Did Elvis pay $44,349 for this Cadillac Seville?

We all know Elvis loved cars, especially Cadillacs. He was still buying cars toward the end of his life, and this 1976 Cadillac Seville is one of the last vehicles he purchased. At the time the all-new, downsized Seville was downright revolutionary for the Cadillac brand, and clearly found an audience with The King himself. But the Seville’s asking price was an astronomical $12,479 with very few options available to jack up the price. The little four-door Cadillac was so exclusive that only the Series 75 Fleetwood was more expensive. So how could a dealership sell a Seville for nearly quadruple the price, much less to someone as famous as Elvis Presley?

Let’s first show that Elvis did indeed pay $44,349, because the Mecum auction has a copy of the check in their documentation. There has to be more to this story, because the Seville is clearly not stock, but none of the upgrades look terribly expensive.

Period upgrades of the era included aftermarket chrome trim, bigger grilles, and genuine wire wheels: There was little else that a car dealership would add to ensure the factory warranty remains intact, and that the repair costs they’ll eat (to insure the quality of their cars to customers) should be minimized. So let’s focus on what this Seville can tell us in its current state.

There’s a switch below the stereo that’s likely for the aftermarket Marchal fog lights mounted inside the front bumper. The Vogue tires are probably newer than the car, but we can expect the dealer upgraded the factory tires for bigger-than-OEM whitewalls. There is a big chrome grille and gold emblems aplenty, neither of which came cheap. But look at little closer at the documentation and you notice there’s a discrepancy between what you see and what was on the VIN.

Actually two things stand out when scanning that document. The first is this Seville was sold for $17,927 and not $44,349. That price is far more palatable, especially when considering the second outstanding item: this particular Caddy left the factory in a single shade of Crystal Blue Firemist. There was no two-tone option for the Cadillac Seville in 1976. Or 1977, but that year introduced a steel roof without a vinyl covering. We are building up to 1978, when the premium Seville got downright opulent elegant.

The first two-tone Cadillac Seville was the 1978 Elegante, and it only came in black/silver or brown/light brown. It seems like Elvis’ Cadillac was a precursor to what Detroit had in mind just a coupla years later. And this custom two-tone paint job explains why this example was $17,927 and not $12,479 like a run of the mill Seville.

Clearly the dealership had a body shop (presumably in house, for maximum profit) give the custom treatment to some of the Sevilles on their lot. Have a look at the photo on the left, and note the dark blue overspray where the light blue fender meets the cowl and hood hinge. Compare it to the 1978 Elegante on the right (a low mile original) and the top color was integrated into the engine bay well before assembly. Many factory two-tone jobs are like this, including Project Valentino.

Open the doors and look at the door jamb differences: the factory Elegante paint work suggests the whole car was painted in the top color (black) and the lower was added after the doors were installed. Project Valentino was painted at the factory with a cut off just like Elvis’ aftermarket Seville, sadly that’s not how Cadillac did things in 1978. This is a shame, but shows how the folks at the Cadillac dealership in Denver went above and beyond when two-toning this Seville.

But there’s still the matter of that Denver dealership and the $44,349 check they took from Elvis. That’s a lot of money for one car, especially when the documentation suggests it was “only” marked up $5448 over an unmodified Seville. It took a bit of digging, but apparently, Elvis went on a bit of a buying spree when he was in Denver.

Elvis wanted to thank members of the Denver Police for being his bodyguards when he was visiting. Elvis being Elvis, that meant buying cars, including a visit to a Lincoln dealer for a Continental Mark IV and a visit to Jack Kent Cadillac. Legend has it he bought three Cadillacs on that occasion, one for Denver Police Detective Petrifaso and two unnamed women in the party. This two-tone blue Seville might be the detective’s gift.

And that was only one day of car shopping for The King, as he reportedly bought more Caddies for Denver cops during this period. It’s been said that Elvis has owned over 200 cars himself, but that doesn’t include all of his touring, and the automotive gifts he bestowed upon people who took care of him while he was on the road. This Seville is just one of them, and while Mecum estimates it will sell for $30,000 – $40,000, the story behind it makes it priceless.

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