Ramblin Roy's Ramblings

December 2002

This story was submitted to Roy Boone by Scott Harvieux. (new member)

My name is Scott Harvieux and I’m a new member of the Cadillac LaSalle Club, Inc./NorthStar Region. I’m 43 years young and live in Cottage Grove with my wife Debbie and children, Candice and Derek.

In 1992, I finally had a little extra money, about $3,000.00, to buy an extra car, a toy if you will. Hopefully, something from the 50’s or 60’s and I have always had a love for Cadillac’s. My father had a few Cadillac’s while I was growing up, including a 1974 Cadillac Sedan DeVille, 1978 Cadillac Sedan DeVille and a 1984 Cadillac Coupe DeVille.

While searching for this classic, my Dad informed me that his brother, my uncle Bob, had a 1980 Cadillac Seville he was selling for coincidently, about $3,000.00. I went to check it out and immediately fell in love.

A man named Morton Phillips was the original owner of this car. For those of you who have a drink from time-to-time,  I’m sure you recognize the name “PHILLIPS”.  It’s a brand you see on Vodka, Schnapps etc. in the liquor store. He was the owner, and I think the founder, of this rather large liquor Company.

At any rate, he was a wealthy man who was usually chauffeured around by my uncle Bob’s Limousine Service. However, once in awhile, when he wanted to drive himself, he would call for his Seville and they would deliver it to him, from my uncles heated garage, so he could drive himself around. Often his drives included his wife, Abigail VanBuren, that’s right, some of you might recognize her as Dear Abby, the very popular newspaper columnist.

In other words, the car was pampered to say the least.

When I took ownership of the car it showed 35,000 miles and had no rust or dents other than a few door dings. It was pretty much like the day it rolled off the showroom floor. The original window sticker was found in the glove box. The car listed for $24,000.00, about the highest priced American made car in 1980.

The car is equipped with the Elegante’ package including: power moon roof, deluxe wire wheels covers (the big ones that stick way out), MPG sentinel and special trim along with every other Cadillac option available at the time (power antenna, 6-way seats, factory 8-track, twilight, cruise, power windows and a bunch of other stuff). You name it, it has it.

The car has been pretty reliable over the years, although a couple years ago the power booster, for the brakes, went out and as long as that was being replaced, I also did all the pads and rotors. This was spendy, but well worth it. After all, cars are no fun to drive if the brakes don’t work. About two years after I purchased the car, my wife called to say she was stranded. The car wouldn’t steer!!!! What happened was the air conditioning had gone out and the pulley on the air conditioning compressor froze up, causing the belt to break. This is the same belt that drives the power steering, henceforth the reason the car steered with difficulty. After driving the car home using the arm-strong method, I replaced the belt with a shorter belt, that bypassed the air conditioner. To this day that’s the way it is. NO! Air Conditioning. I don’t miss it either, since the moon roof provides plenty of cool air for me. Someday I would like to fix because it’s the only thing on the entire car that doesn’t work.

My interests include Marine fishkeeping and model building. I have several built-ups of Cadillac models, including a 1/25 scale 1956 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, a 1962 Cadillac Sedan, 1959 Cadillac Series 75 Limousine, 1968 Cadillac Convertible, 1968 Cadillac Coupe, 1978 Cadillac Coupe and a modified monogram 1959 Cadillac Eldorado kit which I converted into a Series 62. This model was featured in the August, 1993 issue of Car Modeler Magazine including the cover.

Scott Harvieux, club member

Roy Boone, Columnist