McCormick to display Cadillac at Meadow Brook Concours d'Elegance

Fallbrook resident Don McCormick will display his 1967 Cadillac Eldorado Coupe at the 29th Annual Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance in Rochester, Michigan.

The car left Fallbrook by hauler July 20 and made a stop at a St. Louis museum before its transport to the car show August 2-5 at Oakland University’s Meadow Brook Hall. McCormick left Fallbrook July 30.

“It’s a very big honor to get this invite,” McCormick said. “Not very often does a car collector get invited to one of these concours. You have to have the right car at the right time.”

The 29th Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance invited more than 250 cars. This year the theme of the car show is: “The Art That Moves: A Celebration of the Power and Beauty of the Automobile.” Special classes at this year’s Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance will honor the heritage of Alfa Romeo, and the show will include a 1931 Bugati Royale valued at more than $10 million.

“It’s sort of the Detroit answer to Pebble Beach,” McCormick said of the Concours d’Elegance.

Pebble Beach is considered the most prestigious car show in theworld, but Meadow Brook is still one of the most prestigious. Invitations to display a car at the show are issued by a committee; one cannot enter a vehicle in the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance without first being contacted by the committee. “They have to seek you out,” McCormick said.

In the case of McCormick, he entered the Eldorado at a national Cadillac show last year in Tustin and won first in his class. That victory earned him a write-up in a Cadillac magazine, and that article received the notice of the Meadow Brook committee.

Meadow Brook provided McCormick with an application which was reviewed before the invitation was actually issued. Normally newer models are not invited, but because of the emphasis on Alfa Romeo models some cars built in the 1960s received invitations to the 2007 show. “This will be a nice special showing,” McCormick said.

This year the class “Personal luxury cars of the 1960s” will include McCormick’s Eldorado as well as various Ford Thunderbirds, Buick Rivieras, Oldsmobile Toronados, and other automobiles.

“It’s highly competitive and I don’t know how I will stack up,” McCormick said about competing against the other vehicles in the class.

McCormick moved from Orange County to Fallbrook three years ago and is now a member of the Fallbrook Vintage Car Club. He was living in Laguna Niguel when he purchased the Eldorado in 2003 from Georgia residents Dan and Rose King.

The 1967 Eldorado Coupe was new when Dan King purchased it from an Atlanta car dealership in May 1967. King paid a total of $7,704.67, including a $1,153 trade-in credit for a 1957 Cadillac Sedan de Ville. The Eldorado’s cost included $1,086.60 of options including $515.75 for automatic climate control, $287.90 for an AM-FM stereo radio, and $83.15 for a six-way power front seat adjuster. King also paid an additional $56.35 for white sidewall tires.

The dealership’s base price for a 1967 Eldorado Coupe, not including freight or tax charges, was $5,971.50. The 1967 Eldorado was the first Cadillac to have front-wheel drive. Its V-8 engine displaced 429 cubic inches and produced 340 horsepower at 4,600 revolutions per minute. The 1967 Cadillac Eldorado Coupe had a 120-inch wheelbase.

After King purchased the car, he felt that it should not be used for personal transportation and purchased a new Chevelle for his wife. King, an airline pilot, put approximately 23,000 miles on the car. “He had taken great care of the car,” McCormick said.

Rose King advertised the car in Hemming’s in 2002. Dan King was reluctant to sell the car but had developed Alzheimer’s disease and his wife was preparing for a simpler lifestyle. “It took me quite a while to acquire this car,” McCormick said. “He didn’t really want to sell it.”

Dan King passed away in January 2004. McCormick had the car repainted to its original color, but the rest of the Eldorado is entirely stock. McCormick also used the original spare tire as the design to have five tires made with the 1967 whitewall pattern.

McCormick began collecting automobile literature when he was in high school in Minnesota. “I’ve been involved in cars my whole life,” he said.

He attended the University of Minnesota, and while he was in college he acquired his first car, a 1941 Oldsmobile. His first collector cars were a 1939 Cadillac four-door sedan and a 1940 Cadillac four-door convertible sedan; at the time his every day car was a 1957 Pontiac convertible. After an interruption from car collecting to raise a family, he obtained a 1957 Thunderbird.

McCormick has had Ford and General Motors collectible cars but no Chrysler Corporation collectibles, although he has owned a Chrysler Corporation vehicle used for every day driving.

Paradise Chevrolet Cadillac of Temecula is sponsoring McCormick’s trip to the Meadow Brook Concourse d’Elegance to reduce McCormick’s expenses.