"World's Rarest and most desirable American Car".

a one-off survivor, right here in Australia since 1960. Pedigree history.

Photos: Mark Bean / Unique Cars. Words: Paul Zanetti



"Sigh, they sure don't make 'em like that anymore."


That's the usual reaction I get to Priscilla, a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz of which I am the current custodian.

I don't like to use the verb 'own' when I rabbit on about Priscilla, because, well, how do you own a living thing with a real personality and aura? And, besides, I can't take her with me when I go. So I am really just preserving her for the next 'owner', or custodian.






This isn't a car, it's automotive art. Ugly and beautiful. Preposterous and bewitching. Demanding and joyful. Expensive and priceless.

It's a relationship with a woman with all the attributes and lustful qualities of a 1950s movie starlet. Pure unadulterated glamour.



On a perfect Queensland day, floating on cloud nine down the Gold Coast Highway, there's not a care in the world.
My thumb gets a good work-out from all the 'thumbs-ups' I am obligated to return to all the kids in the back seats of their family chariots, the hardcore bikies on their Harleys, older folk smirking with a knowing smile and a gleaming memory (or imagination) in their eye, surfies strolling down for their daily ritual, and teenagers on their latest kustom bikes. I must have the most worked-out and finely honed thumb in my street.

There's not a walk of life that doesn't respond in some way to Priscilla. You know the way most drivers accelerate to squeeze you out when you flick your indicator to change lanes and pull in front of them? That doesn't happen with Priscilla. I indicate, turn around to look at the driver, and he's usually waving me in, so he can get a good eyeful, often followed by a phone call to his mates or a few snapshots from the camera-phone thingy.

I must be in...I mean Priscilla must be in, a few thousand photo albums, or computer discs, or whatever it is these days. I can never break the road rules, because someone will have evidence of it on a phone-camera-thingo. There's no nose-picking at the lights in Priscilla. Or a lot of nose-picking at the lights, depending on your sense of humour.

Once comfortably settled in front of the excitable driver behind me, I usually hit the throttle so I can get enough distance between Priscilla and the ambidextrous thrill-seeker as he grapples with his steering wheel and phona-mijig.

Mind you, he would come off second best if he hit Priscilla's 20 mm chromium bumper with his paper-thin Japanese white goods-on-wheels. I keep a spatula in the glovebox for the precise purpose of scraping late model Korean, Japanese and other assorted modern mobile sewing machines off Priscilla's pristine mirrored panels.




Automotive writer, Cliff Chambers wrote in UNIQUE CARS magazine:

"There will never again be a car like the astonishing 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz. General Motors certainly won’t make one, nor will Maybach or Rolls-Royce or even the prone-to-excess Bugatti. In 1959 form, the Biarritz took every rule of design restraint, every tenet of styling convention and tossed them deep into the freezing lakes that border America’s `Motor City’.

What Cadillac did with its 1959 models was so extreme that every other carmaker was obliged to quietly push its chips to the centre of the table, walk outside and step in front of a passing bus.


- - - - - - - - - -


I was a late bloomer.

At least in terms of all the other teenage flame-throwers I grew up with in Wollongong, my hometown, 100 kms or so south of Sydney.

I really didn’t take much interest in cars until one afternoon in the late 1980s when I was working on the `Daily Telegraph’ I picked up a Sydney 'Sun' newspaper and out fell a brochure for Franklin Mint’s `Cars of the 1950s’ micro-models.

These were the most incredible shaped cars I had ever seen and I immediately thought, "why aren’t they making cars like that any more?". They were like nothing I had ever seen before. In Australia, at that time, classic American cars were as rare as the proverbials. The Aussie streets were littered with tinny, plastic, rubbery, unimaginative, dumbed-down boxes on wheels. These American cars leapt to life right out of the brochure.

One of the die-cast models was a white 1959 Eldorado Biarritz. It was my instant favourite of all the fifties models. The car looked like it should have been designed by a cartoonist. I could just see Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck cruising down the boulevard in one of these contraptions.

I knew I had to own one - not just the model. The real deal.


Sadly for me, I soon realised that my awakening was a few years too late.

In the early-mid 1980s a mint, restored or excellent low-mileage original1959 Eldorado Biarritz could be had for between $US 8,000 - $US 12,000.

