1938 Cadillac Series 75 Imperial Touring Sedan - 1 🇮🇹

At the end of 2014, Mr. Bulgari was talking with Edo Ansaloni, a long-time friend and exquisite car collector, about his latest find, a 1938 Cadillac that had belonged to the Vatican State. The car was in the hands of a company that rented vehicles to the movie industry. Mr. Ansaloni remembered that he had an identical car a long time ago. The next day he called to say that he had found some old documents in his archive confirming that the car had belonged to the Vatican fleet with license plate SCV 11. The car had found its way to Mr. Ansaloni’s collection from Officine Tevere in Rome, which purchased the car directly from the Vatican State. The Cadillac’s license plate was Rome K68425, and stayed in the Ansaloni collection for quite a few years. It was later sold to another collector in the Brescia area, Silvio Rota. When the Bulgari Collection manager got news of this Cadillac, he pretended to be a car journalist interested in doing a story for a magazine. A friendship was struck, and at last the car changed hands, after a one-year long negotiation. 

The restoration began when the Cadillac arrived at the Nicola Bulgari Collection workshop. The engine was running fine, but all the accessories, like water pumps, radiator, carburetor and generator underwent renovation. The brakes and fuel system were redone. The body was separated from the chassis, and the underside was cleaned and painted. The chassis underwent the same treatment. The paintwork was in fairly good condition, so it was decided to leave it alone and only repaint the small areas that needed attention. The body was given a good polishing to bring back some shine to the original paint and to blend the touched-up sections. The upholstery was completely redone using the original material as patterns, while the interior plastics on the dashboard were completely restored. All the chrome is still the original, with a thorough polishing to bring out the shine after years of neglect. 

Company
General Motors

Wheelbase
141in

Interior trim
Beige cloth

Brakes
front and rear drums

Make
Cadillac

Length
220.5in

Engine
V8 - 346cid

Tires
7.00x16

Model
Series 75 - Model 7533 Imperial Touring Sedan

Width
75in

Carburetor
1 Stromberg AAV 25

Original Price
$3,360

Body style
Limousine 4-door Sedan

Weight
5105lbs

Horsepower
140hp @ 3400rpm

Production
479

Model year
1938

Exterior paint
Black

Transmission
Synchro-shift 3-speed manual

The Depression years had not been kind to Cadillac, with sales that had declined from over 18,000 units in 1929 to only 6,000 in 1933. The harsh Depression years and a lineup with too many models with small differences in construction and finishes made production uneconomical, generating huge losses. Had Cadillac not been part of the huge General Motors Corporation, survival could have been really tough. A new general manager, Nicholas Dreystadt, reorganized the Cadillac division, cutting the variety of models to a more reasonable number, sharing the bodies with those of the other General Motors divisions, and rationalizing engines and other mechanical parts. The V12 engine was discontinued at the end of the 1936 model year, and the V16 followed the same fate four years later. Sales of the multi-cylinder cars had always been very scarce, and they could not be justified any longer. Besides, the 346 cubic inch V8 engine, introduced in 1936, was the most powerful and reliable engine ever produced, with performance very close to the V12 and V16 engines. The big engines had the bad reputation of being very thirsty, and reliability was not their strongest point. The 346 engine was a masterpiece of construction and reliability, powering cars and military vehicles, and would stay in production until 1949, when it was superseded by the new 331 cubic inch overhead valve V8. Most of the bodies were shared with Buicks and Oldsmobile senior series, to save on manufacturing costs. Starting in1935, they were all-steel construction, setting new standards of quality and styling. After an all-time sales record for 1937, production dropped a bit in 1938, due to a sharp recession that hit the economy in later moths of that year. But it was momentary, as sales picked up the next years. 

Until 1929 the Vatican had no cars at all, relying on traditional horse-drawn carriages. It was only when it was established as a State that it acquired its first automobile, a Graham-Paige. That car remains in the Vatican museum to this day, but the other pre-war limousines that were used for VIP transport – Buicks, Cadillacs and Packards – were disposed of and eventually acquired by The NB Center.

The history of the Vatican limousines is astonishing. The NB Center’s archive includes photographs of several of them – brand new and still unregistered – being blessed by Pope Pius XI in 1938, of the Cadillacs with Pius XII and John XXIII, and of the cars’ use by notable figures including royalty, heads of state and high-ranking diplomats.

Some of these ex-Vatican cars were found in excellent condition; they were not much used, so their engines were near-perfect. Others fared less well; a Cadillac sold off in the early 1960s ended up in the 1970 movie ‘Patton’ and was in poor shape. One of the Packards was also used in movies and had acquired a different engine and transmission, leaving it with two shift levers. Nevertheless the underlying build quality of the cars is very evident; in some cases the chrome brightwork merely needed polishing.

The skilled and committed NB Center teams in Rome have learned a great deal from their colleagues in Allentown, and the repair and restoration of the Vatican cars were all managed entirely in-house by the mechanical staff led by Sergio Caudai and by the skilled bodyshop team of Carrozzeria A. Rizza.

The limousines have all received sensitive restoration, maintaining as much of their precious originality as possible. These exceptional and historic vehicles should stay in Rome, of course, but The NB Center intends to create a special place for them in the city, separate from the rest of the collection, where their intriguing story may be presented in all its fascinating detail.