Jay Leno checks out ultra-rare Cadillac left for 25 years in hotel before wife tells husband he has to buy it

In a recent episode of his YouTube show, Jay Leno took a closer look at an ultra-rare Cadillac that had been left for 25 years in a hotel.

This car was really something special – the current owner bought it because his wife told him to!

But what is it about this 1953 Cadillac Ghia Coupe that generated such enthusiasm?

Well, let’s take a closer look and see for ourselves.

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Jay Leno took a closer look at the 1953 Cadillac Ghia Coupe

Jay Leno is no stranger to having an interesting car on his show Jay Leno’s Garage.

He’s hosted an ‘anti-EV’ hypercar, the ‘most American’ Ferrari, and a Mercedes so rare that even its own manufacturer forgot about it.

And that’s not forgetting his collection of more than 200 cars.

The cars he views range from the very old to the ultra-new.

In a recent episode of his show, he took a look at a car that was over 70 years old.

The car in question is the 1953 Cadillac Ghia Coupe, built on a Cadillac chassis with Hydramatic automatic transmission and an overhead-valve V8 producing around 160hp.

For the time period in which it was made, this was a very powerful car.

It spent 25 years on display at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas.

There’s a funny story attached to how it ended up in the hands of a man called Lee, who featured on Leno’s show.

Why did this woman wanted her husband to buy one

“My wife fell in love with it, and she told me to buy it,” Lee explained.

“So I did!”

“I wish my wife would fall in love with cars and tell me to buy them,” Leno joked.

“Hang on to [her], she sounds like a good one!”

Lee didn’t have any luck purchasing it from the hotel owner, but managed to acquire it when it went up for auction in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Because it’d been intended as a show car, the Ghia didn’t have much of an electrical system to speak of.

Lee spent two years on body and paint, then another five on making this car roadworthy.

Part of that job required changing up the car’s whole look.

“The car had gold wheels, a gold grille, gold trim down the side, and it was all black,” Lee said.

“Pretty awful!”

And remember how we said this car was ultra-rare?

We meant it – only two were produced.

The one that Lee bought, and one that’s sitting in the Petersen Museum.

There are unconfirmed but long-standing rumors that the actress Rita Hayworth, considered one of the top stars of the Hollywood Golden Age, owned one of them at one point.

But with Hayworth having passed away in 1987, and both Imperial Palace and Petersen Museum reportedly claiming she owned the car in their possession, it’d be very difficult to verify the story outright.

Lee had certainly tried to get to the bottom of it, at any rate.

But possible Hollywood connections aside, this car is a masterpiece – a total love letter to the classic cars of the 1950s.

To see it for yourself, visit the YouTube channel of Jay Leno’s Garage.

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