William Dolan

The urban landscape is dotted with old Caprice Classics. Many of them are used taxi cabs. Some are used squad cars. What is odd is that most are the square-top variety that were built from 1977 — 1990. The bathtub Caprices from ’91 — ’96 are pretty scarce. Whether this car is used by a cab driver as his personal ride or a getaway car by a stickup crew, I don’t know. What I do know is that these cars are known the world over as something that can last a million miles. Until the Gulf War, these were popular in Iraq. I believe an entire plant shut down as the war started as most of its production was to supply the Persian Gulf region with Chevys.

I once had the pleasure of touring the factory that stamped out the quarter panels for these machines. It took seven presses to create them. I don’t remember how heavy each one was, but they extended two floors below the room and dropped their die from two floors up. Whole railroad cars were down below to catch the scrap.