Now I know why the 'early / late' knob always felt strange to me. It's just a shade for the photocell, built into the knob; not an electric switch or rheostat. I always wondered how the knob was working on my 64 ! It felt broken, because I could detect no mechanical switch action in the twisting of the knob. But the sentinel and auto dimming always worked properly. (which was happy since they usually broke on my later cadillacs). The 64 is the last metal dash car with all metal switches. My dad's first new cad was a 65 convert, because there was a shortage of used cars in NJ at the time. But the 65 made people respect him, as a 23 year old guy, with the most modern new cad ever seen. a 64 would have looked very old within a year, at a time when styling changed every 12 months. We are not used to that now.
Yup, back when car model years actually mattered haha. Now cars only refresh every 4 years or so, and then a new model usually 2 years following. Makes buying the newest model year not necessary if you're only worried about updates. My 89 Deville had this exact tech package, but it had the cheap 80s plastic dash. But it did still have a metal switchgear for the twilight sentinel sensitivity
3:30 With the system first introduced for 1952, it's no surprise that it was still made with tubes this late, despite most GM car radios being all-transistor starting in 1964. I wonder when the GuideMatic was finally converted to a solid state design; I had one in my '68 Fleetwood, but I never had to work on it. This one must have used space-charge tubes to work directly on 12 volts.
Hi... I owned a 64 Coupe DeVille...years ago.....I have the original owners manual and accessory book with Cadillac Pouch for them.....would you like them ?
It would be cool to build a modern version of this system using modern parts. Get longer reliability in a smaller, cheaper package and replacement parts would be easier to get when it does fail
Agreed. People don’t annunciate properly anymore. Smoking is not as common either. That’s where a lot of the voice quality came from. Not advocating smoking, but you can definitely hear it.
That's a lot of claptrap just to avoid having to turn the lights on or off. A lot to go wrong. I'd bet if customers had been shown this clip they'd have avoided these options.
