My urge to drive an old car again has steadily become more intense in the last few years. I find myself browsing the cars-for-sale websites a lot more often to see what's out there. During one of my recent searches, I found this 1974 Cadillac Eldorado convertible for sale at Donohoo Auto Sales in Pelham, Alabama. Since the car looked quite nice in the pics, and the $14,990 asking price seemed more than reasonable, I made the 4-hour drive to check the car out.

I was certainly not disappointed when I got there !

On the outside, the car presented itself very well. It wasn't a show car, but a decent driver, which is what I'm looking for.

The car has had at least one repaint, and a few imperfections were obvious.

The top looked very nice and showed no signs of any significant damage.

The only thing I noticed is that it felt "old."

The photo above is of the only damage to the top I could find.

Power comes from the famous 8.2L, 500 cubic-inch V8 that makes a mere 210 hp, but makes a whopping 380 ft-lbs of torque at a low, low 2,000 rpm. This is more than enough to move the car in a brisk manner.

Quite a bit of work had been done to this car to get it ready for sale on a dealer's lot. The water pump and battery are new. The carburetor was cleaned and adjusted. The brake master cylinder, lines, front calipers, hoses, pads, and rotors are all new.

The engine sounded quiet, and looked and smelled leak-free.

The interior was in great shape as well.

This car has the optional twin 6-way power front seats in place of the standard bench.

The 52k mile odometer reading was presented as original. But there was no documentation to back that up.

The original Cadillac front floor mat was still in place.

The bumper fillers, a common problem on all GM products of the era, were in great shape on this car.

All the bumper fillers looked great.

The paint looked good from a distance. But imperfections became apparent up close. Several small scratches were noticeable.

I also noticed two small pieces of trim missing from the top of the front bumper ends.

There should be a body-color trim piece in between the top of the bumper end and the parking light. Both were missing on this car.

The tires were brand new, even though they had a production date of 2018.

I moved the car into an open area of the parking lot for more pics before I took it out on the road.

The color is "Apollo Yellow."

The sales person I dealt with said that this car spent some time in long-term storage.

The dealership owner bought the car and had a bunch of work done to get it back on the road again.

The steering wheel is an aftermarket piece that was added sometime in the past.

First and foremost, the top worked perfectly, (I had to try that out first, naturally). On the road, the car performed wonderfully ! It accelerated, braked, and handled the way it should. The ride was Cadillac smooth. This car did a great job of reviving a lot of Cadillac convertible memories from my past.

One of the biggest items in the plus column for me was the fact that the frame and floors were immaculate. I saw no rust of any kind under the car.

The list of stuff that worked properly was very long, much more crowded than I expected. The power windows (all four switches and the window lock), power door locks (both switches), both manual remotes for the door mirrors, both power seats, windshield wipers (washer is inop), lights & signals, fuel gauge, radio and power antenna, and the power trunk pull-down all worked properly. The fender-mounted indicators for the lights and signals worked. Even the annoying door buzzer still worked ! The climate control functioned correctly, but the a/c was not charged. There was evidence of a previous R134A conversion.

A number of small issues were present in addition to the a/c not being charged. The windshield washer pump and cruise control were not working. The top looked great and had very few imperfections. But it felt quite old. The car did stumble on me one time during my road test, but immediately recovered and didn't do it again. The upper radiator hose has the old-style large GM logo on it. The inside rear-view mirror was laying in the back seat. The power door locks worked, but both plungers didn't seem to be connected to anything. The remote trunk release button in the glove compartment didn't work. The heater control valve looked like it was beginning to seep. The fan clutch seemed a little looser than it should be. The RF outer CV boot was torn. And the RF lower ball joint had a little bit of play. Even though that's a long list, there is nothing here that I would call a catastrophe.

What bothered me, though, was the fact that after my road test, I shut the car off to look it over some more and could hear coolant boiling. There were no leaks of any kind. But I shouldn't be hearing coolant boil after shutting the engine off, no matter how hot outside it is, (and it was today). This is a sign of an overheat in progress. The issue could be something simple like the loose fan clutch, or a thermostat problem. But it could also be something much more intense, like a cylinder head issue.

The asking price of the car was $14,990. Their offer for my 2005 BMW Z4 was $7,000, which seemed to be in line with some of the online guides. My out the door price would have been around $8,200.

I thought about it for a week and realized that even though I fell in love with the car and all of the wonderful memories it revived, this wouldn't be the right decision.

No worries. There will be others . . .