With the advent of the mid-late 1980s credit boom, like (un)real estate, artwork and all things 'collectable', classic cars shot through the roof.

By the time I had tracked down copies of Hemmings Motor News, the classifieds 'bible' of classic cars in America, prices of the very few '59 Biarritzs offered for sale by the late '80s, were upwards of $US 200,000. Rusted old junkers could be had for a 'steal' of just over $US 50,000.

To add further to my woes and shattered dreams, 'The Wall Street Journal' predicted at that time, and with the percentage growth of the '59 Biarritz as a performing investment, it would be the first post-war (WWII), $US 1 million car.

Oh, the cruelty of fate.

As a practising cartoonist, well, timing is everything. With the '59 Eldo, my timing sucked!

It was not to be. I was grasping at an ethereal fantasy. Clutching at clouds.


On to Plan 'B'.

Cadillac offered around thirteen models in 1959: Coupes, Coupe De Villes, Sedan flat-tops (or veranda tops), Curved rear window Sedan De Villes, Eldorado Broughams (4 doors), Eldorado Sevilles (special 2-door coupe Eldorados), Eldorado Biarritz (the Eldorado convertible), a 'series-62' (standard Cadillac) convertible, Fleetwood 4-door, 6-passenger sedans, 9-passenger Limousines, 9 passenger Fleetwood sedans, hearses (3 styles), flower cars, ambulances etc. Those were the days when car manufacturers busted their necks to appease the customer. These days the customers is squeezed (screwed?) to appease the shareholder.

As I realised my dream of securing a '59 Biarritz was just a pipe-dream, I decided to 'lower my sights' and look for the more 'commonly-produced' and cheaper 'series 62' Cadillac convertible (15,000 factory-made against the 1,320 factory-produced Eldorado convertibles. Today there are only 400 known surviving '59 Biarritz).

For the first time, in 1959, the standard series-62 convertible shared the same body as the prestigious 'Eldorado' convertible. The Eldo, of course with a lot more bling, tricks, options, doo-dahs and buttons and switches and stuff (technical observation at the time).

Yes, I would get a cheaper series-62 convertible and paint it my favourite (and most desirable) colour, Persian Sand (a factory original bronze-pink metallic).


So, on a break sitting on Waikiki Beach, I scanned a copy of the Los Angeles Times classifieds and The Old Car Trader (US model for Australia's later Unique Cars magazine).

There it was. '1959 Cadillac Convertible. Needs total restoration. Cheap.'

I was on a flight to LA the next morning.

The address instructions directed me to a car restoration and custom car workshop north of Los Angeles. I sat in the lobby with a tribe of Arabian oil sheiks (or so they appeared) who, the secretary told me, were ordering a fleet of bullet-proof customised super-stretch Cadillac limousines. I looked around for the tiny 'Candid Camera', thinking, "only in America!".

Finally I was shown to the workshop where there sat a sad, rusted, neglected 1959 convertible with no floors. It looked like it had spent most of its life in a Florida swamp. The vendor was a bit sheepish, not knowing what he could say to justify the asking price or his audacity for even trying to sell it.

"I'll take it!", I proclaimed before he could even open his mouth.

Days later it was in a container headed for Australia. My affair with Cadillacs had begun.




Upon its arrival, in Australia, the car was sent for professional restoration – a steep learning curve which took three years. It was painted my favourite 1959 factory colour, Persian Sand with matching imported vinyl interior.

Well, if I was never going to own a real Persian Sand '59 Eldorado Biarritz this was as close as reality would allow me, and this car satisfied my hunger - for the time being.

Three years later, and about the time the restoration was completed Australia's only 1959 Eldorado Biarritz came up for sale. The country was in the grip of Paul Keating's "recession-we-had-to-have." Interest rates were around the 18% rate. The stockmarket had crashed, the real estate market became more 'real' and got a reality check, collectables (whether art, cars, furniture or other) were 'luxuries' even the rich were not buying.

And there smack in the middle of a 'buyer's market' sat Priscilla, just waiting for a new owner.

I first noticed her advertised for an extraordinary amount of money, and I knew she was worth every cent of the asking price.

The only thing to do was to let out a 'sigh' and wish the new owner, who would obviously 'jump' at the chance to grab Australia's most collectable car, the best of luck. Maybe someday I would be privileged to see her at a car show, behind barriers with the owner's private security guards keeping nimble fingers like mine a far distance from her duco.

I comforted myself by thinking, "Anyway, it's red. Not even a Persian Sand one. If I ever get one, it's got to be Persian Sand."


Months went by, and she was still being advertised. I checked the date on the cover of the magazine to make sure I was not reading an old copy.

How could this car still be for sale? Doesn't Rene Rivkin, Kerry Packer, John Laws, Lindsay Fox etc know this car is for sale? If they did, it wouldn't still be on the market.

A year went by, with no sign of confidence returning to the economy, or the 'toy' market. Priscilla had not been sold. She was obviously waiting for me to get off my backside. I decided to make that call.

A soft, kindly, yet guarded voice, with a hint of a European accent, answered the phone.

"I'm calling about the Eldorado."

"What would you like to know?", he asked.

"What can you tell me about it? How long have you owned it? What's it's history? Why are you selling it?"..and on....and on I asked as long as 'he' would let me, before he hung up on me, concluding he was wasting his time with another dreamer. I didn't bother asking about the fuel economy.

'He' was Guido Vella, the nephew, as it turned out, of the original Australian owner of the car - Charlie Pirotta, who bought the car in Melbourne in 1960.

Guido explained to me the car was his dream car since he was a small boy. His uncle Charlie owned it.

Uncle Charlie had an arrangement with nephew Guido. Charlie would drive young Guido to school for each time Guido washed the car. Needless to say, that car was probably the cleanest in Melbourne in the early 1960s.


As I warmed to him, and he opened up to me, I confessed to Guido that I wasn't really looking for a red Biarritz, but that my favourite factory colour was called 'Persian Sand'.

That's what this car is!" exclaimed Guido.

"I painted it red because I think it looks better in red. But it's original colour is Persian Sand."

I was dumbfounded.

Here in Australia, was the country's only 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible, factory Persian Sand, rare and collector-desired factory bucket seats (only 70 produced w/buckets) and fully optioned (cruise control, air conditioning, power windows, power vent windows, power trunk lock, central locking, bucket seats, air bag suspension, triple carburettors, power top, power brakes, power steering, autronic eye (automatic hi-beam, lo-beam headlight dipper, when on-coming car is detected at night)....the lot! Luxury cars today don't even offer these features. The car practically drives itself. A rolling jukebox and spaceship with the comfort of a loungeroom.

I told Guido that this was my dream car and that I was currently driving a 'pretend' 59 Biarritz - a standard series 62 Cadillac convertible in Persian Sand.

I wired Guido a deposit. The series 62 was put on the market (needless to say it was sold the day the ad appeared, and I received phone calls for 12 months after. I wasn't the only crazy dreamer out there). I flew to Melbourne and drove out to Guido's house in Dandenong. He opened the garage door where there 'she' sat under a protective cover. The fins formed the shape of a jet age fighter under the cover. Guido walked over and lifted the cloak to reveal a pair of shimmering chrome tail lights, rear grille and bumper. As he peeled the cover off, the Eldorado trim work exploded to life as it reacted with daylight.


I tried to look cool and unimpressed. I didn't do a good job. Heart pounding, adrenalin rushing, tongue-tied.

"Do you want to take her for a drive?", Guido asked.

My mind responded with the obvious questions...."Is the pope a Catholic?"...."Is the earth round?"....."Does a wild bear....?"

Before I knew it I was cruising the streets of Dandenong in a '59 Biarritz. Heaven can't be much better than this.

"You know," said Guido, breaking into my daydream, "I've never let anyone else drive this car. I've had lots of lookers come down wanting to trade two or three cars for it, or some other deal, or offer, as long as they could take it for a drive. But I never let 'em. I could tell they were tyre-kickers....time-wasters, you know."

"So, why are you letting me drive it?" I questioned.

"Because I know you are going to buy the car."

I felt like I had won a father's permission to marry his daughter.

And it just happened to be February 14, 1994....Valentine's Day.

Guido didn't need to confirm to me that I was going to buy the car. My mind was long made up.

Papers were put in order, then Guido asked how I was going to transport the car from Melbourne back to Sydney.

"I'm driving her!"

I nearly had to pick him up from the floor.


