Look at that image up there. There’s an element to it that has always baffled me. It’s not the Cadillac Seville itself, with its bold bustle-back rear; that I’ve always respected. It’s not the use of electric lights made to look like gas lamps on the street – that’s a bit of strange nostalgic subterfuge but I guess it’s not really hurting anyone, and has its charm, I suppose. It’s not Williams-Sonoma, though I do think their letterspacing on that awning is a bit too tight and I can’t afford anything in there, most likely. It’s not the woman’s bangs, which I think are fantastic. It’s not even the garish wire wheelcovers, which at least can be used to grate cheese in a pinch. No, it’s something far worse.
It’s the roof.
Specifically, that roof that is not just a vinyl roof, but is what Cadillac called a “full cabriolet roof,” and is sometimes called other things like a “carriage roof” or “landau top” (even though I think this one is wrong, because there are not necessarily any actual landau bars present) or simply “fake convertible top.”
They’re terrible, but you could get them as a factory option from Cadillac back in the ’80s and well beyond that:
According to Cadillac’s copywriters, this was an “added look of distinction,” I suppose the distinction being that you were a person with the sort of taste that would make the most common greeting you get at any social gathering be “the fuck are you wearing?”
It wasn’t just Cadillac, of course. All the major American luxury car makers dipped deeply into this tepid, gelatinous cask of faux-class. Look, here’s one from Lincoln:
Let’s clarify the key traits of a fake convertible top over just a vinyl roof. The crucial part here, like in so many things in life, is intent: a vinyl top is what it is, and the only subterfuge most vinyl tops harbor is that they’re likely hiding a lot of rust and sloppy factory bodywork on the roof itself. But a fake convertible top’s goal is to deceive: it wants to look as though it is an actual, foldable convertible roof, even though it isn’t. As a result of this deceptive nature, we can see traits like these:
The fake ribs are likely the most common and essential defining trait; this is the basic essence of what separates the fake convertible top from the vinyl top, the pantomime of an underlying structure of convertible top ribs that don’t actually exist. The line of useless snaps around the base is an extra, advanced option, suggesting the attachment points of a convertible top boot that only exists in the fevered imagination of some likely long-dead designer.
An embroidered (or sometimes silkscreened) logo helps to draw attention to the fact that the roof is fabric (covered), and it’s worth noting that fabric is a more convertible-appropriate canvas-type material instead of vinyl.
Finally, we have the most obvious tell that this is all a ruse: the door cuts. These are likely the biggest slap in the face of all of this, the way the whole illusion of the convertible is brutally shattered by seeing the very clear cutlines for the doors that go right into the allegedly fabric roof. And that’s already if somehow you were able to ignore the fact that a huge four-door car like this is a pretty unlikely convertible in the first place.
What was the appeal of these tops? They mostly died out in the ’90s- early 2000s, but not entirely. It’s still possible to see a modern, aerodynamic car with one of these tops and it looks absolutely preposterous.
Were people just wanting to feel like they had a convertible, but without the option of being able to do the one thing with the car that makes it fun, taking down the top? Is this feeding some kind of denial or frustration fetish? A sort of automotive retelling of the myth of Tantalus, condemned to always offer the temptation of taking down the top, but never able to actually realize it.
It’s cruel.
Unrelated, but from this same brochure, is this wonderful illustration of the Seville’s remarkable four speaker sound system:
It’s so wonderfully laser-y in there, with those sound beams bouncing all over the place! It looks like the rear speakers bounce sound off the rear window, which then bounces off the windshield, where it then saturates the driver? Am I reading that right?
Also, those two little slots in each of the rear speaker units look exactly like USB-A ports, making this feel strangely prescient.
I never understood the appeal of the PT Cruiser, figured it was an old people thing, just like vinyl roofs and white floor carpet.
Lol, my grandparents had a sedan DeVille with the full canvas top. Mid ninties, pearl white the a blue top and interior. And a gold package. Even had the white line tires. Looked like an abomination, but was genuinely awesome to drive. Comfy as they come, made all the right noises… If the Northstar wasn’t such a heap I’d probably have bought it from them.
The Caddy and the Lincoln, though: no door cuts.
Shops that would buy and repair “R” title cars were notorious for using these to avoid replacing the roof panels.Some shops would weld 2 good halves of a car together or some bought cars with so much collision damage that the roof would buckle but slapping an aftermarket top on was much less expensive and less labor intensive.They were great for covering up the “sins” of the hackers back in the day.
