By Dave Rubin
Photos courtesy of the author and Nick Manole
The origin of the Fleetwood trademark in the U.S., and the use of that name to distinguish, differentiate and elevate certain beloved Cadillac vehicles, is well documented.
In 1925, the worlds of Fleetwood and Cadillac combined. Fleetwood, a manufacturer of metal and wood automobile bodies, was purchased by Fisher Body Co. Lawrence P. Fisher was Cadillac general manager at the time.
Seventy-one years later, 1996, was the Fleetwood trademark’s final model year. The car’s last iteration was as a rear-wheel-drive luxury cruiser. After that model year, Fleetwood gave up its factory space to the production of full-sized GM SUVs. But is that really the end of the Fleetwood story? The answer is no.
It turns out the Fleetwood name would live on for two additional model years, as the 1998 and 1999 Fleetwood Limiteds. A Fleetwood Limited started life as a front-wheel-drive DeVille heavy-duty limousine chassis. The car was then delivered to Superior Coaches of Lima, Ohio, and cut into thirds. The six inches that were added to the rear passenger compartment resulted in more legroom and 2.1 inches in additional wheelbase. Six inches were added to the trunk separately. The cars were then sold by Superior to authorized Cadillac dealers.1 Just 314 were produced in 1998 and 467 in 1999 for a total of 781, making the cars rare and desirable.2
The strategic placement of the body extensions causes the Fleetwood Limiteds to look normal in length, not stretched, when compared to the factory DeVilles. Photos of the car’s exterior in the 1998 Fleetwood Limited brochure do not make the car look dissimilar to the same year’s DeVilles.
The 1999 brochure, however, features the car with fender skirts, which do differentiate the car visually from the factory ’99 DeVilles. Fender skirts were available for both model years, as well as other “Superior Options,” like a chrome grille enhancement, solid wood folddown writing tables, a TV/VCR option and footrests.3
The story of the Fleetwood Limited name carries with it a bit of trivia. In 1997, there was a deal done between Don Cuzzocrea, CEO of Superior Coaches; Earle F. Moloney, designer of the Fleetwood Limited [see sidebar]; and then-CEO of GM Jack Smith Jr. The deal, according to Tim Pawl, vice president and curator of the CLC Museum & Research Center, and verified by William Kennedy, vice president of Lehmann-Peterson (a company owned by Moloney), was GM would lend the Fleetwood trademark to Superior, and GM’s Saturn Division got use of the “LW” trademark. Moloney controlled “LW” through another business named Limousine Werks.
The result was that Saturn’s new-car line was called the L-Series in 1998, and the Fleetwood name got two more years to live on as a luxury automobile.4
POSTSCRIPT
I had submitted the final draft of the Fleetwood Limited article in early September 2014. Two months later, I found myself at the annual Chauffeur Driven Trade Show and Conference in Atlantic City, N.J. This is a show I had never been to before and likely will never attend again.
The circumstances that brought me there were a little bizarre, outside the scope of this article, but I was happy to be invited. Knowing I would see a lot of Cadillacs and other vehicles of the luxury transportation type, the six-hour round trip did not bother me.
The trade show floor of the Trump Taj Mahal was cluttered with insurance companies, nonprofit trade organizations, lots of party buses and Sprinters, as well as the professional car divisions of Cadillac and a few other makes. I scored an awesome Cadillac-script pen, which I donated to the June 24 Museum & Research Center auction in Brookfield. There were only a few custom limousine companies in attendance, but one of them just happened to be Lehmann-Peterson, A Moloney Entity (their emphasis).
The Moloney Entity was in Atlantic City to show a custom car that is the spiritual successor to the Fleetwood Limited. The car is the XTS-L, a factory XTS lengthened to provide seven additional inches of rear legroom. In the essence of the Fleetwood Limited, this stretch is subtle, too. Unless this car was parked next to a stock XTS, it is doubtful anyone would be able to see how more than half a foot of additional legroom was achieved.
I may never return to that particular trade show, and I may never knowingly see another XTS-L, but I saw the ghost of Fleetwoods past, and it was good.
Dave Rubin of Carmel, N.Y., is the CLC’s executive vice president, former VP of information technology and former director of the Lower Hudson Valley Region.
FOOTNOTES
1 Car & Driver, July 1998
2 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Fleetwood
3 automobilemag.com/features/news/0910_saturn_timeline_1982_to_2009/
The Really Really Last Fleetwood
Earle F. Moloney
While doing the research on the Fleetwood Limited article, the name Earle F. Moloney came up a number of times. Mr. Moloney is credited with designing the Fleetwood Limited, but there is a lot more to this man which readers of this magazine might find interesting. According to a January 1994 article in Limousine & Chauffeur magazine, “…more than anyone else, Moloney had helped to usher in the era of the contemporary stretch limousine.”1
He accomplished this by offering more luxury options in stretched limousines than the Cadillac factory did. Turnaround of custom-built limousines was also quicker than what the factory guys could accomplish. But Moloney offered his Cadillac limousines only through Cadillac dealers, to support the channel and to do what was right for the buyer, since he lacked the facilities to properly service the cars.
From the Molon Motor & Coil Corp. website [molon.com]: “Earle F. Moloney founded Moloney Coachbuilders in 1968. Moloney’s name is synonymous with the creation of today’s long-wheelbased limousine industry. His design and manufacturing innovations have become standard in the industry. His concern about limousine safety and quality long preceded the current federal standards. Moloney was the first to ‘crash test’ a Cadillac Limousine against a barrier wall at 31 mph [see photo below] in order to prove the safety of his manufacturing methods.”2
Moloney is credited with being the underlying force behind the creation of more than 12,000 limousines manufactured to his standards and specifications. Earle F. Moloney still works in the Cadillac limousine business, serving as chairman of the board of Lehmann-Peterson Inc. of Arlington Heights, Ill.
—Dave Rubin
1 Limousine & Chauffeur magazine, January 1994, by Scott Fletcher
2 my.net-link.net/~dcline/l_moloney.htm