After his 2 year restoration back in 1985, he had only put 300 miles on the clock in nine years, up until 1994. He would start her up every couple of weeks and take her around the block, and to the (very) occasional car show. That was it. Hence the reason he was selling it. He never enjoyed the car. It owed him too much, and had become too much of a responsibility. And being a modest, private gentleman, it drew too much attention to him.

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

Now that I have owned the car for longer than Guido did, I can attest to its 'fun' value. It's a fun car, including for all those on the road around you. If you aren't having fun with it, what's the point in owning it? You might as well lock it up in a museum. And that's not why they built it.

As the Melbourne road grid was pretty foreign to me, Guido offered to drive ahead of me to escort me through the city to the airport so that I could get onto the highway heading up Sydney way. We pulled over at the airport. When we got out, Guido was almost shaking. He was more nervous than me navigating through the early morning Melbourne city traffic. I was having a blast.

We shook hands (I almost gave him a double kiss on each cheek), and we parted company.


Driving to Sydney in Priscilla was a joy. She purred all the way, a testament to Guido's restoration efforts. I even gave the triple carburettors a good testing on the open highways. Think driving a rocket ship and going into hyper-space.

Guido and I traded Christmas cards for many years and I found him an exact replica large-scale '59 Biarritz die-cast model, so he can still say he has a red '59 Biarritz.

I used the car as my daily driver around Sydney for many years. Michelle would jump into Priscilla to go to Woolies. We refused to get a modern car, which we rationalised we'd probably never drive anyway. Getting into Priscilla was like going on a little holiday each day.

"Oh damn, we've run out of milk!"

"No worries. I'll go to the shop in the Eldo and get some!"

"Paul, the store's only one block away."

"That's okay, I'll go up to Woolies...and get some....other stuff we probably need... the car probably needs a good run anyway!".

"We just got home from Woolies 10 minutes ago."

"Sorry, didn't hear you. See you in 1/2 hour!"

Priscilla played a secondary role as the flagship of my wife, Michelle's wedding business, Wild Weddings, which specialised in genuine classic Cadillacs of the 1950s and '60s (our family grew...a 1956 Cadillac Sedan De Ville, a pink 59 Sedan De Ville, a 1954 Eldorado convertible, another 59 Eldo, this time a white one, three limos...we ended up with 15 restored classic Cadillacs). We christened each girl so we could identify them...Maybeline, Norma-Jean, Lucille, Mary-Lou, Dolly, Sabrina, Tammy, Tiffany, Lucille,...and so on. The more masculine limos had more appropriate tags, 'The Duke, 'The Godfather and 'JFK' (a 1960 limo who partnered a 1960 convertible called 'Jacqueline').
In late 2000, another family came along with the arrival of Cristina and her little brother, Dylan a couple of years later.

So we decided to sell the wedding car business and move to hinterland acreage on the Gold Coast.

By this time, we had also accrued a respectable collection of iconic 1950s - 1960s furniture which we had collected and restored over the past 15 years. We decided to build a matching classic 1950s - '60 American style home (Mid-Century Modernism) in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright meets Richard Neutra.

Basically, the house and contents had to complement the car.


In the midst of this transition, I decided to give Priscilla a facelift in 2002. It had now been 18 years since Guido's restoration, and the paint was loosing its lustre, the interior was wearing and some small rust bubbles were surfacing in the typical spots for an older '59 Cadillac.

Off to the paint shop, where she was stripped. We discovered the rust had travelled from the front door sills, all the way to the rear panel and up midway the rear quarter. There was no question. What was intended to be a re-spray in red, became a complete restoration. In which case, I decided that I would bite the bullet and return her to her original colour, Persian Sand.

Seeing that she would be completely disassembled, it would be worthwhile and prudent to return her to all original factory specs, including re-conversion back to left-hand-drive, the way that god ( I mean Harley Earl, the head of GM design at the time) had intended. This included removal of the installed right-hand-drive 1960 Cadillac dashboard which was added when Priscilla had an electrical fire in the 1970s, damaging her '59 dash. A '60 dash was all that was available during repair (there is just a subtle difference between the '59 and '60 to the knowing eagle-eye). The 1960 steering wheel was also replaced for a '59 (see the red photos above and compare to the Persian Sand photos. Steering wheels are different).

The restoration...um...cosmetic surgery, was completed in 2005.

