I bought a RARE 1949 Cadillac Fastback, and making it my 70 year old daily driver! Amazing Restomod!

listen to that horn wizard wizard oh my god becky look at this car oh you like he's down he's stealing my material a little bit here welcome to hoovey's garage the dumbest automotive channel in all of youtube and fate has sort of brought me and this cadillac together without the help of you all on youtube other than making these purchases as possible by you all watching these videos which i am eternally grateful but actually i saw this car at a car show seven years ago before hoovy's garage existed chatted the guy up for a long time said i would love to own this car if you ever wanted to sell it even though i didn't have probably two thousand dollars in the bank at the time and he actually remembered me wrote my phone number down and called me all these years later and said hey i'm ready to sell my cadillac if you're interested well of course i was this thing is an incredible timeless classic but underneath is a very modern comfortable ride that i could take cross country right now well with a few repairs because it's been sitting for quite a while it is a 1949 cadillac sedan which means it has this swoopy kind of fast back body and it is an icon when it comes to cadillac history not to mention motor trend's very very first car of the year in 1949 the magazine was only a few months old and this was their first car of the year for many reasons if you think you've had it rough these last few years with pandemic restrictions and supply chain issues making it hard to get certain things well we have nothing on the greatest generation back in world war ii because from 1941 to 1945 all non-essential production was shifted over to war production including cars so basically whatever you had in 1941 was the car you had through the entire war and cars weren't really built to last back then everything was rationed from gasoline basically every single essential because we were trying to win a war and coming out of that obviously there was a lot of pent-up demand but we had to figure out how to actually make things again that weren't for blowing things up and killing people so it took several years before there was a great leap forward in cars and everybody was looking to the future and wondering what the future of cars would look like in harley earl head of design at general motors at the time approved a drawing pinned by frank hershey a concept cadillac that turned into this and started a trend that really exploded in the 1950s yes you are looking at the very first thinned car well actually it was 1948 and this is a 1949 it's the same body style essentially but harley earl wanted to make this thing look futuristic and the coolest things in the day were fighter planes obviously and the p-38 lightning with its twin tail had a fin on the back similar to this and he replicated it with the 1948 cadillac and of course by 1959 the fins were well as big as your head seemingly they kept growing and growing and growing with more chrome and more bling until they were sort of dramatically chopped off around 1960 and there were a lot of other huge innovations with the 1949 cadillac and some cool things but this one is different this one is a resto mod and with that let's start a tour now i'm still back here on the fin because i wanted to show you this really cool trick which means no millennial is going to be able to vandalize this thing because of the hidden gas cap just take a look at this you hit this button it pops the taillight goes up and there is the fuel filler they didn't want to have a hole on the side and make it look bad so they did this and it's just so so dang cool the whole rear quarter treatment of this car with the fastback rear it just looks absolutely fantastic and that's why outside of the convertibles which they're very few surviving because convertibles you know water gets in rest the floors they're all gone it's the most desirable body this one is an older restoration resto mod with a very thick very nice but kind of patina black lacquer paint that i can't wait to see what van gogh will be able to do with this thing the chrome is all in pretty good shape i mean it could use a buff there's a few little chips here and there but you know it's a driver it's a car i can actually use and it's a car the previous owner actually used took it on road trips to different states car shows basically all over the midwest it was his driver show car but it's something he hasn't done in three years because of the pandemic and his health issues he doesn't want to risk it so the car has basically sat for three years but thankfully the car didn't seem to mind you see sort of the old white walls with the wire wheels i may need to get new tires but this card has just the right amount of chrome and bling in my opinion to really look sharp it's sitting lower because it's on a custom front end the rear is air ride that is adjustable so it has that resto mod stance but this car was done a pretty long time ago i think at least 25 30 years ago and you can see this gorgeous front end with the hood ornament the cadillac v and these well bumperettes or dagmars as they called them in later years because they got so big and bulbous like a bountifully busted movie star back in the 1950s 1948 brought a dramatic change in the body style and shape of the cadillac basically got a shorter wheelbase but it was wider much more like a modern car through the ensuing decades of a land yacht versus a really long skinny thing like cars of you know pre-war from the 1920s and on but in 1948 when this body style was unveiled they still had the flathead v8 which had a zero to 60 of like 20 seconds it was a dinosaur from before world war ii and overhead valve engines as we know certainly were the future in 1949 was the first year of that 160 horsepower way way more powerful and like 200 pounds lighter than the flat head now the motor and this one well it's not the original motor it's really cool we'll go in there in a little bit but let's go inside first you can see the seats uh they are definitely modern you see the modern plastic here and the modern seat controls i'm told this is out of an oldsmobile tornado and they are