-Michael Scully
When Cypher first saw the Eldorado Biarritz, he knew he wanted it. It was over four decades old and had been painted Olympic white, with a white vinyl roof and white interior. Because it was a California car, there was no body rust-a very rare thing-and it was certainly a car worth owning. However, he found a few causes for concern. "It was one of those 20-foot cars," Cypher recalls. "It looked great from 20 feet away, but up close, there were problems." Through the paint, he could see the scars left by previous attempts at restoration-mostly bad bodywork. Cypher still wanted the Biarritz, but affording it was another matter.SKYROCKETING PRICES
In the middle of the 1980s, the pricing formula for classic cars changed dramatically and commodities-style cynicism took over. Opposite a finite number of rare-marquee vehicles was a growing and overwhelming demand to possess-not necessarily drive-a classic. It's believed that of the 1,320 Biarritzes produced, only half remain. Of these, many have been exported to Europe, leaving perhaps 600 here in the United States. There may be a dozen in New York State. According to Bob Waldock, a '59 Biarritz aficionado living in Sandusky, Ohio, during the '80s there was actually a movement afoot to "corner the market on the vehicle." He explains, "There were investors out there with very deep pockets that were out to literally own every '59 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz that was out there."
Such thinking sent prices soaring. "In the early '80s, you would pay $25,000 for a '59 Biarritz, but by the end of the decade, that same car was going for $125,000," Waldock says. And there were forgeries: "People were cutting the roofs off coupes, making convertibles that looked like the Biarritz." Since then, however, interest in the Biarritz has fallen away. "The bubble burst a few years ago," Waldock says. "Now, these cars are falling back into the hands of the collectors, into the hands of the people that simply love cars."
When it came time to negotiate for the Biarritz, Cypher says the owner simply acquiesced, perhaps because he saw his unrestored car as symbolic of a promise he hadn't kept. In the end, the owner slashed the price of the Biarritz by about a third without much debate. Cypher won't reveal what he paid for it; he will only admit that he bought the car with enough hundred dollar bills to fill a shoebox. That was 22 months ago.
Once Cypher got the Biarritz home to his garage, it didn't take long for CARS to set in, Cypher says: "I just couldn't live with it the way it was. It's such a great car and I'm such a perfectionist." For eight weeks, he tore the car down, removing the chrome and stripping the paint down to the metal. Next came plenty of bodywork until the car was as smooth as it was the day it was new. Two to three coats of paint were applied, sanded and finished with a four-stage polishing process. Cypher then cleaned the engine and corrected suspension problems. While comparing the vehicle's VIN number with records at Cadillac's parent company, General Motors, Cypher realized that the car was originally blue. "My heart stopped," he says. "I thought I'd bought a forgery." But he managed to find traces of the original blue on the air ducts beneath the dash. "You can imagine my relief," he says.
Today, Cypher's white-on-white Biarritz is a showpiece that people marvel at in parking lots and during car shows. "It's far from perfect," he says, pointing out things like the broken silver loop called a horn ring on the steering column. "It will never be finished," he says. "It will always be my work in progress."