Priscilla now enjoys the retired, leisurely life she has earned and deserves, looking high over the panoramic Gold Coast below, sipping cocktails of lubrication oils with a dash of brake fluid and transmission fluid. When her friends from the local Cadillac Club come over they get into some of the hi-octane juice and regale stories of their younger days gone by. Some of the stories are a real hoot...and we're talking Eldorado 'triple-trumpet horn' hoot'!

Priscilla is known to venture out of her estate gates and into town, top down, preening herself as she cruises the boulevards, signing autographs for young and old alike.



PREVIOUSLY UNDISCLOSED HISTORY AND PEDIGREE DISCOVERED IN 2005

"World's Rarest 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz" - Unique Cars magazine

while completing Priscilla's restoration, a glance at the original dealer Warranty Book prompted a search on the internet to find the original owner. From there, a previously undisclosed history was revealed, placing Priscilla in a league of her own: as arguably the rarest, and possibly most valuable collectable American car on a worldwide basis.

I decided to type the original owner's name into 'google'. Up popped the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper's obituaries for 21 May 2000.

Howard Merhar

Howard E. "Howie" Merhar, died April 6.
He was born in Roundup, Mont. A Marine Corps veteran of World War II, where he served in three theaters of war and awarded the Purple Heart.
He was a member of Disabled Veterans, Marine Corps League, Elks Lodge, American Legion and a colonel in the Order of Kentucky Colonels Purple Heart Club. A retired manager at a hotel-casino, he was a 36-year resident of Las Vegas.
He is survived by his sons, Howard and Brett; and sisters, Carole Bashford, all of Las Vegas and Mary Lou Santino of San Rafael, Calif. Palm Mortuary-Eastern handled the arrangements.

Bingo!

I found Priscilla's' first owner, but alas I was five years too late to speak to him.

So onto his next of kin.

Try the American phone book. A good place to start. So bring up the US white pages (www.whitepages.com) online.

The first few leads were a dead-end. Not looking good.

The last name, and my last hope, was 'Mary Lou Santino' of San Rafael in California.

The phone rang, to be answered by a frail, elderly woman.

"Hello-o-o!"

"Is Mary Lou Santino there?"

"This is me."

I explained myself to a bewildered American, whose husband, Tony decided to listen in on the extension phone. We had a three-way conversation for about an hour, where I learned a lot about the colourful character who first walked into the local 'Cadillac' dealer and saw her fresh from the factory.

'Howie', it turned out was a man of means, and loved the good things in life. He always bought the best, including a brand new Eldorado convertible each year. Remember, these cars were more expensive than the price of an average house in the USA, and three times the price of the more common Chevrolet.

Howie lived in Butte (pronounced 'Byoot'...or in Australian 'Beaut', as in 'You beaut!' in the northern state of Montana (see Warranty Book address).

At the time, he owned a 'supper club': 'Howie's Supper Club'

It made a motza!

The town of Butte was a 'copper town', along the Montana 'copper belt'. Many millionaires were made when stakes were claimed, as in the gold rush days. Copper Kings ruled. And what did they do at night when they had made their fill of drilling and counting their dosh? They went out at night in their Eldorados, a dame in tow and a wallet full of the folding stuff.

Howie was only too glad to funnel their earnings into his club coffers. He did so well, he also bought the supper club down the road, 'The Levitt Supper Club'.

By the early 1960s Butte was too small for Howie. He had his sights on a bigger pond...Las Vegas!

He and a partner started a casino in Las Vegas.

For whatever reason, Howie's Casino plans didn't work out as intended (my mind races to the movie 'Casino' with Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone).

The casino closed. He soon found himself as manager at the Las Vegas 'International' hotel, soon bought by Conrad Hilton (more famous these days as Paris's grandfather), emerging as the 'Las Vegas Hilton'.

Priscilla was delivered to Howie in late 1958 (see Warranty Book).

By late 1959 he had traded her in for the 1960 Eldorado (or in the context of history, 'traded down' to a '60 model). Howie always did his business at Barclay Motors, of Butte, even when he moved to Las Vegas. This was confirmed to me, when I spoke to the now-retired owner of Barclay Motors in Montana who said Howie bought his Cadillacs from him up until the late '70s, despite living in Vegas.

