1963 Cadillac: A special order for grandma

Michele Hauf was a toddler in 1963 when her grandparents drove their 1955 Cadillac to the dealership as a trade-in. The time had come for a new Cadillac, but the models on display wouldn’t do.

A 1963 Series 62 Cadillac two-door hardtop, painted Briar Rose, was ordered with an Ebony Black top. This is a combination that had to be special ordered since Cadillac officially frowned on two-tone paint schemes.

It was an unusual Cadillac; however, the car salesman adhered to “the customer is always right” rule and ordered the car. He called the buyers when the car was in and told them to bring $5,473.06 for delivery.

Michele’s grandmother, Ida Bertsch, paid for the 4,505-pound Cadillac and drove off to show it to her son, Bob Brillon. He, of course, was happy for her since he was going to buy her old Cadillac. Bertsch and her husband traveled extensively in the Cadillac.

The 390-cubic-inch (6.4-liter) overhead valve V-8 engine produces 325 horsepower. At highway speeds the Series 62 is virtually silent. The 18-foot, 7-inch-long Cadillac can accelerate from 0-to-60 in 10 seconds. This truth is undeniable and, additionally, the 120-mph speedometer isn’t just there for the sake of appearance.

Brillon received the 1963 Cadillac upon his mother’s death in 1986. He didn’t have a garage, so for many years the Cadillac endured whatever nature had to offer. Brillon’s daughter, Michele, did not take kindly to that kind of treatment of her grandmother’s car. She remembered all of the trips she had taken in the car growing up. She was always asking her father what measures he was taking to preserve the car. “I got tired of hearing it,” Brillon says, so in 1993 he gave the car to his daughter.

Michele had already seen some minor damage to the left front fender and had removed the entire fender for repair. “I drove the car home without a fender,” Hauf recalls. “I was just happy to get grandmom’s car.” Her husband, with no knowledge of the family history, humored his wife. He didn’t know how seriously she was taking this project.

The first order of business was getting a cover for the car. Next, Hauf tackled the interior. She replaced the sandalwood carpeting with an exact duplicate. Matching fabric was located and was installed in both the front and rear seats. While this work was being done, Hauf was in the car almost daily, cleaning, scrubbing and polishing all the brightwork to bring it back to its original luster.

In Hauf’s free moments she moved the typical garage clutter from one side of the family’s two-car garage. When her husband saw the splendid results of the interior work, he agreed to partition the garage to keep dust and clutter away from the Cadillac.

Hauf’s grandmother had the Cadillac repainted and touched up several times over the years and the surface was beginning to show its history. Hauf decided to do the job correctly and began searching for a shop that could and would do the job right. The shop agreed to take the car down to bare metal, fix whatever needed fixing and repaint the Cadillac like it was in 1963.

During the 18 months the car was in the shop for repainting, most of the chrome parts were sent off for replating. Hauf became well-acquainted with the stainless steel parts as she spent countless hours in her basement polishing the parts to their original luster. She remembers the grille was the worst. Several series of soaking and scrubbing were required before she could begin polishing.

The car was painted, the interior was done, and all that was left was to reinstall all the brightwork. To speed things along, Hauf and her father decided to tackle that task. “I figured it would take about three days,” Brillon says. Three weeks later and dozens of trips to the hardware store for various fasteners, the car was done.

Hauf drove around town to show the car to all her relatives and they remembered her “grandmom” in the car. “It glides down the road,” Hauf says. “It doesn’t feel fast but it is.”

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