My 1967 Cadillac Eldorado was a completely original car including its factory paint job. It looked great from 10ft away and on pictures. But if you inspected the car closer, you could clearly see the many paint issues it had .This is the reason why I never showed the car anywhere. I have already fixed all technical problems and the interior is in mint condition. It's a very low mileage car with only 28k miles and it drives like a brand new car.
One of the previous owners of this car tried to touch up the paint in some areas but it was not done properly…
I bought the car in 2009, and since then I was planning to repaint the car to make it perfect.

Being a perfectionist I had a hard time finding a shop which is up to my quality standards and work ethics. During a photo-shooting I came in contact with a shop about 2 hours from where I live. My wife and I were invited to photograph one of the owners Hotrods and he also owns a Cadillac with a breathtaking paint job. While we were there I was extremely impressed by the cleanliness of his shop and the quality of the work I saw there and especially about the attitude of the owner Bernd. A couple of years later 3 of my cars needed some little paint touch ups which made me pretty nervous. But Bernd did the most excellent job on my cars, so that I asked if he could also do my 67 Eldorado.
Unfortunately a couple more years went by where I did not have the financial means to do the job.
Last year - out of nowhere I was contacted by an uncle I had not had any contact for the last 42 years after my dad was killed at a work accident. To make a long family story short - he "inherited" me a very generous amount of money - almost as much as I´ll need for the paint job of my 67 Eldorado.

Yesterday I delivered the car to the restoration shop.
After a long and thorough inspection by the shop owner, the restoration will start soon. The owner is optimistic that hopefully there wont be too many bad surprises hiding. He measured the paint thickness and found some evidence that some damage might be hiding in the right rear quarter panel. Maybe the car had a fender bender sometimes in its previous life.

The car will be completely disassembled. Front and rear glass will be removed. Fenders, hood, trunk and doors are coming off. The interior will be completely removed, but the body will stay on the frame.
Then everything will be taken down to bare metal by sanding, as its too cold to strip the paint with chemical paint stripper during the winter months.

Every step will be documented with pictures which I will post here on my website as well. So keep coming back to follow the restoration if you are into this kind of entertainment.

I´m so happy that the car will be fixed at this shop. It's the first shop I have no worries about the quality of job done. Bernd - the shop owner - is a perfectionist like me. He only accepts perfect quality and wont take any short cuts.

FINDING THE RIGHT COLOR…

The big question for me now is if I should have the car repainted in its original "Grecian White" color, which I am not exactly a big fan of, or repaint it in one of my favorite 1967 Cadillac Eldorado Colors "Atlantis Blue Firemist" which was a pretty expensive optional paint in 1967
When I asked my friends to help me decide, about 80% said I should paint it in "Atlantis Blue Firemist"… If I could go back to 1967 and order one from the factory I would probably order the blue one…
I was also informed that the Cadillac LaSalle club does not deduct any points during judging if you do a color change, as long as it is done in a correct color for a certain year…
Being an originality buff - I´m having a hard time to do a color change though. My little son also wants to keep the car white - my wife would like to have it changed to blue… I´m sure whatever I decide - I will sometimes regret my decision. If I paint it in its original white I will always find the color on the boring side and if I paint it blue I will regret that I changed the original color…

The last The last picture of the 67- still with the original paint.
The car at In the restoration shop during the first inspection. The owner of the shop was pleasantly surprised by the condition of the car.

Cadillac buyers had quite a color choice for the 1967 model year. Here is the original 1967 Cadillac Exterior Color Selections Dealer Book
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Code 90 - The optional "Atlantis Blue Firemist" is my favorite color for the 67 Eldorado.

Atlantis Blue Firemist cars were used for advertising the new 1967 Eldorados - Color Code 90. This would be my favorite 1967 Eldorado color…

My car still looked flawless on pictures until you looked closer…

One of the areas where the paint was flaking off.

Some of the areas where the paint was pretty worn and surface rust was developing.

The rear window had to come out to fix this "repair" attempt by one of the previous owners…

Tags:Paintjob, 1967 Cadillac Eldorado Repair Tip, 1967 Eldorado, Atlantis Blue Firemist, Repaint, Cadillac Color Selections Dealer Book