Latest news with #CadillacDeVille
San Francisco Chronicle
18-05-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
DUI arrest in San Jose crash that killed motorcyclist
A motorcyclist fueling up on a San Jose highway shoulder was killed Saturday by a motorist suspected of driving drunk, the California Highway Patrol said. The rider had pulled over onto the shoulder of northbound Highway 101 south of the intersection with Interstate 280 just before 2 a.m. to add fuel to the bike, CHP officer Ross Lee said. The driver of a white Cadillac DeVille was also heading north, veered off the road and onto the shoulder, and crashed into the rider and the bike, the CHP said. The Cadillac driver didn't stop and returned to the roadway, crossed all lanes of traffic and crashed into a concrete divider, officials said. The motorcyclist died. The Cadillac driver suffered minor injuries and was taken to a hospital for treatment, then to jail. Officers arrested the motorist on suspicion of drunken driving. The CHP didn't identify the driver or motorcyclist. The CHP closed all northbound lanes for about 1½ hours to investigate the crash.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Yahoo
Suspected drunk driver crashed into motorcycle in San Jose deadly collision
(KRON) – A fatal collision near the connector of U.S. Route 101 and Interstate 280 in San Jose leaves a motorcyclist dead early Saturday morning, according to the California Highway Patrol. CHP was notified of a crash involving a white Cadillac DeVille and a motorcycle around 1:53 a.m. According to CHP, the motorcycle was on the right shoulder of the highway when a Cadillac left the roadway and collided with the motorcycle. After the collision, the Cadillac crossed all lanes of traffic and crashed into the center divider. Man with warrants gives police fake name after alcohol theft: PD The speed at which the Cadillac was driving is unknown. The driver of the Cadillac, according to CHP, was on the scene when officers arrived to the scene. The driver is believed to be driving under the influence of alcohol, CHP said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Drive
14-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
Why There's a 1957 Cadillac Encased in Concrete In a Chicago Parking Garage
The latest car news, reviews, and features. Drive past the open-air Campus North Parking Garage at 5525 S Ellis Ave, in Chicago, and you'll spot a massive concrete sculpture shaped similarly to how a child draws a car. It's quite literally a three-box sedan completely made out of concrete. Underneath the gray slabs lies an actual car, though, a 1957 Cadillac DeVille. It's a bizarre sculpture, but one that was placed there after a painstaking effort to restore it. But why is there an old Caddy wearing a concrete coat in a seemingly random Chicago parking garage? In 1969, German artist Wolf Vostell encased an Opel Kapitän in his hometown of Cologne, Germany. It was a form of performative protest art, as he basically buried his own car alive in a public parking space in front of the Art Intermedia gallery. Like a mob hit, Vostell poured the concrete into the form built around his car while it was still running, with the radio still playing music. This way, you could hear its muffled cries as the wet aggregate solidified around it, eventually snuffing it out. Since it was in a public parking space, Vostell's art was not only seen by many people, but it also interfered with and frustrated them, too. After seeing the artist's concrete Opel, the then-new Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago invited him to do the same. It was called 'Concrete Traffic' and was built in the city's River North area in 1970. Google Maps University of Chicago. YouTube Dr. Christine Mehring (left). Concrete Happenings. Facebook Since it was commissioned by an art museum, Vostell's Chicago sequel wasn't as much of a public nuisance. The wire, rebar-mesh, and wooden form were built around the Caddy in the commuter parking lot, after which the concrete was poured. But it was all done by a team of professionals. After a few months, both Vostell and the MCA gifted the concrete Cadillac to the University of Chicago, which moved it to an outdoor lot where it sat for forty years. Then, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts was built on that lot in 2012, so Concrete Traffic was moved to a warehouse. It was at that warehouse that Dr. Christine Mehring, a specialist in 20th-century German art, found it. 'I just giggled and laughed,' Mehring said upon seeing the entombed car in a documentary about Vostell's Caddy. 'I was on the verge of tears. It was a huge moment.' From 2012 to 2016, the concrete Cadillac was comprehensively restored. Forty years of Chicago winters took their toll on its concrete structure, so it had received some patchwork repairs over the years, but that was part of the problem. The patches were not only done with a different kind of concrete, but they weren't done well enough to prevent water from getting trapped between the new patches and the original masonry, so it rotted and began to fall apart. The car underneath was falling apart, too, as the windshield caved in, the tires went flat, and rust ate away at its chassis and suspension. So, automotive and concrete experts, as well as structural engineers, were brought in to help fix and restore the 16.2-ton piece of public art, while also preventing any future decay. Now that it's been brought back to life, you can see Vostell's second murdered car as you stroll across the street from the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago. While you're in the museum, you can learn about the stone car, the efforts to restore it, and Vostell's other concrete work. Got tips? Send 'em to tips@ Nico DeMattia is a staff writer at The Drive. He started writing about cars on his own blog to express his opinions when no one else would publish them back in 2015, and eventually turned it into a full-time career.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Yahoo
The Man Who Fought Chicago for His Cadillac—and Never Got It Back
