After the smelling salts took effect from me passing out at the estimates I got for redoing the interior on the 1969 Cadillac Deville Convertible, I picked myself off the ground and tried to brainstorm a temporary solution.

Luckily I have the best wife in the world and after she saw me discouraged, she came up some some great ideas to get the car in “driving” condition in the quickest way possible. She suggested I get some simple seat covers and maybe some seat cushions to cover up the springs in the seats.

I picked up some bench seat seatcovers from the store and they already made a HUGE difference on the car (vacuuming it out didn’t hurt it’s look either )

BEFORE…

AND AFTER…

I’ve got an appointment tomorrow to get a tune up done on the caddy.  I want to make sure it runs well and hopefully the repair shop will be able to fix some of the other issues like the headlights not coming on, windows not rolling up (although you can hear the motor), etc.

In the meantime, here are a few things that I’ve purchased for the car thanks to the help of the good folks at CadillacForums.com and the wallet vacuum also known as eBay

One of the reasons I bought the car. So the whole family (3 kids in the back) can ride in the convertible.  Finally a 5 (actually 6 seats if you count the 3 in the front) convertible!

I want to replace the old seat belts

full set of seat belts for the 1969 caddy

Just in case I wanna man up and fix the car myself…

1969 Cadillac Shop Manual

Busted tail light fixins…

Rear tail light covers for the 1969 Cadillac Convertible Deville

Did I mention the car was camouflage….

Car cover for the 1969 Cadillac DeVille Convertible

One of these days I’m going to have to de-camo this Caddy.  I saw this photo on a message board somewhere and I’m thinking that a black on black with chrome trim might be a nice look.  White would also be classic looking, but there’s something about this one…

Black on Black 1969 Cadillac Convertible DeVille

I like to think of this car like those “before” pictures you see on the diet commercials that are hard to believe   When you see it, you’re like, “Come on…it didn’t really look like THAT to start out with!”