The History of my 1967 Cadillac DeVille

THE HISTORY OF MY 1967 CADILLAC DEVILLE

I was always interested in American automobiles and after a couple of car shows I visited in the early 1990s, I liked the Cadillacs best. I wanted to buy a 1964 Convertible and a dealer here in Austria offered to buy one in the USA for me as he made regular trips for car shopping to California anyways.

As I had no clue about cars at all and this was way before the Internet age, with its many possibilities I thought that professional help would be o.k. I had to pay $5.000 in advance. To make a very long and nasty story short: I never got the 64 and my only choice not to loose the money I already paid, was to take the 67, which suddenly cost more than the 64 I originally wanted.

I bought my 67 in 1996. Originally it belonged to a wealthy german business lady who lived in New Jersey, China and Japan. Her name was Anni Helene Johanna Oehmichen.

In 1976 she moved to Austria where she lived in an old castle in Carinthia ("Burg Falkenstein") which she had already bought in 1959. When she finally moved to Austria she took the convertible with her. It was registered here in March 1977. To be able to drive it legally on Austrian roads some things had to be changed to go with the Austrian laws. The lighting system was completely changed. The cornering and parking lamps had to be painted orange and were converted to directional lights. The rear bumper was cut out to make place for the large Austrian number plates!
When the old lady died in 1987 a collector bought the car from their heirs. He stored it in a barn with some other collectible automobiles and never drove it or registered it.

When I found it in the barn it had 64k miles on the odometer (Yes this car is a real barn find!). It was covered with a thick layer of dust and looked quite representable in the pale light of the barn at first sight. Of course it was not in very good condition, as I found out later when the car was home.... See the restoration page for more details.

I bought the car in August 1996 and had it licensed again in spring 1997. From December 1997 to September 1998 I completely restored it to its original condition and since then won many awards at shows I attended.

The first pictures of my 67 when I found it in 1996.

Please click on the thumbnails for larger pictures.