Lat weekend I was at a park in Evanston Il. by Lake Michigan and saw this old 1968 Caddilac, think it was a Deville.

1 thing I notice and I've seen this on other older GM cars where the 2 back wheels car parshally covered.

What was the reason for making cars like that?

Must have been very inconvenient to change the tires.

Hi Touhy Ave.


http://www.gmphotostore.com/images/53218236_pr.jpg

{1968 Cadillac Sedan DeVille}


Those were called Fender skirts, known in Australia as spats.


And you had to remove them before changing your tires. My Brother In Law had some chrome ones on his 1964 Pontiac Parisienne. They looked sharp on that car. They came off fairly fast I supposed... :)


Click on the link for more info...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_skirts


http://www.1964pontiac.com/1964pontiacpics/parcvrr.jpg

{1964 Pontiac Parisienne}

[ June 26, 2007, 10:22: Message edited by: Jesse Joe ]

bits of auto trivia here
If I remember correctly in the 60's at least the Pontiac range in Canada was somewhat different to their equivalents in the States
The Parisienne was so named as a nod to French Canadians and was generally comparible to the US Bonneville of the time, but I seem to recall that Canadian Pontiacs were actually built on the basic and presumably cheaper Chevrolet chassis and therfore lacked their US cousin's wide track wheel arrangement.Having said that when I arrived here in 2000 my mother-in-law was still driving around in a full sized old Parisienne probably built by GM in Oshawa Ontario.
My first car in Canada in 1964 was a US built 1962 Buick compact Special
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/images/...al_in_1964.jpg
A remarkable car that featured a very light aluminium (that's alu..min..ee..um) (same as sow..dee..um by the way) block 215 cu in/3.5 litre V8. This engine was later developed by Repco in Australia for Formula One racing use and the tooling was sold to Rover in the UK see:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_V8_engine
and extensively used in the Range Rover range for years