Car of the Week: 1976 Cadillac Calais ‘L’Etoile’
The story behind a star 1976 Cadillac Calais christened “L’Etoile”
For several years, famed Warren, Mich., Cadillac dealer Roger Rinke made a star out of one example of Cadillac’s humblest model. Each model year during at least part of the 1970s, Rinke special-ordered a single Calais, the least-expensive Cadillac model, and decked it out with options.
Once the loaded Calais was delivered to his dealership, Rinke would go farther to make the Calais shine by commissioning local custom shops to add unique features. In the case of the featured 1976 Calais, Rinke had a special vinyl top mounted to the roof; an extra chrome piece mounted at the front of the hood containing the standard Cadillac crest and V arrangement of the Calais; an additional Cadillac hood ornament (normally reserved for deVille models); and ample pinstriping added by locally famous pinstriper Frank Galli. Once Rinke had the car christened with “L’Etoile” scripts in place of the original “Calais” scripts on the rear fenders, a star was quite literally born, since L’Etoile, pronounced eh-twal, translates to “star” in French.
“We don’t know how many were built through the years,” said Darrell Brandenburg who, along with his wife Mary, are the second owners of this 1976 Calais L’Etoile. “Paul Rinke, Roger’s son, said his dad would buy one a year. He would only do one ‘showroom car’ — that’s what they called this — one a year, and this is the last one because that was the last year of the Calais.”
The vinyl half top is also a one-off, at least as far as the Brandenburgs are aware.
“This is the only one we have seen with this saddle top type of roof,” Mary said. “Some call it a modified cabriolet or landau roof, but [Rinke] would send it out to have the specialty roof put on, the chrome put on. We are not sure where he sent the car to have the roof put on. We have heard it is Masco and we have had people tell us it was ASC (American Sunroof Corp.), but we can’t track it down. We know it’s a unique application and we haven’t seen another.”
Rinke likely ordered the Calais without a vinyl top to ease installation of the saddle-type half-roof treatment. This top is actually a fiberglass shell covered in black vinyl and is bolted to the car. It is replete with functioning opera lamps, which appear to be the optional lamps available on full-size 1976 Cadillacs, and small Cadillac crests from an unknown era on the B pillar.
For the upholstery, Calais buyers in 1976 could select standard Morgan Plaid, which Cadillac said was “well received in ’75,” or expanded vinyl in black or Antique Light Buckskin. Rinke ordered this car with black expanded vinyl, which nicely complements the car’s rarely seen exterior color of Dunbarton Green.
“They brought [Dunbarton Green] out at half-year ’75 and it was only available until half-year ’76. The color wasn’t even around for 12 months,” said Darrell.
That a dealer would build such a luxurious car and then double down on options and accessories during the 1970s isn’t surprising. The 1970s was an era of more: more vinyl decoration, more coach lamps, more opera windows. More metal, more luxury, more convenience, more comfort. Many dealers and aftermarket companies during the ’70s dressed up production models with accessories that added more chrome and more character, some even building different body styles upon production models. Perhaps nowhere was the latter more popular than on Cadillacs, which saw several pickup truck and station wagon conversions based upon Eldorados and deVilles.
With all that “more” came more fuel consumption, but that didn’t phase all car buyers even though gas shortages were just a few years in the rearview mirror. General Motors itself would address fuel shortage concerns the next year with downsized cars powered by smaller engines. Among those in the GM universe that shrank for 1977 was the Cadillac deVille, which lost its less-trimmed Calais stablemate.
It wasn’t the gas crunch that killed the Calais, but the 1970s’ appetite for more. As a “stripper” Cadillac, the Calais simply wasn’t plush enough for the time when compared to its identically styled deVille counterpart with its more luxurious standard features. Just 4,500 Calais coupes were built for 1976 compared to 114,482 Coupe deVilles, and the Calais was understandably axed after ’76. Since the Eldorado convertible was also in its final year during 1976, it received all the fanfare. While the last-of-the-line Eldo droptops drove off the assembly line to crowds and cameras, the Calais faded into history like a distant dying star.
