1973 Cadillac Hearse - Waking The Dead with Phoenix Gold Sound System

1973 Cadillac Other

I bought this beauty a year ago and sadly i have to part with it. Below you will find what i have found out about the car, and also the original text from the ebay listing i bought it off of, original listing text is in italic.
The car is in very solid shape for how old it is. She can be a bit cranky upon first starting. The carb was switched out to a quadrajet from a 69 cadillac, it has a manual choke. The fuel gauge does not work could just be a grounding issue, or maybe its haunted. Also there is something with the sound system that will drain the battery in no time. I always disconnect the fuse on the main power off the battery, its a pain but it works. i don't know enough about systems to even begin finding it.
This car is awesome and you will get the looks while driving it. Also makes a great prop at a Halloween Party.
Shipping will be set up by you, but i will do what i can to ease the transport to you.
1973 Cadillac hearse.
Here's the rundown on the car, it's a lot of text but the short version is it's a big cruiser with trivial cosmetic flaws and an awesome, professionally installed, stereo system.
This is a 1973 Cadillac Hearse. The body is by Miller Meteor and is all steel with a steel top.
It has been adult owned it's entire life. It has not been smoked in. It does not smell weird.
All of the glass is in great shape with NO CRACKS, including the windshield.
The Caddy has 96,473 miles on it which is on the high side for a hearse, but on the low side for a car built in 1973.
The body is in nice shape and has NO structural rust. The frame and suspension, spring mounts, springs, etc are solid and still wears most of it's factory black paint, the underside of the body, rockers, steel roof, water channels, bottoms of the doors, etc are all solid. This was, I believe, a California car in it's previous life.
It has no rust holes that I've been able to find in 9 years of ownership with one small exception, which is the lower vertical surface of the passenger side rear door.
I believe moisture at some point got behind the sound deadener tar mat the factory glued to the inside of the door and it made for some small bubbles that are now showing through the paint. This is not rust in the pinch welds, curves, or seams, it's a very odd place to have had it happen and to me, looks like it's an easy fix. The other doors do not have this issue.
It has only recently started to show, and unless you're looking for it it's not something you'd notice.
The bottom most seam of the doors have surface rust and some pitting, but it's not rotted through and you have to literally crawl under the car to see them.
The floorpan is solid as it was when new.
The paint washes up nice, but is by no means show quality and has some dings and chips here and there, namely on the back door. Please see the NOTE at the end of this write up about the back door. There is a ding on the passenger door that went to the blue original paint and some flecks of peeled paint here and there. Like I said, it washes up and looks extra nice to pretty much everyone except whoever waxed it. :)
Originally the car was Zodiac Blue (2328), a 1971 Cadillac color and came from the factory with a crinkle painted steel top. It's worn many different paint schemes in it's life, some of them pretty outlandish, and now is gloss black on the top and body.
The engine is a 472 cu in V8 and is in every way factory stock. It has Factory AC that needs recharged (I never did it as Oregon never gets warm enough to need it). The heater core was bypassed when I got it, I'd guess it needs replaced.
It starts easy even after being in storage for a while. You'll want a large capacity battery for this big engine. There is an exhaust leak at the manifold gasket on one side. Only one of the cylinders, and it quiets down after everything warms up. A correct set of replacement exhaust gaskets for both sides is included. It's not the manifold itself, just the gasket.
It's not terribly cold blooded and runs smooth when it warms up. After 9 years it's probably time to give the carb a tune up but runs okay as is.
If it sits for a few months it may smoke a puff at startup but it clears right up and burns clean after a moment and won't happen again unless it's in storage for a long time.
The alternator, exhaust, accessories and all are factory stock. The engine is not a giant grease ball like some old cars. I'm not a fan of power washing engines and getting water into places it should not be, so the engine bay is as it's been for the last decade.
Automatic Transmission shifts and works fine as far as I can tell. I've never had issues with it.
Wheels are aftermarket aluminum Modern brand, with Grand Am Radial GT P235/70R15 tires. Tires have full tread, no flat spots (never parked long enough to develop them) and look nice. I drive on them and they ride nice, but they're about 10 years old at this point.
Now, about THE STEREO.
The fun part about this car is that it was built in the early to mid 2000's for a local Clear Channel radio station, Z100, and was used at their October events and a massive haunted house they sponsored every year called Screamland.
I saw it when it was in service with them and thought it was just way too cool and bought it from the radio station when they decided to stop doing the haunt.
I was told by the station manager that when the car was built, they traded air time for Phoenix Gold products (which used to be a Portland, Oregon company) for the equipment and install that went into the car, and the level of quality from the install shows.
All of the wires, connectors, speakers, amps, fuses, etc are all Phoenix Gold brand.
There are 4 Tantrum 400.4 amps in a custom built enclosure that lights up green when the stereo is on, and is housed behind a water jet cut acrylic Phoenix Gold script cover. A voltage display shows what the current battery voltage is, and a bass adjust knob is hidden by one of the pillars for turning the boom up or down.
Custom speaker enclosures sit on top of the wheel well's in the rear and in two small cabinets by the back doors. There are 4 midrange, 4 tweeters, and 6 massive 12" subs built into the car. It sounds nice and clear and is quite the experience for a car stereo since it's one large sub box.
The stereo is not all boom, like I said, it sounds like a large stereo that is set up well by design. I have not adjusted, tweaked, or modified anything since I got it so it's as it was built.
The stereo head unit is an Alpine CDA-7893. It works okay, but I think at this point it could stand to be replaced. The CD player portion has started to go twitchy sometimes and will drop one channel of the stereo.
I fully believe this issue is in that head unit since it's the one that was put in the car when it was built for the station. Also, a modern unit with bluetooth is cheap and a direct swap.
The entire system has a plug in power source mounted behind the drivers seat. You plug it into an extension cord and it will fully power the stereo with the car parked and the engine off. It will also keep the batteries topped off. It's actually a really nice unit, wouldn't mind having one for my RV but it's part of the car, so goes with it. :)
I have no idea what they did for sound deadening, but the car does not rattle or buzz when the stereo is in use. Like I said, it's a well done install and pre-dates the more modern trends of sticking video screens and overly flashy stuff all over the place. I love how stock the car looks on the outside other than the custom wheels. With the curtains drawn it almost looks like it could be in service.
The interior of the car has custom steel door panels that are cut to show the name of the haunted house Dr. Saitos Screamland and Phoenix Gold. I do not have the original door panels as they did not come with the car.
This is a table car with a table that slides a few feet out the rear of the vehicle to ease loading and unloading.
There are custom little PG bats dotted around the interior. The speaker grills for the subs are all metal and cut to resemble spider webs with the PG logo in the middle. It's pretty trick stuff. The front bench seat is in great shape, recovered in red and black fuzzy fabric that matches the other red and black used in the interior. Headliner is in great shape. A couple spots on the door trim welting need glued back together. One of the sun visors didn't come with the car, but I do have one in a small box of misc spare parts that goes with it so the other one could be made.
The dash is factory stock other than the stereo head unit, and even has a factory accessory clock. There's one sun crack that could likely be repaired, otherwise the dash pad is in good shape.
NOTE about the back door:
The rear door, paint and window trim has some minor damage, but at least has an amusing story to go with it.
The station manager told me Jay Leno had mentioned it in one of his amusing news clippings, but I was never able to find proof of that.
At any rate, what happened is that while the car was parked at the radio station one evening a cracked out tweaker decided he was going to loot a bunch of their mobile DJ vans. He stole stereos, broke windows, piled up speaker gear and then realized he couldn't haul all his new found riches with his spindly little arms so came upon the brilliant idea of stealing the hearse to truck it home (real subtle get away vehicle, pal).
Well, not being the brightest guy he first tried to pry the rear window out . This bent the aluminum and stainless trim a bit on one side, but did not damage the glass itself. He tried to jimmy the door itself open, but that wasn't happening. Finally the 4 watt bulb in his head dimly lit up and he popped the door lock tumbler and opened the door.
He then crawled over the casket in the back, to the front seat, where he got as far as popping the chrome thumb ring off the ignition (it's in the glovebox) before falling asleep in the drivers seat.
When the station crew came in the next morning, they thought someone had put one of the haunted house dummies in it and didn't pay it much mind till someone noticed the dummy was breathing and screamed like a school girl and ran off to call the cops, who stood there tapping on the window to wake up the passed out thief so they could arrest him.
No clue how he scratched the roof by the landau bars, but the scratches are sanded a bit and touched up with primer now to prevent surface rust.
A body shop would have no problem fixing the trim and dings. I never did because answering questions about the back door were always too fun to pass up. :)
It was the easiest news story that station ever had to cover, since it was in their parking lot. Local news stations did amusing interviews with the station staff but annoyingly I can't find those videos online any more. They were pretty funny.
I can however find the video for when the car was used in an award winning short film titled 'Take the Body and Run'.
That can be seen
The real solid wood casket seen in the short film, and one of a kind screaming dummy inside it, can go with the car if the buyer wants. I'd honestly rather keep it, but it can be included. It's in pretty nice shape, has a window in the top to see the dummy, but is otherwise un-modified.
So, the TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read) is that this is a big V8 cruiser of a Cadillac, the paint could use some attention here and there, it hasn't got any noteworthy rust (particularly if you're in the rust belt or east coast!) and it runs, drives and stops well, all while you're rockin' out to your favorite jams.
It'd be great to drive as is, or modify to your tastes since you're starting with a mechanically stock vehicle. Dump it on air bags with some wild low stance? Lift it on 22s? Supercharge it and go on Power Tour? Up to you!
With the new Ghostbusters movie coming out this should be a pretty popular car for advertising your business, haunted house, or using it as the best Uber ever.
Heck, the car could be a business write off depending on what you use it for.
But seriously, read the rest. There's a funny story in there. :)
Thanks for lookin' and happy bidding!
Thanks for reading all the way down to here. Remember only bid if you plan on winning.

• Condition: Used
• Make: Cadillac
• Model: Other
• SubModel: Hearse
• Type: Hearse
• Year: 1973
• Mileage: 96,764
• VIN: 6z90r3q179780
• Color: Black
• Engine size: 472
• Number of cylinders: 8
• Transmission: Automatic
• Drive type: RWD
• Interior color: Black
• Options: CD Player
• Vehicle Title: Clear
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