After the trade-in, Priscilla was consigned to a Los Angeles wholesale car auction yard, from where she was purchased by Melbourne-based car and antique dealer, Julian Sterling. At the time I tracked Julian down in December 2005, he clearly remembered the car as if he had found her yesterday. He would go to Los Angeles each year and bring back the near-latest American cars at wholesale prices to an astonished Australian public, who were used to driving FJ and EH Holdens. Julian could command a king's ransom with the latest Thunderbird convertibles, Eldorados, Imperials, Buicks, Pontiacs and so on. They were showcased at his trendy Chapel Street, Prahran auto yard, Le Mans Motors.

In the context of provincial Melbourne in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Priscilla made such an impression she was then considered Australia's most prestigious and glamourous car. For that matter, she still gets that response 48 years later.


Julian tells me that he only had the car 3-4 months when it was sold to Charlie Pirotta, a Melbourne businessman of Maltese decent.

In mid-2005 I spoke to Charlie's son, Joe, who was in his early 20s when his dad bought the car in 1960 for 8,000 pounds.

Joe told me he bought a house for 6,000 pounds about that time, and his father proceeded to get the car converted to right-hand-drive at a further cost of 10,000 pounds, making that a total of 18,000 pounds, or three times the price of an average Melbourne home (well over a million dollars in today's money).

Joe went on to explain that his father had migrated to Australia from Malta in 1948 with considerable wealth.

Charlie had a weakness for American convertibles, buying whatever was for sale. Usually, he explained, Charlie had a 1958 Thunderbird in 1959, or a 1959 Eldorado in 1960 (as soon as they were available in the behind-the-times-Australian market.

As a twenty-two year old with a dad owning a fleet of American convertibles, Joe tells me that he considered the Eldorado "my car", and he drove it around as much as his dad.

Charlie owned and operated a quarry. There are older car magazines which record Charlie driving around town, "...in bare feet and scruffy clothes with two big dogs in the back....". The dogs were renowned for taking a running leap up the rear trunk (boot) and diving into the back seat, at the snap of Charlie's fingers.

In 1963, Charlie sold the car due to cash flow problems caused, it seems, by his addiction to expensive American cars, and his propensity to change their colours at a whim.

Due to the price, he found it frustrating and difficult to move. There were no shortage of dreamers and 'wanna-haves', but at the price of two or three houses in the early '60s, Priscilla wasn't going to be bought by just anyone.

The car was placed 'on consignment' to a number of car yards.

Along came a young entrepreneurial motor dealer (and now one of the country’s leading car collectors, Bruce Terry, head of the Terry Group of companies, and a prominent Melbourne property developer. Today Bruce Terry has over 85 rare and exotic cars in his collection). When I located Bruce Terry in mid-2005, he recalled Priscilla with great affection.

Amazingly, and fortunately for me in chronicling the history of Priscilla, most of the previous owners are still around. Once I explain to them my reason for contacting them, they all warmly open up and regaled stories and fond memories of their time with Priscilla. Like an ex-lover, she has left a little piece of herself in each of their hearts. No jealousy that she is now with me. She seems to have brought out the best in all of her previous 'lovers'.

Bruce Terry asked me if I had a moment. "I'd like to tell you a little story about the car."

I was all ears, pen poised at paper.

"I had the car for maybe three months. I bought it from Charlie for 3,500 pounds".

"You can imagine me as a young twenty-something year-old driving around Melbourne in that car in the early 1960s. There was no other car that came close. One day in 1963 a fellow by the name of Ken Martin came into my car yard and bought the car. He was a Melbourne fire-arms dealer, and it was a Thursday. He placed a deposit, and he agreed to come by the following day, a Friday, to pay the balance. We agreed to meet that Friday night for a night out in the car. We met with some lady friends and went back to Ken's house. I left Ken's house around midnight. An hour later at 1:00 am, he took a gun and blew his brains out.".

"No one really knows why he bought the car, and then hours later, took his life."

"Do you know what happened to the car...?"

"No. We were all so shocked. I had no idea where the car went from there, and I didn't ask."

She was sent to a Sydney exotic car dealer on Parramatta Road.

There, Priscilla was photographed during 1964 at 'Christie’s'the Parramatta Road car yard, by magazine publisher Eddie Ford.



Another interesting and unique 'Priscilla' anecdote arises here.

