Pink Cadillac - A Cool Story
On the morning car shows are setting up at Expo New Mexico in Albuquerque, a car wash is an ideal place to see some sweet rides since the car owners want their cars to look pristine.
Earlier this year, when heading to the Supernationals opening that day to peruse Nortelño entries, I spied a sweet, pink ’59 Caddy at a car wash on San Mateo boulevard. I did a quick u-turn and pulled in to take a couple of photos and talk with the owner, who was just wiping water drops off the trunk.
I wasn’t the only driver who was lured by the lovely car, two other vehicles — one car and one truck filled with construction workers — stopped to check out the Caddy, also.
Johnny Peña was the person washing his wife’s car, and when he started telling the assembled group about it, I immediately thought of some of the lyrics to the Bruce Springstein song, “Pink Cadillac.”
“I love you for your pink Cadillac
Crushed velvet seats
Riding in the back
Cruising down the street
Waving to the girls
Feeling out of sight
Spending all my money
On a Saturday night
Honey I just wonder what you do there in back
Of your pink Cadillac
Pink Cadillac”
The story has turned into a family tradition of sorts.
Klarissa Peña’s mother and father were heading to the hospital in Albuquerque and her mother couldn’t wait for the delivery room so her father pulled over at an underpass on I-25 and Lomas and Klarissa was born.
How absolutely American is that? Being born beside an Interstate highway in a Cadillac.
Johnny then put Klarissa on the phone so I could speak with her.
“Throughout the years, my father wanted me to purchase a 1959 Cadillac because of that fact,” Klarissa said. “He finally found one in Corrales and wanted me to buy it. So we did and I was excited because I finally thought we’d restore it. My dad passed away and the car sat for a few more years and then we started restoring it little by little.”
Klarissa said they repeat the story often.
“We get great responses from it. People just love it. It’s common to us so I don’t think much of it, but when we tell it to others, they really respond to it,” Klarissa continued. “
There are a couple of people who have joked and said, ‘They may have told you that you were born in there but conceived in there, also.’”
Sort of giving the credit for Klarissa’s birth to Detroit and General Motors.
The pink color Klarissa chose wasn’t the original color of the car she was born in, which was blue, but she really wanted to have a pink exterior combined with a white interior, and the result is very tasty indeed.
How does she feel driving this piece of family history around?
“It reminds me of my dad,” she said a bit nostalgically. “I get so sad sometimes because he didn’t get to see it completed. It was always important to him that I restore a car like this. It’s kind of bittersweet, but now that it is done I get the feeling he’s looking down (on her in the car, showing it off to people) and he’s really excited that I was able to do it.
“When I drive it I always have very great thoughts about my dad. Great memories.”
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