Car of the Week: 1949 Cadillac Limo
This 1949 Cadillac limo had plenty of room for everybody and it’s still in the family!
There weren’t many cars around in 1958 that had room to haul all of Chet Champion’s kids, and the cavernous 1949 Cadillac Series 75 Limousine was one of the few.
Somehow, the Champion family wound up with one of the rare limos in their Iron Range town of Hibbing, Minn. The monstrous Caddy didn’t have to serve as daily transportation for the family all that often, but it had to be ready when all 10 Champions — and sometimes a few extras — wanted to travel together. The big ’49 was always up to the task and 67 years later, it’s still in the family and looking as good as ever.
“Yeah, we could fit the whole family in this thing, all 10 of us. There were times I stood up between Mom and Dad in the front seat,” recalls Mike Champion, of Roseville, Minn., who now shares custody of the limo with brothers Jon and Dennis. “And sometimes we had a couple of neighbor kids who would come along, so we’ve had 12 in there! I remember [my brother] and my sister, who is a couple years older than I am, used to argue over who got to sit on the armrest, because as a little kid, you couldn’t see out of the windows otherwise.”
Chet sold cars for a living in Hibbing, and it was his connections in the car dealer business that led to the Cadillac landing in his lap. It was an unlikely series of events — there were only 626 of the ’49 Series 75 Limousines built and the Champions had to be one of the only working-class families in the country that had one.
“My dad had a friend who sold cars in Ely, Minnesota … He called him up and said, ‘Chet, I took something in on trade that you might be interested in,’ Champion recalls. “It was this car.”
A family had bought the Cadillac from a mining company for their 16-year-old son, who commenced to ruin the transmission.
“...If I would have been that 16-year-old kid, the solution to the problem would have been, I would have paid for a new transmission,” Champion said. “Their solution was to trade it in on a ’58 Chevy Impala for the kid, brand new.
“So Dad went up and took a look at it, and they were asking $495 for it, ‘as is.’ That was in 1958. And my dad talked them down to $445 and they put in the new transmission. I have the original bill of sale and the original bank note that has the Cadillac and my mom’s Maytag washing machine as collateral — honest to God!
“It was originally owned by Oliver Mining Company in Virginia, Minnesota. When their executives flew in from Cleveland, this is what they transported them in. It didn’t get a lot of use in the years that they owned it, but they ultimately traded it to a dealer in Duluth, and the fella from Ely bought it and then my dad bought it.”
Mike Champion still chuckles at the idea that his dad somehow convinced himself — or was talked into — buying a huge, 9-year-old limousine.
“My dad had demonstrators. He didn’t need this car!” he laughs. “This was a toy car for him. But we could fit the whole family in this thing.”
Mike recalls plenty of lively road trips to Wisconsin with the whole Champion clan packed into the big, black Cadillac. The limo proved to be fun, reliable family transit for about seven years before the brakes went bad in 1965. Nobody probably would have guessed it at the time, but it turned out to be more than 30 years before the Series 75 was back on the road.
around the doors and dash, almost everything in the interior is original. Brian Earnest
power windows and rich personality, but this one also hauled kids for several years. Brian Earnest
A Power Move at Cadillac
The 1949 model year was certainly a time of “something old, something new” at Cadillac. The biggest news for the year was the arrival of the new Kettering overhead-valve 331-cid V-8 rated at 160 hp. Tailfins had been part of a complete redesign of Series 60, 61 and 62 Cadillacs in 1948 and their styling was still fresh in 1949, so there wasn’t much new looks-wise for them that year. However, the giant Series 75 bodies for ’49 were essentially holdovers from 1941 and so they were clearly dated-looking by 1949. The archaic Series 75 Cadillacs rode on a huge 163-inch wheelbase chassis that was used for funeral cars, ambulances and their ilk. Five- and seven-passenger sedans were offered, as were seven- and nine-passenger business sedans. At the top of the heap was the new Series 75 Imperial Limousine with a divider window at a whopping 4,648 lbs. and equally weighty $5,170 sticker price. Included in the deal were such amenities as power-assisted steering, hydraulic power windows, rich leather seats, optional air conditioning, the divider “chauffer” window, self-adjusting suspension, clock, heater, AM radio, dual exhaust, fender skirts and the fancy, stylized “flying goddess” Cadillac hood ornament.
Such grand machines were well beyond the financial means of most Americans, but they were not out of range for the Vatican, which ordered at least one of the limos for the Pope and his entourage.
