Please don’t eat from this Cadillac Grill

We all love a little ingenuity in the woods, but there are some places where it’s just not the right fit. Would I trust my mother’s cousin, Mark (peace to his soul), to make a smoker out of scrap metal? If he had started with an old metal drum, maybe. But a Cadillac Sedan de Ville from the 1980s? I’m canceling the family barbecue if I see this thing happening. Sorry, cousin.

One such Cadillac is currently listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace outside of Nashville, Tennessee, for just $3,000. That’ll buy you one heck of a Traeger, or just this Grill Cadillac (as I’ll call it), made from a 1985-1988 de Ville sedan. It was attached to the chassis of a trailer – or at least the front of it – and its front wheels were removed and their wells covered. The leaf blower poking through the melted grille and the peeling paint on the hood tell me its engine has been replaced with a combustion chamber, which I imagine is used for charcoal. Hank of the Hill not approve.

What was once the shed has been gutted and replaced with two levels of wire mesh, similar to those used to build the playgrounds where I grew up. It’s unclear how (or if) you can access the boards where ash and drips collect, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be fun to clean. If the owner has bothered, of course. My dad’s grill drip pan is one of the nastiest things I’ve ever touched, and I say that as someone who worked at Subway when they sold that “pastrami.”

There is also more worry. That peeling paint on the hood tells me that whoever built this didn’t think about what would happen when we got paint. really hot. I suspect they didn’t sand the inside to get rid of this stuff before firing up the De Grill for the first time, so God knows what kinds of chemicals are floating around in there. That’s not to mention those that could be from seam sealant in its unibody or other plastic parts that haven’t been removed, like that sagging and melted grille up front. If you ate a meal in this car, you probably have enough Cadillac de Ville in you to be legally eligible for a VIN.

Suffice it to say, it’s not ServSafe certified, and I bet any health inspector would have an aneurysm if they saw that. You can make it your own if you have $3,000, but in my opinion this thing is beyond redemption. Tennessee’s humid climate probably made its interior downright horrible. Just send it to the grinder before the creatures move in, if you haven’t already.

Do you have a tip or question for the author? You can reach them here: james@thedrive.com

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *