Arnie Civins didn’t have a good experience with his first collector car. It proved to be a lot more trouble and provided more headaches than he bargained for.
The second time around, the Scotch Plains, N.J., resident made sure he got it right. After mulling over his purchase for several months, Civins let it snap and bought his dream car — a 1941 Cadillac Series 62 four-door convertible sedan — restored and in near-perfect working order. The rare Cadillac needed a new home, and Civins was happy to oblige. He’s never regretted it since.
“I’ve always liked the Cadillacs, but the 1941 Cadillac is a very unique car. It’s very special,” he said. “It was designed by Bill Mitchell and Harley Earl … and was just an amazing car.”
It was just what Civins needed to satisfy his urge to have a classic hobby car and remove the bad memories left by his first collector car. “I bought a 1951 Fleetwood, which was an absolute disaster,” he said. “Nothing worked, I had nothing but problems with it … Something always needed to be fixed. It was a learning experience.
“I always wanted to have an old car that I could drive around in, and not being very mechanically inclined, it had to be something that didn’t need a lot of fixing up.”
The car also had to have an automatic transmission, which narrowed the list of possibilities. “1941 was the first year Cadillac offered automatic transmission,” he said. “I never learned how to drive standard, and I wasn’t going to take an expensive car out and learn, so this was perfect for me.”
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