Minneapolis Street Sighting: Cadillac Coupe deVille

Cadillacs has a storied history of building elegant, stately cars for the most part. In 1985, when the deVille series switched to FWD (front-wheel-drive), it seemed to many like Cadillac was losing their heritage and "cheapening" its last "true luxury car". That was not the case, however. Despite looking radically different than its predecessor, it still packed V8 power, although unlike the predecessor, the new deVille only came with two choices.
Gone was the 425 cube engine, and the diesel 350 was done for as well. Instead, the new-for-1985 Cadillac Coupe deVille (and Sedan deVille too) packed a choice of 4.1 and 4.5 V8 engines. Neither engine made over 200 horses, but since the car dropped 800 pounds in its more compact redesign, power was respectable rather than at "oh c'mon you damn thing, accelerate already". Truth be told, the only powerplant that warranted that reaction in the previous deVille series was the god-awful diesel.
This example look spectacular from across the street; the paint was great, the wheels (although not correct) were finished nicely, and the trim appeared to be in good order. However, as I edged closer to examine this semi-stately vehicle, its imperfections began to make themselves known.
While the paint and body did, indeed look well finished, the trim was broken or bent in key locations. On the right side, the "Coupe deVille" script was broken, rendering this a "Coupe ille". On the trunk, too, the Cadillac script was intact minus the "C". Quite common, unfortunately.
Here's where it did shine though. No evidence of obvious rust or pitting was found. A good thing, considering this is a Minnesota car, therefore it must survive our craptacular, salt-heavy winters. And the wheels; most folks would putting late-model base-model DTS wheels on this near-classic is a travesty. I disagree. While, yeah, I would like to see proper wire hubcaps, these wheels are probably extremely easy to keep clean. You can't say that about wire hubcaps now can you? At least it isn't rolling on 22s or 24s yet.
When all is said and done, I found this example extremely attractive. The color, the wheels, the vynil, all is top notch. Which is funny, because I usually don't pay attention to mid-1980s GMs. Maybe now that they're approaching classic status, I'm starting to notice them more and more. And perhaps maybe, I can find some more examples of mid-1980s GMs to shoot.