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Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz (1981)
for sale

Price: US $9,999.99

Description:

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Beautiful Victorian Plum Firemist Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz Survivor, 1981 will probably be the most collectable year because of some unique features only found that year, including the last time a reliable Cadillac Big Block motor was offered. Cadillacs still had the largest engine of any regular passenger car in 1981, even bigger than the Corvette's 350 V8. In 1982 and all years after for this model, the only gas option was the HT4100, the worst engine in Cadillac History.
This is a true survivor car, unlike some of the so called survivor cars being flipped by dealers out there. While they are marketed as low mileage survivors, just about every one I've seen appears to have been restored, painted or fixed up to look like new, that's not the definition of a survivor. My favorite trick is when they obviously just spray painted or under coated the entire underside of the car black and try to pass that off as original. Even when it was new, it never looked like that. Pay attention to orange peel in the paint or trim pieces that are not factory. It amazes me that a well maintained vehicle with mileage in the 30k range should need any work whatsoever, if it does, then either the mileage or the well maintained is not accurate.
We bought this beauty in 2005 with about 40, 000 miles on it from the original owner that was the proverbial little old lady. She meticulously maintained the car and stored it in a heated garage in her downtown Minneapolis high rise; we've always stored it in our climate controlled garage as well. We were told by her accountant that sold the car for her that she had the Cadillac dealer do all the maintenance on it, judging by the genuine GM exhaust resonator that is dated 1994, I don't doubt it. It's rare to have an original GM exhaust resonator, as no muffler shop would bother to replace that part.
Interior is like new, the seats are in excellent condition, super soft and comfortable. The ash trays and lighters (all 3 of them) appear to have never been used. There are no cracks in the door skins or dash; the original floor mats are included, there is some wear on the driver's side floor mat.
Since we've owned it, we've installed new tires (original style wide whitewall Broadway Classics), a new headliner (although we tried with limited success to glue the vinyl edging onto the visors, since we were not able to stitch it back onto the visors), a new alternator, all new bumper fillers, and the three rubber grommets in the shift linkage for like new smooth and precise shift selecting (these dry up and break apart, causing a loose and sloppy gear selector, so bad you can't tell what gear you are in). Some of these parts have been discontinued and are difficult to track down, I should know, I had to go to two dealers and order the third one out of state. I have spares that are currently listed on eBay if you need them.
The Biarritz had just about every option standard: exclusive seats and carpet that were plusher than the standard Eldorado, exclusive stainless steel top and chrome accent, outside thermometer in the driver's side mirror, digital dash, power trunk pull down (works fine), power windows, power seat, power door locks, remote trunk release, digital climate control.
It has the rare 6-8-4 engine that works perfectly and is kind of fun feature to have, but can be disconnected with a simple unplugging of the connector to the transmission, making it just like any other engine. A lot of misinformation is out there about the 6-8-4, most of it from people that have never driven one. There's nothing mechanically wrong with the engine design, it's still the same big block engine that was used in the 500 CID 8.2 liter engines that is very reliable. The real issue with the 6-8-4 was the computer technology was not adequate to handle the job under all driving conditions, so it's more of an annoyance when it switches from 4 to 6 to 8 cylinders at highway speeds, such as when you go up a slight incline; you get a rush of power and have to back off the accelerator. Fortunately, as I said earlier, the Cadillac Engineers must have foreseen the issues and all you need to do is pull the plug on the transmission that tells the computer the transmission is in 3rd gear. This disables the cylinder deactivation with no other effects at all, it's then a regular V8 engine with a few extra parts. You could wire in a switch so you can control it from inside the car, as the system works well for city driving, and probably worked with the 55 MPH speed limits at the time, but more power is needed at 70 MPH, causing it to activate too often.
Click Here for more interesting information about the 6-8-4 and the HT4100
This the only year the 6-8-4 was offered, and the last year you could get a reliable, 368 CID - 6.0 liter big block engine in a Cadillac (except they still used it in the commercial limo chassis for a couple more years). From 1982 on, Cadillac used a horrible, underpowered 4.1liter aluminum block with cast iron heads, that had all kinds of issues. See the listing for the '85 Eldorado with 31, 000 miles that just had over $4, 100 worth of mechanical work, makes you wonder why a car with so few miles needs that much work?

_{update: 2016-02-01}