Elvis’ Pink Cadillac
From Wikipedia, Elvis’ 1955 Pink Cadillac Fleetwood 60
Manufacturer: Cadillac
Production: 1954
Class: Full-size luxury car
Body style: 4-door sedan
Elvis’ Pink Cadillac is probably one of the most iconic, style setting, sung about in popular culture and then copied real cars in North America, and the wider world where Elvis Presley’s music was popular. The 1955 manufactured Series 60 car is now preserved in the Graceland museum, in Memphis, Tennessee.
In early 1955, Elvis bought his first Cadillac, a 1954 model, which had been re-sprayed pink. The car provided transport for Elvis and the Blue Moon Boys, but after the failure of a brake lining, was destroyed in a roadside fire between Hope and Texarkana, Arkansas, on June 5, 1955.
On July 5, 1955, Elvis purchased a new Cadillac Fleetwood Series 60 in blue with a black roof. Having mentioned a Pink Cadillac in the song Baby, Let’s Play House, the first song recorded by Elvis to appear on a national chart which made #5 on the Billboard Country Singles chart in July 1955. Elvis had the car repainted by Art, a neighbour on Lamar Street. Art designed a customised pink colour for Elvis which he named “Elvis Rose,” but the car kept its black roof. Once the car was finished Elvis gave it to his mother Gladys as a gift. Mrs. Gladys Presley never had a driver’s license, and Elvis drove the car with the members of his band for most of 1955–1956.
On September 2, 1955, Scotty Moore drove the car into a vehicle which was passing a pick-up truck in Texarkana, Texas, causing $1000 of damage. March 1956 Elvis had the upholstery replaced, the body retouched and roof painted white. On his return from military service in Germany in 1960, Presley lent the car to his US Army buddy Joe Esposito, having bought himself a white with pink roofed 1961 Cadillac Coupe de Ville.
The original pink Cadillac remains on permanent display at Graceland, formerly under a carport for many years, and now resident in the auto museum. The car was once again brought to the front drive entrance of Graceland in June 2006, during the visit of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi.
While no manufacturer of the time offered pink as a standard color, after the public attention to Elvis’ car many individual car owners in the 1950s began to paint their cars various shades of pink.
Although the original car was a four-door sedan, the more replicated version in popular culture is a pink 1959 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible, which have been sold as miniature replicas by many companies including Franklin Mint, and featured in songs and videos about the pink Cadillac. Pink Cadillacs have also been the automobiles of recognition for their top sales people by Mary Kay Cosmetics.
Picture: jayssouth.com
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