If you look closely at the Eddie Ford photo at Christie's, you will notice something protruding from the rear deck (trunk). This is in fact Australia's first working mobile car phone, installed by and operated through Telecom back in the early 1960s. I was first told about this phone by Dave Farquar, a character and Cadillac-lover who lives on his Texas-style ranch outside Tamworth. Dave looks like he stepped right out of an old Western movie. Ten gallon hat, boots, flannel shirt and a shed full of horses and Cadillacs. I pulled into his place while driving up north in Priscilla. He didn't know I was arriving, but his wife did. Dave, it turns was a 1959 Cadillac lover, and had been a distant admirer of Priscilla's for decades. When he pored over her in his best Clint Eastwood style, he said, "You know, I remember there was a working car phone in this car in the '60s."

That was the first I had heard about it.

"Are you sure? I mean, a working car phone? Did they have the technology back then?"

"Yeah...there was a big box contraption in the boot, a bakelite phone bolted to the trannie hump, and an aerial sticking out of the decklid."

"Mmmm.....", I thought...."If there was an aerial in the decklid, they must have drilled a hole through the deck. And if they did that, the hole would still be there."

We popped the lid (button in the glovebox) and the auto-trunk lid motor whirred and released the lid.

Lo and behold, there in the centre of the lid is a welded repair about the size and shape of a 20 cent coin.

"That's where the aerial was", said Dave.

I later read in the Sydney Morning Herald motoring 'Drive' insert that about three cars in the 1960s were equipped with Australia's first mobile phones. One car was owned by airline pioneer, Reg Ansett. One was Priscilla.

The system was pretty primitive. Basically, if you wanted to make a phone call next Friday, you called up Telecom, and booked your call ahead, and the duration of the call (Australia's first pre-paid mobile phone plan?). And the other three car owners could pick up their handset and listen in.

I couldn't help thinking, this car was a James Bond, Inspector Gadget, Batman and Maxwell Smart 'dream car'.

I almost asked Dave where the button for the 'Cone of Silence' was located.

Priscilla was acquired from 'Christies' by another colourful owner – this time a well-known developer who happened to be listed as one of 'Australia's top 50 wealthiest individuals'.

As legend had it, our developer friend was sitting in the car one night when persons unknown attempted to shoot him through the expensive tinted windscreen.

Priscilla wound up at O'Brien's Glass awaiting a new windscreen from The States – and 'for sale', plus storage costs and new windscreen cost. While I do have the name of the 'well-known' owner, these legendary versions have been passed down to me by others who knew him, or of him, and I want the then-owner's version and permission to publish his name, and to verify the accuracy of the anecdotes. He lives on the Gold Coast (where I live), but is difficult to locate. Of all the previous owners he has proved the most difficult to trace.

(Update : Since these words were written, in mid-2006 I have located the then-owner through a call made to me by his close family friend, George. The man's name is Theo Morris. Theo is now in his 70s. I asked George to ask Theo to call me. And he did. A retired and very private man, Theo does not seek out people he does not know. However, the magic of Priscilla had again woven it's spell. He was a delightful man. We hooked up (I picked him up in Priscilla). He was so moved and touched that he had tears in his eyes. His lady friend (more than half his age, by my reckoning) told me that Theo is not an emotional man. But that's Priscilla. We toured around the Gold Coast for a day, stopping at a cafe or two. The stories Theo told me about his days as a single man in his '30s and '40s (from 1964 - 1974) with Australia's most glamourous car, could be classified as 'legendary', filling a book. Let's just say he became quite the lad about town with a life of wine women and song.

Theo tells me he never sold the car as such. He left the car with a friend who owned a cafe in Kings Cross. After a year, Theo called up to check on the car, and his 'friend' admitted to selling the car. Although disppointed, Theo is not a bitter man, and told me he just went out and bought another car. Remember this was the mid '70s and these were 25 year old cars. Tired, worn down, and by Theo's own admission, she was always full of problems (so many electrical options and gadgets now not working. Which was the reason Theo placed her in storage in the first pace).

By the time she was sold in 1974, Priscilla was in desperate straits and very real danger of joining the almost 1000 Eldorados from 1959 that have seemingly disappeared.

With word out that Priscilla was in storage, news reached Brisbane, home of the famous (notorious?) 'Deen' family and renowned Cadillac collectors and dealers.