I first met Spencer Byrd in a Chicago diner one afternoon in 2018. Sitting across from me, he told me an outrageous story about how he'd been battling the city government for two years to get his 1996 Cadillac DeVille out of impound. Byrd's story would help lead to reforms to Chicago's impound program and an ongoing federal class action lawsuit against the city. But despite fighting in court for nearly a decade, he never got his Cadillac back. I learned this week that Byrd died in February, while that lawsuit was still pending. I've often considered it something—if not fate, then at least fortuitous—that Byrd and I connected. In 2017, a staffer at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois told me about Chicago's punitive vehicle impound program and put me in touch with a local attorney doing pro bono work with people whose cars had been seized. The attorney gave me the phone numbers of five or six clients who he thought would be interested in talking to me. Byrd was the only one who responded, and the story he told me was a doozy: He was a carpenter and a part-time auto mechanic in Harvey, Illinois. He said he was giving a client a lift in his car one evening in June 2016, when he was pulled over by Chicago police and searched. Byrd was clean, but his passenger, a man he says he'd never met before, had heroin in his pocket. The police released Byrd without charging him with a crime, but his car was seized and dually claimed by both the Cook County State Attorney's Office and the city of Chicago. Essentially, his car was being claimed by two distinct layers of government. Even after a state judge declared Byrd innocent in the county's asset forfeiture case against his car, Chicago refused to release the vehicle until Byrd paid thousands of dollars in impound fines and fees under the city's municipal code, which didn't include a defense for innocent owners. Byrd couldn't afford to pay the fines, and he'd never be able to without his car or the carpenter tools locked in the trunk. The car previously belonged to his late brother, and on some court forms, he listed it as a family heirloom. "I can't understand it, because I'm almost to the point of being homeless," Byrd told me. "If I was found guilty or in the wrong, do what you gotta do, but I was blind to the fact." Then at the diner, a small journalistic miracle occurred. Byrd slid over a large binder with every court filing and document in his case, even a letter from his local carpenter union vouching for him. He quite literally dropped the story in my lap. I took pictures of all of the documents, which allowed me to build a two-year timeline of Byrd's Kafkaesque battle with Cook County and the city of Chicago. Thanks to Byrd's folder, the story I eventually wrote was one of the best of my career. Other investigations by WBEZ, and ProPublica Illinois also showed how Chicago's massive impound program regularly ensnared innocent owners and low-income residents, soaking them in thousands of dollars of fines and storage fees, regardless of their ability to pay. In 2019, Byrd became one of the lead plaintiffs in a civil rights lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, against Chicago. The suit alleged that the city's impound scheme violated the Illinois and U.S. Constitution's protections against excessive fines and unreasonable seizures, as well as due process protections. Under pressure, Chicago partially reformed its vehicle impound program in 2020, including adding a defense for some innocent owners. Not to discount the work of the many other plaintiffs, attorneys, and reporters who exposed Chicago's impound racket, but it occurs to me that part of this was all set in motion because Byrd fought for two years before I met him, with barely any resources, and refused to accept a farce where Chicago could take his car for a crime he'd been declared innocent of by a state judge. Sometimes I imagined that one day Byrd would win his car back, and I'd fly to Chicago to take a picture of him reunited with his beloved Cadillac. That would have been a good story. I had professional self-interest in that of course, but Byrd also was also, as far as I could tell, a decent guy. "I have no background in drugs, no felonies, no nothing, just been working hard all my life," Byrd told me at the diner. "I believe the city just wants you to throw money at them and not fight for what's right, and I'm fighting for what's right." In March, a federal judge ruled in favor of Chicago and dismissed the Institute for Justice's lawsuit challenging the city's impound program. The Institute for Justice says it plans on appealing the decision. "Chicago's impound program has violated residents' rights for far too long," Institute for Justice senior attorney Diana Simpson said in a press release. "Innocent owners should not face sky-high fines and fees for others' actions, and the city should not treat its car owners as a revenue source. We look forward to appealing this ruling and tackling head-on cases approving of this unconstitutional system." The post The Man Who Fought Chicago for His Cadillac—and Never Got It Back appeared first on
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Yahoo
Fatal crash near Olivet claims life of local man
Mar. 27—OLIVET, S.D. — The South Dakota Highway Patrol has released the names of those involved in a fatal crash Monday evening, approximately five miles north of Olivet. According to the South Dakota Department of Public Safety, Rendell Lee Schelske, 73, of Olivet, was driving a 1999 Cadillac DeVille northbound on 426th Avenue. As he approached the intersection of 281st Street, he slowed down to make a U-turn. At the same time, Joshua R. Hofer, 35, of Olivet, was driving a 1998 Peterbilt 379 semi in the same direction and attempted to maneuver around the Cadillac as it continued its U-turn. The two vehicles collided, coming to rest in the west ditch. Schelske, who was not wearing a seatbelt, sustained fatal injuries in the crash, while both Hofer and his passenger, Marvin J. Hofer, 43, of Olivet, were wearing seatbelts and were uninjured. The South Dakota Highway Patrol, part of the South Dakota Department of Public Safety, is continuing to investigate the incident. All information provided is still preliminary at this time.
