Lucky Luciano has run a shop in the Phoenix area for years. The operation has produced many great rides involving countless hours to reshape old car bodies into better-than-new prized vehicles. But in the case of this 1961 Cadillac, it was a five-month sprint in 2015 to produce a fabulous result.
In May 2015, representatives from Sherwin-Williams approached Luciano about entering a car for its booth at the November SEMA Show. Fortunately, Luciano had a 1961 Cadillac that he was already considering for a project. Acquiring necessary parts for a 1961 Cadillac can be challenging, but Luciano also had a donor car—a 1962 Park Avenue Cadillac—waiting in the wings.
Luciano assigned four guys from his shop to work on it to respond to the rushed schedule. After a while, he stopped accounting for their hours—but figures there was 500 hours in the body work alone and a total of about 2,000 man-hours in the build. He kept a stock 390 engine in the Cadillac.
Despite the shamrocks in his logo, Lucky Luciano hails from Brazil where he learned his craft from his dad. He’s been painting cars for more than 32 years and exclusively uses Sherwin-Williams—hence the invite for SEMA.
The timing was tight but the Cadillac was in Las Vegas just in time for the SEMA Show. We saw it more recently at the Spring Nationals Goodguys Show in Scottsdale, Ariz. in February. That’s where it won a Builders Choice award.
See Parts for 1961 Cadillac Series 62 for sale on eBay.
