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1958 Cadillac Eldorado Bairitz


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I am truly impressed by the amount of effort and care that is going to this restoration. In essence a badly decayed car was literally turned into an enormous jigsaw puzzle. This puzzle that is composed of missing and damaged pieces is slowly becoming a masterpiece in reassembly.

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I could go on like this forever but for the most part the rest of the floor repeated the fabricating and saving rib process and butt welding them in until we had a complete welded ground pretty much metal finished floor pan. The floor is comprised of seville, biaritz, some four door, some sections we purchased from ebay and some homemade. If i recal correctly 67 pieces between the firewall and back of rear seat.

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Edited by foxhole (see edit history)
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  • 2 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I too enjoyed following the progress of this restoration, the fine work and detail. When I read the RM results of the Arizona sale in January, at which a '57 Sold for $132K, I too assumed the owner had a change of thought. I hope my assumptions are wrong.

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  • 1 month later...
Guest Rob McDonald

Wow. It's nobody's business except that of our correspondent and his customer but I did notice that, back in early December, they were "3 or 4 thousand hours" into this project. In my part of the world, that translates as $300,000 or $400,000, which is twice or three times the value of a really nice '58 Eldo ragtop. Disturbingly, at that point, all they had was a large pile of small bits and nothing that one would actually describe as a car.

But then the owner supplied another pretty fine looking Cadillac, that I'd be happy to have as-is. His hired craftsman immediately reduced that to another heap of metal scraps. Oh dear. Patience is a virtue until one reaches a certain point, when medication is clearly required.

Let's just hope that Foxhole is saving up another flush of photos, showing him re-pixelating this marvel of metalwork and shots of it rolling out of the paint booth.

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Wow. It's nobody's business except that of our correspondent and his customer but I did notice that, back in early December, they were "3 or 4 thousand hours" into this project. In my part of the world, that translates as $300,000 or $400,000, which is twice or three times the value of a really nice '58 Eldo ragtop. Disturbingly, at that point, all they had was a large pile of small bits and nothing that one would actually describe as a car.

But then the owner supplied another pretty fine looking Cadillac, that I'd be happy to have as-is. His hired craftsman immediately reduced that to another heap of metal scraps. Oh dear. Patience is a virtue until one reaches a certain point, when medication is clearly required.

Let's just hope that Foxhole is saving up another flush of photos, showing him re-pixelating this marvel of metalwork and shots of it rolling out of the paint booth.

To be clear it wasn't 3000 hours to bring it to the point currently shown but to the point of almost finished. The car had been painted for almost a year when I started posting pictures. It's busy season right now and I'm working 12 hours a day, no time to hang out on the Internet with a shop full of cars to Finnish for show season including this one, a 38 v12 Packard, 70 monte Carlo, 67 Canso, 64 elcamino, 68 ranchero, all in final assembly stages. Internet will have to wait till I get a bad cold or the weather turns again. I have a hard drive full of build threads to post.

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To be clear it wasn't 3000 hours to bring it to the point currently shown but to the point of almost finished. The car had been painted for almost a year when I started posting pictures. It's busy season right now and I'm working 12 hours a day, no time to hang out on the Internet with a shop full of cars to Finnish for show season including this one, a 38 v12 Packard, 70 monte Carlo, 67 Canso, 64 elcamino, 68 ranchero, all in final assembly stages. Internet will have to wait till I get a bad cold or the weather turns again. I have a hard drive full of build threads to post.

I await said hard drive of build threads as a child awaits Christmas. :):) :)

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Guest Rob McDonald

FOXHOLE, it's great to hear that this amazing restoration is much further along than the pictures so far indicated. Please post when you get time to breathe.

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  • 1 year later...
Hi foxhole,

Any updates on this project? Pics and story in thread is great. Thanks

Yes it's done, finest 58 eldorado in existence I belive. Even better than the 55 sun valley I built that won the AACA grand nationals. Stopped posting due to negative commentary and criticism from some of the last few posters. It left a bad taste in the mouth of the owner and I felt it best not to continue. Just because someone chooses to strive for a level of perfection that most can not afford doesn't mean it's a bad idea, in a perfect world we would all go this far.

i will talk to the owner and see how he feels about capping this thread with pictures of the final product.

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Ahh, OK...was paying attention to mostly your posts in the thread and skimmed over some of the others. As someone who has been learning how to do bodywork over the last few years (latest project a 66 Caddy vert), I thought your work was amazing :) Either way on the final pics, glad to hear the project is completed! Fantastic. Thanks for the update.

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Foxhole, I would love to see the final pictures. Thank you for posting this inspiring project - so many people have no idea about such craftsmanship, among them I count myself.

Geoff

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  • 1 month later...

The customer has said it's OK for me to finish the build thread, I may have time in the fall, just in the process of launching a new company so I'm pretty swamped. I figured I'd at least post up some finished pics for now. That way as I post the rest of the build everyone can be content that it has a happy ending, even the haters.

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  • 6 years later...

Almost ten years now since it was finished and looks just as good as the day it left. I’m happy to say the customer shows this car nearly every weekend through the season and cruises it every Friday Saturday and Sunday all summer long. 

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