It wasn’t the rarity of the Brandenburgs’ Calais that attracted them to the car, nor was it the one-of-a-kind L’Etoile package. It was simply a matter of the car’s availability at the right place and time when Darrell’s first wife was looking for a Cadillac.
“My son found the car knowing his mother was looking for a classic car,” Darrell said. “He told her about the car and she asked me if I would look at it. I didn’t think too much about the car. A week or two later, she asked me if I looked at it and what I thought of it. I told her I didn’t think too much of it. I said, ‘I will take you over to look at it,’ and she looked at the car and she said, ‘I like it.’”
Darrell’s first wife had Cadillac in her blood. She had been an employee at the GM Tech Center in Warren, and was already a Cadillac & LaSalle Club member before she found the 1976 Calais L’Etoile. Although the car had just 11,000 miles when the Brandenburgs heard about it in the late 1990s, it had been poorly stored by the original owner’s son.
“The ownership history of the car was that the gentleman who bought it new passed away two years after he bought the car,” Mary said. “He passed in 1978. His wife garaged it until roughly until 1990-ish. She got tired of having it in her garage, so she gave it to her son and her son garaged it until 1997. When he pushed it out to the street, that is when Darrell and his first wife found the car. It was an inner-city version of the barn find.”
“When the son garaged it, the garage he had it in was also home to a lot of rodents and pigeons and dirt, so the car was exceptionally dirty and oxidized, and it was pretty much a wreck,” Darrell said.
In addition to its filthy appearance, the Cadillac had mechanical issues he would need to address.
“I explained it had problems with the heater,” Darrell said. “There was water coming upon the windshield. It was very dirty — he smoked cigars in it and the inside smelled. The engine had undercoating all over it. She asked, ‘Can’t you take care of that?’ I said, ‘Yes, I can.’”
After they bought the car, Darrell addressed the heater, repaired the starter and alternator and began cleaning the body and interior. He says those chores were easy, it was removing the undercoating that was the most difficult task. He spent three steady years removing the undercoating using rags and toothbrushes soaked in kerosene. It was all worth it to make the car’s original finishes shine again. Underneath all of that grime was the car’s beautiful original Dunbarton Green paint, its gleaming factory-installed black expanded vinyl upholstery and even the original pinstriping by that legendary striper. The unique half-top vinyl top also remained in remarkable condition, and even the usually cracked or missing rear filler panels remain original. And, that 500-cid Cadillac V-8 — the largest overhead-valve engine used in a passenger car — is blue again.
Darrell was essentially finished bringing the Calais L’Etoile up to par when his first wife passed away in 2000. He kept the car after her passing and eventually met Mary, who not only fell in love with Darrell, but also the Calais L’Etoile. Today, she is often the one cleaning it for shows while Ed Syrocki helps Darrell keep it in tip-top mechanical shape.
“My dad was a mechanical engineer for Chevrolet so I have cars in my blood, and growing up and going to car museums as a kid — I do love old cars,” Mary said. She admitted driving the massive 4,989-lb., 230.7-inch-long Cadillac was a bit daunting the first time, however."
“The first time I had to drive it I was scared to death with that football field of a hood on the front of it, but I enjoy driving it now,” she said.
Darrell and Mary remain active around Michigan with the Calais L’Etoile, and the car’s odometer now registers about 27,000 miles. When we caught up with it in 2017, they were displaying it at the Cadillac & LaSalle Club Museum & Research Center Fall Festival in Hickory Corners, Mich.
That keen crowd knew there was something different about this Cadillac, and among club members, the unique L’Etoile earns its star status every time it hits the road.
SHOW US YOUR WHEELS!
If you’ve got an old car you love, we want to hear about it. Email us at oldcars@aimmedia.com
If you like stories like these and other classic car features, check out Old Cars magazine. CLICK HERE to subscribe.
Want a taste of Old Cars magazine first? Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter and get a FREE complimentary digital issue download of our print magazine.
*As an Amazon Associate, Old Cars earns from qualifying purchases.
