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Friday, March 19, 2010
Classic Caddy To Help the Beat Go On
By Joline Gutierrez Krueger
Journal Staff Writer
There were those who called it a gunboat, a massive monster on wheels that made Army tanks look like Smart Cars. But what Melissa Sanchez saw when she beheld the big, blue beauty of her 1964 Cadillac Coupe de Ville was paradise by the dashboard light.
It was a car of legend, mint condition, a fourth-generation, two-door, hardtop model boasting white leather seats, a muscular 429 V-8 engine, sweet fins, a horn that wailed like a train whistle and an impressive span of 19 feet — longer than a Chevy Suburban.
Courtesy of Melissa Sanchez This blue 1964 Cadillac Coupe de Ville was the pride and joy of owner Melissa Sanchez. But Sanchez says she donated the car to KUNM-FM to auction off to raise money to keep the radio station afloat.
The car was so huge that Sanchez says it barely fit into the mechanic bay where it underwent a new blue paint job.
Her father bought the car in 1981 after her mother remarked that she thought it might be nice to own a Caddy like her neighbor's.
He paid $1,000 for the car, which had 8,300 miles on it.
Even then it turned heads when her mother took it out for a spin.
Sanchez, though, was not yet a fan.
"I wasn't really impressed," she says. "That car was just a car to me."
Sadly, her mother's joyriding days were short-lived. After she fell ill in 1985, the Cadillac became little more than transportation to and from the doctor's office.
When her mother died in 1992, the Cadillac was stored away in the garage, its glory days seemingly at an end.
"It sat there for four years, so obviously it didn't mean too much to me," Sanchez says. "Suddenly, though, one day I thought, hey, I want to have that Cadillac."
And when she took that baby out on the road for the first time, she fell in love.
"I had never felt this way about a car before," Sanchez says. "I called it Old Blue. It was my pride and joy."
There were the jokesters — her father and her brother, chief among them —who snickered at the car's behemoth bearing.
"But every stop light I came to there was always somebody rolling down their window and shouting, 'Nice car. Is that for sale? What a beauty,' '' she says. "It was a neat conversation starter."
But it was not, it could not, be for sale.
Three or four years later, though, the cost of gasoline began to rise. At a scant 6 miles to the gallon with the air conditioning on and 10 to 12 miles with it off, driving Old Blue became a pricey proposition.
"It's a gas guzzler, for sure," she says. "I started driving it only on special occasions."
It was a terrible fate for a car of such stature, she thought.
"But I couldn't bear the thought of parting with it," she says. "I worried that someone might buy it for scrap metal."
Last month, Sanchez knew what she had to do. She had gone on another journey. It was an adventure in music.
"I had grown up with rock 'n' roll, the oldies, then disco and country," says Sanchez, 57. "But I wasn't happy with the music I was listening to anymore. So I decided to go on a musical journey."
That trip, which began in 2000, led her to KUNM-FM (89.9), an Albuquerque public radio station known for its eclectic mix of music genres and funded primarily by listener donations.
"This was world music," she says. "Listening to KUNM, I became fond of jazz, Cuban music, Western music, reggae, blues, salsa. I was just enthralled with all this music I was listening to. I couldn't wait to hear more."
Sanchez estimates she listens to the station eight hours a day, even using a device that plugs a portable FM radio into the AM-only Cadillac's speakers.
As KUNM's pledge drive rolled around, Sanchez says, she knew she could help keep the music playing by donating her car to the station for auction.
So she gave away her Coupe de Ville for a song.
"I didn't want to sell her for money," she says. "I wanted to do something good with her."
The donation floored the KUNM staff.
"My father was a classic-car collector, so I knew the value of the car," says Mary Oishi, development director at the 44-year-old station. "But more than that, this was a gift from the heart, and that touches me. It touched everybody on the staff. People started crying, just thinking, wow, this was a meaningful gift."
Sanchez, Oishi says, had a few tears in her eyes as well when she met the staff and said goodbye to Old Blue.
Sanchez, though, says she has no regrets.
"I think it was time to let her go," she says.
The Cadillac Coupe de Ville is not scheduled to be sold until May at the next public auction, Oishi says.
Sanchez says she hopes her sweet ride will bring in enough money to keep the sweet music she loves playing. And, she says, she hopes Old Blue finds a new life on the road.
"Whoever buys her, I hope they know they are getting a great car," she says. "They will have so much fun with her. And they won't regret it at all. She's a charmer; she really is."
UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. You can reach Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg.
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