rear fender writing

[Larry Rees]

ON the rear fender of my 64 convertible is an emblem in cursive writing the word deville. At the grand national in Chicago it was mentioned to me that the emblem is not right because the d in Deville is not capitolized. They thought it should be. It was not a judge. Their reasoning was the original emblem was missing or lost and the installer broke off the coupe part and installed deville that was left hence the "d" being lower case. What should it be? Are they right or is this the way it is supposed to be?

[3ft7bqmb7dryo]

Kindly inform whomever you are referring to that the Coupe and sedan deville script are in two (2) separate scripts and that you are sure it is correct. 

The C in coupe and the S in the sedan script are capitalized. Then the deville script has the V capitalized. 

[Larry Rees]

Thanks Russ

[Kurt]

The 65 -70 deVille convertible went to a capital "D" on DeVille but as mentioned, yours is correct for 64.

[Jason Edge]

Coupe de Ville means Coupe of Town when translated to English so often as written words the preposition part "de" is lower case and has a space between "de" and "Ville". For rear qtr scripts in 1963/64 they were combined as  "deVille".  So on a 1963 and 1964 Cadillac the rear qtr scripts were "Coupe" and "deVille" for the 6357 body style, "Sedan" and "deVille" for the 6329 and 6339 body styles.   On the 1964 6267 convertible you had just the "deVille" on the rear script. For 1963 the 6267 was still considered a Series 62, even through it had the de Ville interior.   Also for 1963, the Park Avenue Sedan de Ville had the "Park Avenue" on the rear qtr instead of the "Sedan deVille" scripts. 

With all of that said just about every piece of literature available from the owners manual, to spec manual, to dealer data book, to brochures to mailers for 1963 and 1964 showed the "de" lower case and "Ville" upper case.  Or, all they had to do was walk around and look at all the other 63's and 64's on the show field. Do they think everyone had the wrong emblem!

[Larry Rees]

They pointed to a 64 convertible parked 2 cars over that had the script Deville  on the rear fender. Just thought I would check it out from the people who would know. Thanks again for clearing that up. 

[3ft7bqmb7dryo]

Ok, so this is where the waters get muddy. The 64 series 62 convertible is called the convertible coupe in the shop manual.  It came from the factory with the deVille script on the fender. 

If you look in the factory option manual, the convertible was moved into the deville family. (I dont have the book in front of me at the moment, just going by memory)

[Jason Edge]

Nothing really muddy about it. 
The 1963 6267 body style is a Series 62 Convertible
The 1963 6367 body style is a Eldorado Biarritz
The 1964 6267 body style is a de Ville Convertible
The 1964 6367 body style is a Fleetwood Eldorado

It is as muddy as people want it to be.  People will read one error in one book, or look at Wikipedia, and take something as fact and run with it. What gets me about the the person talking to Larry is he looked at a sample of one, outside a year range that he obviously knew anything about, and assumed he was an expert and assumed Larry's car was wrong and the other car was factory correct! That's the same logic where you end up where it matter-of-factly stated (AND VERY INCORRECTLY STATED) on wikipedia that early 1964's came with a 390 engine! Just read more than one book, look at more than one car, and use the grey matter upstairs!

[3ft7bqmb7dryo]

I think the Cadi plant just confused people with the deville tag on the 64 convertible. Now alot of folks want to call their non convertibles devilles.  Even 4 door cars are called devilles since the later models called the 4 doors devilles.  

I knew I could count on Jason to expand my answer. 

[Jason Edge]

It would have been very confusing if they had left the rear quarter script off since the 1964 6267 was a de Ville Convertible. It was listed as a de Ville, promoted as a de Ville, sold as a de Ville, optioned as a de Ville and was a de Ville.  The only thing that has ever really made me question Cadillacs thinking was why they did not call the 1963 6267 a de Ville convertible since the entire interior was the deVille interior ... it just lacked the de Ville script on the rear qtr.

While there might have been a couple of instances where Cadillac forgot to clearly indicate the 64-6267 was now a "de Ville" by simply referring it as a convertible coupe under description headings, it was pretty much an unmistakable fact it was now formally a de Ville from the sale literature, to the dealer data books, to the spec manuals, to the advertising to their own in house literature documenting this transition from Series 62 to de Ville. Here are just a couple of examples. Anyone is welcome to call the 64-6267 a Pinto, a Lincoln, a jaguar, an Eldorado Biarritz or whatever they like but the fact was it was a de Ville convertible.  

Sales Brochure

Spec Manual

Dealer Data Book

Advertising:

And of course in their own in house literature like from this October 1963 Roundtable Slidefilm Discussion Training document:

[C. Van Tune]

As I'm sure Jason and others will confirm, we still have to double check "the facts" from Cadillac as to correctness.  

Example: In the page that Jason just posted (the dealer slideshow) they four times spelled the model as "El Dorado."  Two words.  We know that is incorrect.  

Likewise, period ads, and even car magazine reports are not always 100% accurate. I worked in the car magazine world for 30+ years and know all too well how a car company can change something minor after we'd gone to press.  Then...oops, looks like "our error" is out there now. Print an update/correction and hope people read it. 

That's why it's important to compare sources. Note every detail, every date, every number. Compare with details of actual cars in owner's hands.

Running production changes happened all the time. Most changes were very small. Same with the differences in some production and NOS parts. Supplier changes/shortages regularly happened during production.

Also, be on the alert for incorrectly-restored cars. 

Prove it, don't assume it.  

And, please post any inaccuracies/inconsistencies you come across, or have a question about. 

That's what makes this site the ultimate expert in '63-64s.

I'm new here, but grew up with Cadillacs starting with my mom's new '61 CdV, then onto her new '64 CdV, a new '67 SdV, and others.  

I've collected Cadillacs since the '80s, and have owned a '61 Series 62 coupe (featured in Petersen Museum and Motor Trend Magazine), three '64s (one SdV; two Eldorados), two 67s (Eldorado and Fleetwood) and a '70 Eldorado.

These cars are in my blood. I'm glad to be part of your knowledgeable group. 

Regards,

Van

[Jason Edge]

Good to have you with us, Van.   Your comment about the car magazines and ads was spot on. The problem is one car dealer might refer to say a 1964 6367 as an Eldorado Biarritz (instead of correctly identifying it as Fleetwood Eldorado) and many that read it or see it take it as gospel!  To get to the truth you often have to dig and keep digging from several first hand sources.   Everyone makes mistakes. There are mistakes in shop manuals; there are mistakes in owners manuals, there are mistakes in dealer data books, there are mistakes in spec manuals; there are mistakes in advertising, but if you go through all the original literature you can usually figure out pretty easily what is what. What you can always count on is finding tons of bad info from 2nd and 3rd hand sources. 

It's like when we were in elementary school and teacher would have you sit in a circle and she would whisper something in one kid's ear and for them to keep whispering it to the next person. By the time it got back to the teacher it was completely different. At least with this example, the next person (kid in this case is) is doing their best to carry on the information they think they heard. In the case with cars, someone will plop anything they might find in the auto bling section of the local Wal-Mart or Pep Boys on their classic ride and the "one-off-expert" that sees it thinks that is factory and tells someone with the correct equipment that there stuff is illegit!

[Jason Edge]

Maybe someone is compensating for something by sticking that Big D on their Cadillac! :-)