{"id":184460,"date":"2023-01-09T09:29:46","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T14:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=184460"},"modified":"2023-01-09T09:31:12","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T14:31:12","slug":"visiting-elvis-cars-1956-cadillac-eldorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=184460","title":{"rendered":"Visiting Elvis\u2019 cars: 1956 Cadillac Eldorado"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another old friend. The surreal 1956 Cadillac Eldorado. This gleaming beauty always makes me think of the famous Tom Wolfe essay \u201cKandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby.\u201d He details how cars had moved into their Surrealist Art phase. Cars were symbols from the beginning: symbols of mobility, freedom, status, sexual liberation. In other words, abstract ideas. Even then, though, the design was practical. They weren’t personal statements. But then came the Surreal phase when cars were still symbols but the symbols were harder to decipher. They came from a very specific sub-culture. Art for art\u2019s sake, basically. Let\u2019s fuck around with design. Let\u2019s exaggerate everything. Let’s shout our individuality, our freedom, let’s dominate the road, let’s pepper our cars with meaningless fins and curves. This Eldorado is in that tradition.<\/p>\n

There are so many stories associated with this monster. My favorite: The car was white when he went to look at it. Elvis was eating purple grapes, and he smushed them on the hood. He asked the dealer, \u201cCan you make it that color?\u201d They could and did. It’s purple with white detailing. I love the little antenna. <\/p>\n

How does one TURN in this thing? <\/p>\n

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\nElvis bought this one just as his fame exploded. He was well-known in 1954, 55, but then 1956 happened. 1956 was a whole other level, unknown to human fame until that point. This car is all ABOUT that. <\/p>\n

This car meant a LOT to the guy born in a sharecropper’s shack, who lived in a housing project not even a year before. <\/p>\n

Elvis’ Cars<\/big>
\n1971 Stutz Blackhawk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another old friend. The surreal 1956 Cadillac Eldorado. This gleaming beauty always makes me think of the famous Tom Wolfe essay \u201cKandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby.\u201d He details how cars had moved into their Surrealist Art phase. Cars were symbols … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[2095],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=184460"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184474,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184460\/revisions\/184474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=184460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=184460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=184460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}