re: Bad-arse car of the day

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Do you have any other information on this vehicle or do we just imagine what it is, where it was made, when it was made, and how it operates?

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Jim Patterson, an entrepreneur from Louisville, Ky., and twice winner of the Best of Show award at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, on his 1937 Cadillac, as told to A.J. Baime.

The Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is the most important event in the world for car collectors. Being from Kentucky, I think of it as the Kentucky Derby of car shows. For the last two years, my 1937 Cadillac has been in a constant state of restoration. It is in its final weeks of preparation for Pebble Beach, which is next month.

The car is one-of-a-kind. Its story begins in Switzerland. In the mid-1930s, a gentleman from Lausanne wanted to buy the biggest, baddest car that could exist in that society. He had the unique idea of special ordering a Cadillac and having it shipped from the U.S. to Lausanne.

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This gentleman had a firm in Switzerland named Hartmann build the body. The end result was a 22-foot-long car, with a 16-cylinder engine. That is like having two V-8 engines, in one. The car and its motor are huge.

World War II disrupted everything in Europe, and this car became derelict, basically left to rot for years. It was ultimately brought into the U.S., I believe, in the late 1960s, and it went through some restoration. A private owner kept it in the Blackhawk Museum, in Danville, Calif., and three years ago, it came up for sale.

When I bought it, it needed a lot of work and I immediately began a full restoration, hiring RM Auto Restoration in Canada. A tremendous amount of research has gone into finding out what this car looked like when it was new. General Motors supplied original factory build sheets, and we found a gentleman who worked at GM who remembered seeing this car when it was first brought to the States decades ago. He has been very helpful.

Privately, I have showed the car to friends in the car business. Their first reaction is always, “Wow, what is it? A Packard? A Duesenberg?” It is not. It’s a Cadillac with a Swiss body.

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