super comfortable but you see the dashboard it is still very much art deco late 1940s with the clock that is working most of the gauges up here do work or do something the ones that don't they have a gauge down here for the temperature and the fuel gauge and you can see down here i have vintage air conditioning which well sadly doesn't work but it's all there the only thing i don't like about this interior is the modern sony stereo which obviously nowadays we have vintage looking options with bluetooth that would look great in this dash having this modern sony stereo just kind of disrupts everything else going on with this car which was really really well done still has the old crank windows and the side window here you can see it's a lock and then you can twist it out i think or i i may have just broken it let's see well i that that's that's manual operating now not that i really need it because i'll have vintage air conditioning working in this thing some of you eagle-eyed cadillac fans are probably noticing that the steering wheel isn't quite period correct and you're absolutely right it's from a 60s cadillac and you see this really cool kind of nautical well steering wheel around the steering wheel and that's for the telescoping column you unlock it by twisting it and then it pulls in and out so it's just a really cool touch certainly not correct for the period but it looks absolutely fantastic in the car so it's kind of a greatest hit of cadillac and speaking of greatest hits let's go under the hood so nowadays if you were building a restomod cadillac you would be putting in an ls engine obviously one most recently an lt4 supercharged and a 41 cadillac at barrett-jackson sold for half a million dollars absolutely insane and then even weirder a north star-powered 1949 cadillac sold on bring a trailer a few years ago for like 99 000 a north star from a 95 cadillac very unreliable engine this one though it has a wonderful wonderful thing it is the big block 500 cubic inch cadillac v8 basically the biggest v8 the cadillac ever put in passenger cars going to the rear wheels and it looks like it's out of the early to mid 1970s it was an early 70s it would have more power so that's even better but you can see the chrome valve covers it does look sort of appropriate in here certainly a lot more modern than something from the late 40s early 50s you can see the ac compressor on top but very tidy and very well done you can see that's the wiper motor sticking out that's original and correct for the 1940s but just a very simple tidy engine bay that really just needs a detail it does have a few leaks though and a few minor issues like geez like the air conditioning not working so we will drive it up to the car wizards but first you got to hear this thing turn the key push the start button and then you have this deep yacht-like verbal to this thing this big block v8 oh it sounds so good and it cruises so well i wish i had air conditioning but man am i so so happy with this thing in the air conditioning well that can be fixed which is why we're going to the car wizards hopefully he likes this thing well with that 70s cadillac drivetrain and steering i can drive this thing with my pinky which in 1949 i don't think there was power steering yet and then i can pull out into traffic and it accelerates like a modern car thanks to that big block transmission shift smoother now we're cruising at 45 and it is dead quiet other than a little like a squeak rattle that needs to be hit your rest i don't know chassis ears wherever find it it's just one squeak otherwise this thing would be dead quiet and that's the thing that struck me with this car when i test drove it yes seeing it seven years ago falling in love with the look the stance everything about it i just loved it thought about it for weeks but then i drove it and it's one of those few resto mod customs that was actually built to drive to be used unlike say the super bird where they threw all kinds of modern parts at it and well it drives kind of worse than the original in some ways this thing was done right and i have disc brakes so i can stop like a modern car power disc brakes and now we can get on the highway i guess i can floor it accelerating smooth but steady here's 60 it just shifted 65 70 and the speedometer is accurate 75 80. i got this thing up to 90 once and i lift it it could have still kept going probably to 100 or more and it's smooth it's wonderful it's quiet i can't believe it now i know the car wizard loves old cars but he hates modified cars and figuring out how to reverse engineer all that as we went through with the super bird so i have no idea what he's going to think of this but i know what i think i'm in love listen to that horn wizard wizard oh my god becky look at this car oh you like i oh he's down he's stealing my material a little bit here but i don't actually drool that was actual real drool out of your mouth there was that was that a heart attack was that oh my god i've never seen something so beautiful where did you get this i actually a long time owner i met him at a car show years ago he remembered me had my number he called me this is amazing here let me park i know you're excited by the look of it wizard but uh i do love cadillac's i do have bad news what's the bad news it's been modified oh no yes it is a restyle mod oh a restomod like the super bird hopefully they did a better job on this it's it's way way better done way simpler and just just gorgeous so i popped the hood go ahead and open it let's see if you can identify the engine just based on looking that's definitely not stock no it's not it would have had like a 331 or something and that looks like a cadillac big block it is a 500 cubic inch cadillac big block i was going to say maybe a 472 yeah it's the biggen wow early 70s they quit making them in 76 but it's got the old quadrijet carburetor on it it looks like they did a pretty good job it is very clean isn't it yeah and uh the air conditioning system here on top which doesn't work i would love for that to work again looks like the old ports though huh like r12 oh boy let me see if there's anything in there hardly anything that's yeah not much it may just need to recharge and maybe we can