Mark Duggan is a dedicated car guy who has a strong interest in unusual vehicles, including his 1957 Cadillac Series 62 that had a mere 23,203 miles on it when Mark purchased the car from its original owners in 2023.
The stylish Caddy had spent its entire time with one family and was parked in 1977.
Jim Sutherland
The Caddy was a northeastern US car where winters are real, and salt is a grim component of the melt game on each state’s roadways. Consequently, most cars from that region are destroyed by winter roads and rarely survive over the course of time unless they are pampered or not driven during the winter months.
One can assume Mark’s ’57 Caddy enjoyed a pampered life during its first 20 years on the road, given its ultra-low mileage. The next 46 years protected the car from winters, but its long timeout brought other complications into the mix.
Mark learned about the Caddy from a buddy and decided to see whether a then-66-year-old car with less than 25,000 miles was real. The good news is the car was indeed a low-miles survivor from the Elvis era, so Mark bought the Caddy from its original family’s owners.
Mark trailered the car back from its former home because he wanted to protect the vintage Caddy from extra mechanical stress after its long period in storage.
Surprisingly, the vintage Cadillac only required some basic repairs after 46 years off the road. The list included a carb rebuild, water pump replacement, along with a thorough fuel system cleaning to eliminate delivery issues.
Mark is a true car guy who is not a trained mechanic, but he was heavily influenced by his grandfather who operated heavy equipment and shared his mechanical knowledge with a then-young Mark. The experience left a big impression on him, and, because of Mark’s granddad, he became a hands-on vintage vehicle owner later in life.
Mark respects his Cadillac’s incredibly low miles, but he is also a road adventurer, so he and his wife took the car on a 2200-mile road trip up to Ontario Canada after Mark completed his mechanical resurrection of the ’57 Caddy.
The vintage Cadillac performed admirably on the trip, although Mark intends to swap its bias tires for radials to make the retro luxury yacht grips the road better in the future. Incidentally, the Caddy is a Series 62, so it is an entry level car by Cadillac standards.
The Caddy gets plenty of factory power from its 365 cubic-inch engine equipped with a 4-barrel carburetor. The vintage luxury liner also has its original 4-speed Hydra-Matic automatic transmission to drop the RPMs at highway speeds.
Nevertheless, Mark described the big car as “thirsty”, and added “it loves gas”. In fact, the car only gets around 9 mpg, but poor mileage does not get in the way for Mark. He looks for any reason to drive his Caddy but also respects its low odometer reading and is aware of its incredibly low miles all these decades later.
However, the urge to drive the car is very tempting because Mark loves to drive his Caddy and thoroughly enjoys every occasion behind the wheel of his 1957 Cadillac Series 62.
The only remaining question is who can really blame him for jumping behind the wheel of a beautiful survivor car from the rock and roll era?
Jim Sutherland
BY: Jim Sutherland
Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section.
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