Then and now, a 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz and a fuel-injected 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible are incredibly rare sights, but in northern California, two such scarce machines once shared a garage.
“The people were up north in the wine country and supposedly had something to do with the film business,” said Tom Dietz, who now owns the fuel-injected 1959 Impala convertible. “The husband had the Biarritz and his wife had this car. She supposedly wanted a stick shift, believe it or not.”
Dietz isn’t exactly sure if the previous owner’s background story is accurate — he admits that when he bought the Impala in the late 1990s, he cared more about the car than the story. He does know that when the cars became available from the estate, the buyer had to buy both wildly finned converts to get the black Biarritz. Upon securing both rare General Motors drop tops, he immediately sold the red Impala to Dietz’s friend. That friend spent at least two years acquiring new-old-stock parts and had the Impala painted with 18 coats of hand-rubbed Roman Red lacquer before he realized it wasn’t the car for him.
“He partially restored it and said, ‘This is going to be too good for me,’” Dietz said. The 1959 wasn’t the National Impala Club member’s normal cup of tea, but he jumped on it.
“I am a big ’62 [Chevy] guy, especially the 409s, and he said, ‘You are going to love this one,’ and I said, ‘I need something different.’ I wasn’t a convertible guy until I saw this one.”
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