convert it to 134. okay well so that's the big issue there's also an annoying squeak that never stops unfortunately just driving down the road and then the fuel gauge this thing sat for three years i think the fuel gauge just got stuck i filled it up and it still stuck on one quarter but otherwise uh drives great the suspension though in the back it seems a little low it's an air ride yes it's sitting a little low yeah i can tell it's got the wire wheels on it i don't think it's like an active system because it doesn't have a pump or anything well i can see a schrader valve right here this is probably where you filled up the suspension oh so it's it's like a tire huh yeah okay you just fill it up to whatever psi did he mention anything about a psi he filled it to or i don't know what do you think 15 20 30 15. just basically to get it to where you want it on the right height right and i see you playing with my tail light where's the gas i know you put gas in these and you push the button push the button there it is that is so cool yep very very neat and it's probably the original mechanisms that just survived all these years without it looks original needing fixed just good old well-built car it is i like the engine i like that it's a big lock i i don't know i know the suspension is custom i have no idea what that entails the rear end the air suspension there's a clunk so i'm curious what's underneath because i i couldn't see that much let me get it on the lift and see what they did cool that burbly v8 big block very yachty huh it sounds like one of our yachts running doesn't it oh anyway let's see what lies beneath sounds like the motor's working hard huh definitely put more effort into lifting this thing oh no it's uh it's really dripping yeah that's transmission fluid it looks like huh okay well we normally work front to back so anyway something to look forward to there's some sort of an aluminum radiator or something it is a funky custom built looking radiator isn't it for that steering shape has a little bit of a drip not too bad though yeah that is definitely odd because i well it's obviously for a car from 1949 but they needed modern cooling so it's a thick but skinny radiator huh okay fit into the radiator spot it doesn't overheat so that's good well they did good on that it's got disc brakes like you mentioned yeah they're about half gone but they're still good that's good does it have nice tight steering very nice tight steering got new shocks this engine fit in here nicely yeah you see where they welded these brackets that wouldn't have been here from the factory yeah this is a totally different front subframe from something maybe where they cut it here and kind of got it as wide as they needed it and welded it it was really popular to do it with a mustang 2 back in the day so i wonder if that's eagle i'd probably finished car guys would know what this is but yeah who knows looks like they did pretty good though yeah there's lots of little seepages and things it's just from age just even though it's recently done it's compared to the age of the car right there's lots of little things to take care of there here's our transmission probably a th 400 to handle the power modular dramatic modulator is fairly dry but what's all that fluid coming from there's a little bit here that see this cork pan gasket it just needs a new gasket okay that's what all this stuff's from but this is your output seal there's really the ceiling surface you can see that it's balls deep into that thing it's all the way down oh it's not sealing very well what a very scientific description there wizard okay yes it is we may have to look into maybe the seal's just bad i don't know i'll have to get the drive shaft out but it's definitely just leaking fluid there okay looks like some flowmasters yep they sound great they do your joints are good drum brakes in the back so here's the air suspension it's just they're called hijackers or whatever there you put air in them and there's the air part okay right now there's nothing in them but they're not blown it looks like no they don't they look fairly new actually that's good i can see that because the air suspension's collapsed it's been touching right here oh so it's been bottoming out yeah okay on the rear axle huh so you'll definitely have to keep up on the air these systems even when they're brand new you can put air in them it lasts a couple of weeks and it'll slowly i don't know why okay doesn't seem like they're ever fully airtight so a little bit of detective work to figure out uh what parts match up for the leaks on the tail shaft and oil pan the steering little leak probably not worth taking care of i could probably put some lucas in it and it'll take care of the tiny little bit that's yeah oil change obviously but otherwise solid car it is i just cruised up here at 80 no problem just the stuff that i expected the air conditioning no fingers crossed we'll see on that i think it just needs to be charged i've seen some crazy resto mods the super bird yeah yeah this one actually done very well oh good very good all right i guess then i'll leave this one and take something home it doesn't look like i'm taking the aston martin home uh what is going on here wizard well the interior's coming out so we can get to the fuel tanks and pull the fuel pumps and check them out but magic mike's not here he's running a triathlon actually this overachiever that guy he's single you know oh yeah he's been single for a while which is i mean he's ripped anyway yeah he's working on the 928 as well as an exhaust leak i haven't gotten to that yet either so i have to leave that so i guess it's just the 355 huh yes which last time i was up here you said there was no bill it was on the house yes we took care of the shifter shaft seal and then the valve cover gaskets and all that so it's ready to go so no bill i'm up on my riff i can just leave i'm actually not going to chase you down there's no nothing you're paid out i'm leaving all right thank you for watching bye wizard

Channel: Hoovies Garage

Views: 2,249,573

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Id: ocktJ4d6F3g

Length: 20min 59sec (1259 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 13 2022