the trailer at Le Mans in 1950 when the Collier brothers came in tenth in his slightly modified Cad­illac coupe. Cadillacs were, in those dim, bygone days, built to a higher standard of engineering and workmanship than Chev­rolets, and their styling was distinctly their own. Latter-day Cadillac buyers who were mere boys back then undoubtedly carry deeply imprinted tribal memories of those cars, subliminal pokes and prods that lead them to see shades of sharp-edged '41 Fleetwoods in today's Cadillac de Villes and Broughams.
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Larry Griffin
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When asked to explain Cadillac's unique grip on its owners, the division's chief engi­neer, Bob Templin, laid this one on us, ready to Xerox: "When you buy a Cadil­lac, you buy Cadillac tradition, Cadillac quality, Cadillac product, the Cadillac dealer, Cadillac service, and Cadillac war­ranty. And remember, the Cadillac buyer knows Cadillac is at the forefront of auto­motive technology." One might find that last bit a little more digestible had he said "believes Cadillac is at the forefront of au­tomotive technology." For it is undoubtedly true that Cadillac loyalists believe their cars to be the pinnacle of automotive-engi­neering achievement, but it is unfortunate­ly also true that they're quite wrong. The Cadillac is an extremely well done execu­tion of the basic American car idea, as con­ceived some time before World War II, and it is undeniably a great car for the money, but it will have to go like the very devil to catch those cars that are "at the forefront of automotive technology."
Our test car was a 1978 Coupe de Ville, and we loved it in spite of ourselves. It weighed in at 4270 pounds and it was 18.4 feet long, making it the lightest Cadillac you can buy (edging the Seville by just four pounds) and almost the shortest (not quite a foot and a half longer than the Seville). It is—surprise, surprise—the nicest of the bunch to drive, offering a much nicer blend of room, ride, comfort, visibility, handling and performance than any of the others, including the Seville and the Eldo­rado. Why this should be so is hard to di­vine, but the Seville is claustrophobic and its ride primitive by comparison, and the Eldorado has become grossly corpulent, so much so that the inherent benefits of its front-wheel drive are virtually wiped out. The poor old Eldo is actually heavier than Cadillac's seven-passenger limousine!
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Our Coupe de Ville carried a base price of $10,444 and an as-tested price of $13,375. This is not chicken feed, but nei­ther is it very much money to spend for such a remarkable bundle of automotive virtues, luxuries, features, and super­-zoomy Astro-Boy gadgetry. The price puts it right in there with the Porsche 924 ($10,995), the Peugeot 604 ($10,990) and the Saab Turbo ($9998), while the obvious thrust of the Cadillac concept and its exe­cution puts it right up against the Rolls-­Royce Silver Shadow II ($48,600), the Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL ($27,945 ) and, of course, the Lincolns. The de Ville lacks many of the engineering and performance features that set the Mercedes apart, and it doesn't have the Rolls's panache of matched veneers and Connolly hides and hand-rubbed everything, but it more than holds its own if the mission is to transport four normal adults at reasonable speeds over American roads in mind-boggling luxury. In its relationship with the Conti­nentals, we deem it the winner, because GM's whole philosophy of car "feel" is so much more to our liking than Ford's (at least as expressed in Ford's current lineup of big cars). Cadillacs have rather sensitive controls, with quite a lot of "feel" fed back to the driver. Lincolns are Novocain-­numb: no feeling, no sensitivity, just soft­ness and silence and the fear that it's all been taken out of the driver's hands.
