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His dream will come true, they say that he will buy several hundred cars. In most cases they will be Cadillacs (about two hundred…). The “king” gave them to friends, and even to fans, as others gave flowers or chocolates. A generosity backed by 450 million records sold throughout his life, which will make him the owner of an immense fortune.
Our story begins in the summer of 1953, in a truck, with a young and unknown Elvis Aaron Presley at the wheel. The truck belongs to the company «Crown Electric». It is a temporary job while he finishes his high school studies. Legend has it that he is driving when his gaze falls on a recording studio ad: “You can record your album for four dollars.”
He pulls on the parking brake, grabs his guitar and walks through the door.
But the result disappoints him. His voice seems clumsy and the instrument out of tune. In January 1954 she tries again in that same studio. Now the director is excited. Some performances on the radio, first contracts and concerts. Elvis and his two musicians travel the roads from Texas to Alabama aboard an old borrowed Chevrolet, which will soon stop working. The income of the young singer allows him to buy what will be his first personal car, a 1941 Lincoln Continental. After being destroyed by one of his musicians, it is replaced by a Cadillac, also second-hand.
In 1955, his famous agent, Colonel Parker, prepares a contract for him with the RCA record company. The five thousand dollars that Elvis receives in advance of his future royalties, he spends on the purchase of a blue 1954 Cadillac Fleetwood that he paints pink, and that he uses to transport his band, “The Blue Moon Boys”, by the southern states. In an interview, Elvis described it as the most beautiful car he had ever seen. “I parked it outside my hotel the day I bought it and stayed up all night just looking at it,” he said. “The next day, it caught fire on the road.” Elvis actually had the car for about three months before the brake lining caught fire. He was so upset that he went back to the Cadillac dealership and ordered a new Fleetwood 60. It was blue with a black roof, but Presley had it painted pink and gave it to his mother, Gladys, as a gift, even though she didn’t have a driving license.
The myth is already underway. In 1956, “Heartbreak Hotel” (“The Hotel of broken hearts”), gives him his first gold record, one million records sold and his first million dollars in income.
It is the beginning of the long reign of the “King”, with 56 million records sold and cars bought by the dozen. At that time, Elvis walks into a dealership, staring at a white Cadillac Eldorado. The vendor pays little attention to this young man dressed, in his opinion, outlandishly. Elvis storms out and walks over to a black man washing cars at the dealership. He orders the car from her and demands that the sales commission be turned over to the man at the car wash “who had treated him like a gentleman.” Shortly after its purchase, he has the car painted purple.
It is this same year of 1956, when he buys a white Continental Mark II, loaded with accessories, which he will keep for no less than twenty years, until 1976, a few months before his death.
Ten years earlier, in 1966, the RCA company gave him, in recognition of his title of record holder of gold records, a Cadillac painted in gold. In its luxurious interior there was a television, a stereo system and a bar. In addition to the Cadillacs, Elvis was also seduced by the reborn Stutz, a brand that, after experiencing glory days in the first decades of the 20th century and going bankrupt in 1937, would be reborn in 1968. And in 1971 they launched the Series 1 Blackhawk At the time it was one of the most expensive cars in the world, and during the first year of production only 26 were made. Well, Elvis, who would acquire four more Blackhawks during the 1970s: his favorite was the Series III because of its red leather interior and gold accents.
Also European models
His passion for great American cars will have some exceptions, such as a BMW 507, which he bought in 1958 and used in Germany during his military service. The car, originally white and which had been used in exhibitions of the brand and in some competitions with Hans Von Stuck at the wheel, Elvis has it repainted in red to better hide the declarations of love that his fans left printed with lipstick on his body .
He would also own a 1971 Mercedes 280 SL and two 600s (one for his home in Los Angeles and one he kept at Graceland in Memphis), a Rolls Royce Phantom V (which, five years after buying it, in 1968, he auctioned off for charity ), a Dino Ferrari 308 GT4 from 1975 (which, it is said, he only drove once because it barely fit inside) or a De Tomaso Panthera, which he shot several times, tired of its constant breakdowns.
The last car Elvis bought, in 1977, will be a burgundy and silver Cadillac Seville with a gray interior. She liked him a lot and had a CB radio installed so she could tell his staff at Graceland that he was on his way home and to get ready to open the door and turn on the stove…
On the late night of August 15, 1977, some passersby could see how Elvis was heading, at the wheel of one of his Stutz Blackhawks, to the clinic of his dentist, Dr. Lester Hofman.
Three days later, a silver Cadillac led a funeral procession of eighteen white Cadillacs: in the first, a Miller Metetor, Elvis, the boy from Memphis who dreamed behind the wheel of a truck, set out on his last trip.
“When you left, you know you told me
that one day you would return
In a fancy car, all over town to see, oh yeah
Well now the whole world is looking at you
You finally had your dream, yeah
You’re riding in a long black limo.”
(excerpt from “Long Black Limousine”, a country song that would make Elvis Presley famous)
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