‘Rat Pack’ Cadillac going to auction

A classic Cadillac Eldorado with a difference is being offered by Donington Auctions in their first major online auction for 2024. For the ‘Summer Classic Car & Number Plate Auction’ on Sunday, 25 February, Donington have more than 70 lots on offer, covering cars, number plates and memorabilia, with the consignments located in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and the Barossa Valley.

The cars on offer cover almost a century of automotive history, with the oldest a 1920 Vauxhall D-Type and the newest a 2003 Mercedes-Benz CL600. There’s plenty of variety in terms of marques, too, with Porsche, Buick, Packard, Triumph, Lotus, Holden, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Toyota and VW represented, as well as exotic Bugatti, Delage and Stutz automobiles.

While a 1926 Bugatti Type 37 with Australian Grand Prix history and a restored, concours-winning 1960 Mercedes-Benz 190SL are expected to be the top sellers, one of the more interesting – and certainly most unusual – lots in the auction is a 1969 Cadillac Eldorado with celebrity connections.

According to the lot description, this Eldorado is a one-off, created for Dean Martin by George Barris and the team at Barris Kustom Industries in California. Known as ‘’King of the Kustomizers,” Barris started in the early 1950s, and by the late 1960s, had become the go-to guy for Hollywood productions that needed a special car. The original Batmobile is arguably the most famous Barris creation, but he also built the cars for The Munsters, Beverly Hillbillies, Banana Splits, Mannix and Knight Rider, to name a few. Promotional vehicles for bands like The Beach Boys, Paul Revere and the Raiders and Ringo Starr also came out of Barris Kustom.

Hollywood celebrities were customers, too, with a long list of singers, actors, sports stars, musicians and other personalities sending their vehicles to the Barris Kustom workshop in North Hollywood for special paint jobs, custom finishes and other personalisation.

One of those celebrities was Dean Martin, who got his start as a singer, before working in radio, then teaming up with comedian Jerry Lewis for a string of popular movies and club performances in the 1940s and ’50s as ‘Martin and Lewis’. Later, Martin was part of the famous ‘Rat Pack’ that included Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jnr, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. A group of entertainers that performed together at Las Vegas casinos, the Rat Pack also featured in the original Ocean’s 11 film that was released in 1960. Martin reached a much larger audience through television with The Dean Martin Show, a weekly comedy-variety program that ran from 1965 to 1974.

Martin was arguably at the peak of his fame when the Cadillac featured was created, but it wasn’t the first of his cars to get the Barris treatment. Martin had previously sent his rare Facel Vega II and Dual Ghia to Barris for unique paint jobs. Later, a Stutz Blackhawk would get repainted at Barris Kustom, too.

The idea for a Cadillac station wagon was a much more ambitious project than anything Barris had done for Martin previously and why he pitched the idea to Martin, instead of the Rolodex of celebrity names he had access to, is unrecorded. Martin loved the idea, though, reportedly because it would give him something that friend, rival and fellow Barris customer Frank Sinatra didn’t have.

Using a 1969 Cadillac Eldorado coupe as a base, Barris Kustom fabricated the station wagon rear from scratch, incorporating a power tailgate with a distinctive vee’d rear window. The addition of a wagon rear obviously changed the profile of the Eldorado, but Barris didn’t stop there, adding accent panels on the flanks that were trimmed in vinyl, as well as faux spare wheel covers on the front guards to recall the look of cars from the 1920s and ’30s.

At the front, a bold chrome extension was added atop the grille, allegedly to evoke the appearance of a Rolls-Royce, but the grille itself, along with the front bumper and quad headlights, remained factory. Wheels were factory, too, although this car now wears aftermarket rims that it picked up sometime in its history.

A two-section vinyl roof trim, separated to give the Cadillac a ‘Crown Victoria’ effect, was trimmed in the same material as the flanks and included a roof rack on the rear section, while multiple coats of Pagan Gold metallic paint completed the exterior.

Inside, the factory Eldorado seats appear to have been left untouched, but faux fur trim was added to the doorcards and headliner, a walnut timber cocktail bar fitted to the glovebox and ‘his and hers’ vanity boxes incorporated into the B-pillars. Martin also allegedly requested a nine-inch TV, multi-track tape deck and phone be fitted.

The finished job was called the ‘Casa de Eldorado’ and became a favourite of Martin’s. When not in use by Martin himself, the car was apparently displayed at various car shows under Barris’s supervision.

According to the lot description, this custom Cadillac wagon is the only one of its kind, but its history post-Martin is unclear, including when the gold paint was replaced with white and when the aftermarket wheels were added. It appears that Casa de Eldorado spent at least its first 25 years in California, including a period with a real estate agent who commissioned Barris to confirm its provenance. A 1993 letter from Barris states the ’69 Cadillac is a one of a kind and was originally built for Dean Martin. A small plaque supplied with, but not fitted to, this car makes a similar statement.

Sometime early in the new millennium, Casa de Eldorado came to Australia and passed through at least two owners in Melbourne before going to the current consignor in Sydney. Neglect by previous owners, including a long period parked on the street, means the wagon now needs restorative work. The engine runs and the car does drive, but mechanical recommissioning, rust repair and cosmetic refurbishment would be needed to return it to its former glory. 

The condition of Casa de Eldorado means it is being offered with No Reserve and a guiding range of just $25,000 to $35,000, which seems cheap for a car with such claimed provenance.

For more details, click HERE.

For more information on the Donington Auctions’ Summer Classic Car & Number Plate Auction, click HERE. Pre-bids are open now, with online bidding commencing from 2:30PM (AEDT) on Sunday, 25 February.

For inspection times, bidder registrations and other auction details, click HERE.