The Series Imperial Limousines measured 227 inches from tip to tip. With only 626 built, they have always been a rare sight — Champion says to this day he has still only seen one other in the flesh.
“I was out in Vegas for the NASCAR race in 2000 and went to the Imperial Palace’s car collection,” he says. “As we were leaving, we noticed a sign that they were going to have an auction at the Imperial Palace. And one of the cars they were going to auction was a 1949 Series 75 Limousine…. That was the day after the stock market crashed in 2000, and it sold for $25,000!”
even the 1941 Cadillac-based Series 75. It began with this 160-hp overhead-valve power plant, but in the years that followed, the same basic engine would evolve through displacement increases and pack a lot more power. The displacement of the overhead-valve V-8 was actually down slightly from the previous flathead V-8, but power was up, fuel economy was better and the hood could be lower on future Cadillacs. Brian Earnest
Planning a Surprise Party
“With two kids in college and six more at home, Dad didn’t really have the money to fix it,” recalls Mike, of their ’49’s lengthy slumber that began in 1965. “So he parked it, always planning to get it back on the road someday. Well, in 1995, he still hadn’t gotten it back on the road. He had a heart attack in 1995 and had to go to the hospital, and he really needed to sell the house and move into something handicapped-accessible. And in the hospital he said, ‘Well, I suppose I’ll have to sell the Cadillac.’ And in the room was a bunch of my brothers and sisters, and the room just went silent. Then I spoke up and said, ‘Dad, if you’re going to sell the Cadillac, I’m going to buy it and I’m going to restore it so I can see you drive it. You do what you want,’ because you never told my dad what to do.”
A few weeks after that, Mike, Jon and Dennis took possession of the limo and hatched a plan to have it restored. Two years later, with the help of a restorer friend “who grossly undercharged me,” the boys had completed the remake and were ready to surprise the old man — who had no idea what they were up to.
Despite its size, the Champions’ Series 75 was a great candidate to be restored at the time. It had somehow avoided serious rust issues in the harsh Iron Range winters, and the interior remained in great shape. The body was stripped, straightened and re-painted, and the faux burled-walnut woodgrain was re-done. All the original leather and mohair upholstery remained, as did the carpet, headliner and almost everything else inside.
The engine and drivetrain were original and serviceable, although eventually both got rebuilds for the sake of reliability.
“There was surface rust on some of the fenders. The body was straight. My dad had built a seven-stall garage to help protect this … and the snow load in March of ’79 — I think it was ’79 — collapsed the roof and there was a dent in the roof. That’s some real heavy steel!” That led to a lengthy search for some stainless trim around the windshield that needed to be replaced, but otherwise, there wasn’t a lot of parts chasing involved in the restoration.
“It was all taken down to bare metal. I have a good friend who owned a body shop and he did this one and my wife’s ’72 Camaro … It was done on his terms, there was no time frame,” Mike relates.
Two years later, on Father’s Day 1997, the brothers decided it was time for the big reveal. Cue the box of tissues.
“Dad did not know the car was done and he was over at our house. We were inside for a while and I finally said, ‘Dad, let’s go out in the backyard and play some bocci ball.’ I lived on the golf course in Menomonie, Wisconsin, and the original No. 3 tee box is in my backyard. And we had the car parked on that spot, and when we went out there and saw it, he looked the car over … it was probably 5 minutes, but it seemed like an hour. I came up to him and put my arm around him said, ‘Dad, would you like to drive your car?’ We didn’t have the whole family there, because we are kind of spread out around the country, but we had myself and a couple of my brothers and sisters, and my wife and daughter. He had both some grandkids and one of their sons, so there was a great-grandkid. There were plenty of family there to see it.”
Mike says Chet’s comeback drive was short and sweet. A couple of gentle miles were enough. “I could tell he wasn’t really comfortable driving it, because it’s so big. But he got to drive, and that was my goal.” That same year the family took the limousine back to Wisconsin to show it off in the Blue Ribbon invitational area at the Iola Car Show. They were back again in 2025, reliving old times and enjoying some miles in their venerable family hauler.
Chet passed away in 2002, but the big Series 75 lives on in the family, and likely will continue to do so for many years to come.
“It’s just a cruiser. It actually is a lot of fun to drive,” Mike says. “You’re never going to get a lot of speed out of it. I’ve hit 80 with it. It’s just totally a totally unique driving experience.”
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