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Larry Griffin
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You slide behind the Cadillac's wheel, try to orient yourself to the various switches, knobs and buttons that festoon the instrument panel, and there is no ques­tion whatsoever that this is one of Nature's special places, a sort of Grand Canyon/Matterhorn/Stonehenge with tinted wind­shield and disappearing windshield wipers. One would not be surprised to learn that fairies and fauns cavorted and giggled in­side there when the Caddy was put away for the night. One probably will be sur­prised to find that someone back in the GM building has seized control of the headlights. Our de Ville was fitted with the Kafkaesque Twilight Sentinel and Auto­matic Headlamp Control, the former caus­ing the headlights to go on and off of their own volition, the latter causing them to dim themselves whenever they see their own reflection in a store window. The con­trols for these are fiendish indeed, and until we learned how to turn them off and fend for ourselves, we were unwilling to launch the Cadillac into the flow of traffic. Believe it or not, and you probably won't, the Cadillac is nimble! Once launched, a feeling of undamped softness comes up from the wheels, but this quickly fades as you get used to the car. It has a surprisingly capable suspension system, handling frost heaves and potholes with equal aplomb and enabling an enthusiastic driver to hurtle through corners and place the car where he wants it with remarkable ease. The six-way power seat and the tilt-and-telescope steering column augment in­crementally the driver's ability to come to terms with this large car. It is not a BMW 733i, and you might want something else for your Alpine land-speed record attempt, but we liked driving it.
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Larry Griffin
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Some of the frills and gadgets are silly and excessive. Opera lamps, for heaven's sake? Power door locks that snap down ev­ery time you put the old dear into Drive? Even if you're just moving it in the drive­way? Some don't work very well. The cruise control, for instance, is utterly ex­asperating. It is supposed to be activated by a simple touch on the button in the end of the turn-signal lever, but it usually isn't. You push the button. You know that something electrical is going on because there's a simultaneous pop from the radio. You lift your foot to let the autopilot take over, and the car just continues to coast. Accelerate and try again. Maddening.
Daimler-Benz resisted the cruise-control idea for years but finally acknowledged that the accessory was important for America's superb but speed-limited roads, and developed one that just makes the General Motors unit look homemade. It's too bad that American manufacturers are so intimidated by the cost bugaboos of re­ally important product features like inde­pendent rear suspension. They know they can get their money out of junk like opera lamps and Twilight Sentinels, but they just don't have any confidence in the more eso­teric appeal of chassis and suspensions like those of Jaguar, BMW, and Mercedes­-Benz. The de Ville, along with the big lim­ousine, is now the only Cadillac that doesn't have four-wheel disc brakes as standard equipment. We applaud the fact that Cadillac's philosophy has come that far, but now we're impatient for that last step toward a real fine-car commitment.
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Larry Griffin
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The world's best road system can be a liability. The Cadillac is designed to be master of the roads most well-fixed Ameri­cans normally drive upon, and this pre­vents it from making any wholesale assault on cars like Mercedes, BMW, or Jaguar. Happily for the guys who build the cars bearing the name and arms of Le Sieur Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, most of the people who buy them don't seem to care. We, on the other hand, would dearly love to drive a Coupe or Sedan de Ville modi­fied and breathed upon in the manner of our Seville project car (August '77 issue). The new GM big cars, introduced in 1977 and including such impressive and gratify­ing machines as the Chevrolet Impala/Ca­price with F41 suspension (August '77) and the Buick LeSabre Sport Coupe (May '77), have proved to be the best sedans the corporation ever made. The Cadillac shares all their basic strengths and undoubtedly has terrific potential as a luxurious car for American enthusiasts, given the same specific attention to handling and roadholding. We may not be the people the Cadillac designers had in mind when they engineered the de Ville series, but it's a lit­tle startling to look up one morning and realize how far they've shifted their prod­uct focus in our direction. These are good cars, easily upgraded to terrific cars—with the right shocks, springs, stabilizer bars, wheels and tires—and, compared to prices of the good European stuff, a relative steal. Maybe a hot-rodded Cadillac is your best hedge against the strength of the deutsche mark and the decline of the dollar.
Counterpoint
The last Cadillac I drove before I got into this year's Coupe de Ville was an enormous powder-blue '75 Coupe, and it took me a long time to forget what driving it was like. You didn't steer the thing, you gave orders to the helm. And for more or less speed, you rang down for more steam. Damn the Dat­suns! Full speed ahead!
It was a nightmare of a car, exactly what every sports-car enthusiast figures a bloated Caddy would be like. But all that's gone. The new Coupe de Ville is a civilized, decent performer. It'll steer as well as any new C­-body GM car (which is pretty good indeed nowadays), and will even let you feel some­thing of the way the suspension and steering are handling the messages the road is send­ing through them. Moreover, it's a very com­fortable car. And even though I've never lusted after an automobile that tries to do my driving for me, it's not at all hard to see why someone would want to spend over ten grand for a Coupe de Ville. —Steve Thompson
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Larry Griffin
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I've never been big on the coach-lamp, op­era-roof, wide-whitewall look that seems so essential to the Cadillac mystique, but I did find a solid piece of machinery under this Coupe de Ville's embroidery that left me fa­vorably impressed. What you have to do is drive the thing hard enough to bottom out all the spongy padding and Jell-0-soft bush­ings. Take charge like a drill sergeant in basic training, and you'll find a car that does what you tell it. The big motor responds with an authoritative howl when you orange-alert the fuel monitor with the throt­tle, and, so motivated, this 2.1-ton Cadillac wakes up ready to romp. It's the biggest cruiser I've ever pitched sideways into an en­trance ramp, and just as competent breaking traction as bearing a wedding party. There is, however, one weak link to consider before you choose this as your gymkhana ride. The brakes fade away after just a few quick laps of street racing. —Don Sherman
On a long trip through hilly and mountain­ous country a year and a half ago, shortly after it first appeared, I discovered that the smaller Coupe de Ville wasn't totally out of its element. It was a revelation.
It used a fair old amount of gas because we stopped to shoot a lot of pictures and because I played low tricks on guys in two­-seaters and two-liter sedans, but it fairly boo­gied and never drew a complaint from a pas­senger whose scream factor runs about two on a scale from one to ten.
The latest Coupe de Ville feels even better. Run silent, run deep, like the capsulized environment it is, or belt it deftly around like the lean hell-raiser it can be. Play with the gadgets, watch out for dawdlers and set your own pace. You'll not be dulled into a stupor by the Coupe de Ville. —Larry Griffin
Specifications
Specifications
1978 Cadillac Coupe de Ville
Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 6-passenger, 2-door coupe
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $10,444/$13,375
Options: cabriolet package, $369; leather seats, $295; AM/ FM stereo CB radio, $281; 6-way power passenger seat, $262; dual-comfort front seats, $198; electronic level control, $140; theft-deterrent system, $130; cruise control, $122; tilt/telescope steering wheel, $121; automatic door locks, $112; rear-window defogger, $94; power trunk, $80; opera lamps, $63; automatic
head lamp control, $62; illuminated entry system, $59; floor and trunk mats, $58; turbine-vane wheel discs, $54; twilight
sentinel, $54; accent stripes, $53; illuminated vanity mirror, $50; controlled-cycle wipers, $50; remote-control right mirror,
$34; fuel monitor, $29; illuminated thermometer, $27; trumpet horn, $21; license-plate frames, $18; door-edge guards,
$11; front-bumper reinforcements, $9; California emissions controls, $75
ENGINE
V-8, iron block and heads
Displacement: 425 in3, 6960 cm3
Power: 180 hp @ 4000 rpm
Torque: 320 lb-ft @ 2000 rpm
TRANSMISSION
3-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: control arms/live axle
Brakes, F/R: 11.7-in vented disc/11.0-in drum
Tires: Firestone Steel Belted Radial
GR78-15
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 121.5 in
Length: 221.2 in
Width: 76.4 in
Height: 54.4 in
Curb Weight: 4270 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 10.6 sec
100 mph: 37.9 sec
1/4-Mile: 18.2 sec @ 79 mph
Top Speed: 108 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 207 ft
Roadholding: 0.79 g
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 16 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Highway: 18 mpg
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED