This ClassicCars.com Marketplace featured listing is a 1983 Cadillac Seville, for sale by a private owner in Northville, Michigan. In 1983, Sevilles were produced from GM plants in both Detroit and Linden, New Jersey. Interestingly, the first-generation Seville was targeted at younger, import buyers, but it was ultimately most popular with older women who wanted a “more maneuverable” Cadillac.
This triple black-on-black gen-2 Seville shares a shortened front-wheel drive K-body platform with the Toronado and with styling cues inspired by Rolls-Royce coachbuilder Hooper & Co. The “Empress Line,” designed by Hooper, featured a slanted trunk such as that seen on the Seville.
Very luxurious for its day, the Seville sold 30,430 examples. Adding to this car’s luxury, the seller had the front-seat leather reupholstered to the original GM pattern and the sun/moon roof rebuilt, which he says both are “better than new.”
While the car’s handling is good, the ride is still classic “on a cloud” Cadillac. The third- and fourth-generation Seville and most luxury cars in the later ’80s leaned more towards European styling, so this car really represents GM’s last of the ‘big American sedan’ forms.
Power on the 1983 Seville comes from a 4.1 Liter LT8 “High-technology” engine rated at 135 horsepower. The throttle-body fuel injection and electronic control module were considered very advanced at the time. There are 91,000 miles on the odometer, and the seller says that the engine has been rebuilt once.
“I’ve owned the car for 5 years and have driven it summers only all over Michigan approx. 20K miles,” the seller says. “I purchased the car out of a strong private collection and have previous history documentation.”
“Paint and glass are excellent. All molded plastic fillers replaced.” The seller mentions that the cruise control is inoperable, although it worked when he bought the car five years ago.
The asking price is $16,500 or best offer. To view the listing on ClassicCars.com, click here.
With a 4.1 engine ‘rebuilt’ and 90 K Miles, makes me wonder if ‘it’ was replaced with a 4.9. I’ve seen those 4.1 engines fail on the demo ride. I was once told by the Service Manager at a Cadillac Dealer in CA that once they knew how bad they were they started replacing them when they were still in Inventory.
Hello there Mr. Dillon….just wanted to say that this engine has been really taken care of. I’m the owner of the car and purchased it out of a collection in Grand Rapids. Much of the service work was done by senior techs at Tech Center Auto Electric right across the street from the GM Technical Center in Warren Mi where I was working at the time in Advanced Engineering. Coming from a collection it wasn’t driven regular so there was a lot of the usual things to do to make the car roadworthy ie Interstate Ready. The engine is original and just this summer had a through going over ie tune up, plugs, wires, valve cover gaskets, improved new brake booster and lathe turning of the front & rear rotors along with caliper rebuild. The engine was tested very good on the compression check. The engine on this car is better than new. All service work done here locally was performed by senior licensed techs. Also the catalytic converters were plugged up hindering the engine so the cats were cleaned out. The exhaust is new and I added resonators into the system to keep the noise level to the Cadillac Standard. The engine – though not a big V8 is very peppy and the car drives great with no vibration or alignment issues. I welcome additional informational inquires. The car is in heated indoor storage here in Northville(Detroit) Michigan.