Don McCormick wins First in Class at Meadow Brook Concours d'Elegance

The 1967 Cadillac Eldorado Coupe of Fallbrook resident Don McCormick won First in Class at the 29th Annual Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance held August 2-5 in Rochester, Michigan.

The Eldorado took first place in the “Personal Luxury Cars of the 1960s” class. The cars McCormick’s entry beat out included a 1969 Lincoln Continental Coupe with 3,600 original miles, a 1967 Chrysler turbine car, a Studebaker Grand Sport touring car, 1960 and 1966 Ford Thunderbirds, a 1966 Buick Riviera, and a 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado.

“I was very impressed with that, very happy,” McCormick said of his First in Class award. “There were some fabulous cars there.”

The 29th Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance invited more than 250 cars. This year the theme of the car show was “The Art That Moves: A Celebration of the Power and Beauty of the Automobile.”

“Very interesting event,” McCormick said. “Lots of fun and great reception the evening before.”

Meadow Brook Hall is part of Oakland University and was at one time the mansion of Mildred Dodge Wilson, who married a lumber baron after pneumonia took the life of her first husband, responsible for the automobile line which still bears his name. The 100-room mansion totals 88,000 square feet. “It certainly was a fun tour of this unbelievable mansion,” McCormick said.

Special classes at this year’s Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance honored the heritage of Alfa Romeo, and the Henry Ford Museum provided a 1931 Bugati Royale valued at more than $10 million.

“It was a grand affair. Surprising how many wonderful cars were there,” McCormick said.

Invitations to display a car at the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance are issued by a committee; one cannot enter a vehicle in the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance without first being contacted by the committee. 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.

McCormick’s car left Fallbrook by hauler July 20 and made a stop at a St. Louis museum before its transport to the car show. McCormick left Fallbrook July 30 and returned August 6.

McCormick was not the only Southern California car owner to display a vehicle at the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance, which also included two vehicles from San Diego and a V-16 Cadillac from the Los Angeles area.

The vice-president for product development of General Motors gave out the trophies. “I ended up getting first in class, which was wonderful to receive,” McCormick said.

The judges were mostly from Detroit automobile companies. “This particular event is run from a stylist’s point of view,” McCormick said.

Although McCormick was surprised that his car won First in Class, he learned that the 1967 Eldorado was influential in styling and still continues to have an influence in automotive design. “They appreciated it from its styling point of view,” McCormick said.

After purchasing the car, McCormick had it returned to its original color. “Dark blue is the right color to show off some of the design features of it,” McCormick said. “There are some design features of that particular car that were very appealing to the design guys.”

The cars were displayed on the lawn outside the mansion. A light drizzle fell on Rochester the morning of the August 5 presentations, and some cars were covered up temporarily. “At about judging time it basically stopped,” McCormick said of the rain.

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.

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.

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

McCormick began collecting automobile literature when he was in high school in Minnesota. 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 sponsored McCormick’s trip to the Meadow Brook Concourse d’Elegance to reduce McCormick’s expenses.