Keith Deen tells me that he bought the car in 1974 from Steve who was selling on behalf of Theo Morris. That was his version, anyway.

The agreed price in 1974 was $2,500.

During the time with Keith, the car was used in the 1979 movie 'Dawn', on the life of legendary Aussie Olympic triple-gold medallist, Dawn Fraser. The car (in the movie) was her manager's 'fang-around'. This old flick is occasionally re-run on (very) late night TV and is available on dvd.

In 1980 it was sold by Keith to Bill Horward of Stawell, Victoria for $6,000. Bill parked the car in a shed where it became a roost for the owner’s collection of breeding peacocks. It seems a natural co-existence: a Biarritz and peacocks.

In 1984 along comes Guido Vella into the picture. Armed with a “substantial amount of cash in a bag” and dazzled Bill "never-sell" Horward with the bag's contents. Guido strategically ambushed Bill with the bag, turning up at Bill's farm, unannounced and unexpectedly. It seems Bill never knew what hit him.

Guido then limped Priscilla all the way from Stawell to Melbourne, then set about a hugely expensive, two-year restoration, customising the car to his own personal preferences. The 'personal touches' included chrome-plating many components that were not originally factory chromed (rocker covers, pulleys, door hinge plates, oil breather cap, hood hinges, hood latch, and so on. Even the piping in the new red leather interior was chromed-piped. You literally had to wear shades to drive her or tweak the mechanicals.

I bought the car on February 14, 1994 (Valentine's Day).


PRISCILLA A RARE SURVIVOR
Around mid-2005, I was contacted by email by Bill Refakis from the United States. Bill explained to me he had been compiling a registry for all known surviving 1959 Eldorado Biarritz convertibles. He had been acquiring the information since the 1970s, through car ads in newspapers, Hemmings Motor News, car clubs, word of mouth, and so on. To date he had located around 300 genuine surviving 1959 Eldorado Biarritzs worldwide.

I was glad to hear from Bill. Once I had completed Priscilla's re-restoration, I had planned a website to document all known identical 'twin' cars to Priscilla (or triplets, or quadruplets, as the case might be).

She has all the most desirable and collectable factory specifications, options and colours.

That is, she is a factory 'triple-Persian-Sand' car. (Paint colour code: 98 for Persian Sand, Trim 18B: Bronze leather for matching Persian Sand body, with the 'B' denoting 'bucket seats', and top colour 3B, for Prairie Plum to match Persian Sand). She also has the rare and sought-after factory installed bucket seats (only 70 Eldorados made with bucket seats - including in the 22 other colours available in 1959). That narrows down triple-Persian Sand, bucket seat cars to a small handful. Then the other cars had to have all the factory options to Priscilla. I had only heard of one other triple-Persian Sand, bucket seat car in the United States. But that car excluded factory air conditioning. It was actually sold for a premium sum in 2004.



So, to help me in my quest for the 'other twins' to Priscilla I believed were out there, I asked Bill Refakis if he could email me the location and contact details for the other Priscilla-factory-look-alikes.

To my astonishment, he informed me, "...there aren't any. Yours is the only one."

While he agreed there were possibly other non-factory (or post-factory) Eldorados out there that had been later stripped of their original colour, or had similar bucket seats installed from other GM cars of 1958 - 1961 (similar bucket seats were available in Pontiacs, Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Chevs in these years), or had other options later installed, such as air conditioning or autronic eye, he had none on record with all these factory-ordered original specs. This is verified by each car's factory ID plate on the lower windscreen cowl.


Priscilla is an iconic one-off. Cadillac is widely considered the most significant representation of American motoring success and excess, with Cadillac's extreme reaching its peak in 1959.

The Eldorado Biarritz is the most popular and extreme definition of the Cadillac marque. The colours and options ordered by Howard Merhar of Butte, Montana, from Barclay Motors in 1958, have branded Priscilla the world's most perfect representation of 20th Century motoring history, by the world's largest automotive manufacturer. I wonder what Howard got for her when he traded her for the '60 model back in 1959.

Priscilla is a truly special car.

Unique in the world, with a unique history to match.

I pinch myself every day when I see her in my garage, and I am never bored admiring her voluptuous curves, before thinking "What the hell.", and jumping in her for another ride to the shops for some milk.

We need to get another fridge to stock all the excess milk.











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