These 70’s and 80’s tops are the automotive equivalent of the cravat tie (ascots to some) in the fashion world.
Obnoxious ostentatious ornaments to show wealth and draw attention away from the ugly face and body hidden beneath.
Nothing could help that car. Irv Rybicki could have delayed the car for one year and and had that bustleback replaced with a normal trunk. At that point, Bill Mitchell was long gone and could no longer influence the design of the car. Such a shame that his swan song from a great career of designing fantastic vehicles was that car. And, for his part of not changing the design, Irv should have been hauled out of the GM headquarters and had his pension revoked. What followed in ’86 was no prize either.
Stylin’
Even weirder is when an actual convertible is offered. In the early ’80s, you could get an aftermarket convertible conversion of a Subaru GL hardtop and there were a surprising number of them built. However, there was also a fake one available as I discovered when I saw one and went to check it out (and do the transmission type check). With the car having frameless windows and top eschewing the goofy tell-tales of phony, like the snaps-on-added-trim, it was convincing as the real thing.
My father specifically ordered his Oldsmobiles to not have a vinyl roof or fake convertible roof. He knew the issues and didn’t like the look either. Of course he was illustrating Oldsmobile catalogs at the time so he had to draw and airbrush them though!
Other than niche aftermarket stuff like lowriders, this is a trend that should have died in the 80s.
It gets worse – here in God’s Waiting Room, FL, I have seen modern *Camrys and Accords* with these automotive toupees on them. And of course the last Buick sedans with them are a dime a dozen. Eeesh.
Shockingly, I have yet to see any CUVs with it. YOU know some Cryptkeeper would whip out the checkbook (and it would be a checkbook) to buy one of those bad boys. Maybe they would look a little too much like their last ride…
*in my best russian-slavic accent*
Amerika is amazing – Peoples zo rich zey spend egztra money to upholster ze outsides of zheir cars!
I always hated these, we called them “rot tops”, because the sheetmetal was sure to be a mess under them.
When I was in HS in the mid 90’s, these had a brief comeback in the custom car crowd. Reallly, I think it was a subset of lowrider culture, I remember a few two door coupes, such as 80’s Celica hatchbacks, had custom cloth tops, often with the rear side glass covered over and the rear window cut out in a pattern, I distinctly remember one being a crown.
I don’t know if this was part of a larger trend, or just because a local shop did it. Once the “tuner” trend took hold, these all but dissapeared.
My grandad had one on his 2010 towncar signature series. I believe it came that way new which is kinda crazy to think you could still get these in 2010.
I think a Landau top is the half cloth/vinyl thing. Front half is painted steel, back is cloth/vinyl. Supposed to evoke the look of the open front cabin look without leaving the driver exposed to the weather.
This is correct
Except when it’s a 1960’s Thunderbird Town Landau – then it’s a full vinyl roof with blocked out rear quarter windows and big chrome faux-landau bars.
I always just assumed the reason these took off in the 70s was because it was expected that the US government was going to make convertibles illegal. That’s why there were so few OEM built convertibles from any car maker during that period until the early 80s when they started to creep back in. They assumed that folks just wanted the style and not necessary the cost and weight penalties plus most drove around with the top up anyway. Nobody will ever know it’s NOT a convertible!
My parents added one to their early 2000s Deville.
It’s not my thing, although I get that it’s a way to add color (the car is white, the top navy) and decoration without paint.
But it’s still a goofy concept to me.
I attended USC on scholarship. Each year, one of the women from one of the alumnae clubs who gave me a scholarship would pick me up in a big Cadillac with the fake convertible top just like that and take me to a fancy club luncheon. I drove an actual convertible at the time, a chrome bumper MGB. I thought it was ridiculous, but the Caddy did look expensive. I think it was a navy car with an off white top or a white car with a navy top. I remember the fake bows and the window frame cutouts. Something about the fake bows is like how we see AI – it’s in the “uncanny valley.” It might have been some sort of canvas look material (it didn’t have the grained appearance of vinyl.)
I think that Cadillac photo is outside the Williams Sonoma on Lake Avenue in Pasadena.
I have a neighbor who has a late 90’s to early 00’s fourth generation Toyota-freaking-Camry with a landau top.