Buy Me a Cadillac
Based on true events.
The Back Door
Detroit, Michigan. February, 1934.
The snow slams into the city, as violent as a desert sandstorm—sideways and mean-spirited, riding the wind off the river, making an already cold day barely worth getting out of bed for. It stings Nick Dreystadt’s face as he stands across the street, collar up, wrench still in his coat pocket, grease under his nails, watching.
A black Cadillac V-16 idles behind the dealership, engine purring like it knows who it belongs to. Not just a car. A statement. The long lines of the fender, the split windshield, the polished chrome that gleams even in the gray light—it’s the kind of machine you can’t help but stare at, even if you’re the one who built it.
The dark skinned man standing next to it wears a full-length camelhair coat and a hat dipped low. Tall. Regal. Maybe fifty. His shoes are clean despite the slush. He doesn’t fidget. He doesn’t pace. He just waits, shoulders squared, hands folded behind his back like a man used to commanding rooms that don’t welcome him.
Nick recognizes him. Dr. Everett Jordan. Owns a successful medical clinic for Negroes on the West Side. Paid cash last week for the car. Full sticker price, no haggling. Not that they’d finance him anyway.
The back door swings open. A kid from the service bay—white, twitchy, maybe nineteen—shuffles out carrying the keys like they might burn him. Doesn’t look the doctor in the eye. Doesn’t offer a handshake.
Dr. Jordan takes the keys without a word. Glances once at the service door, once at the rear lot’s overflowing dumpster, then opens the driver’s side door. It’s spotless. Nick knows—he detailed it himself.
The V-16 pulls away, slow and smooth, tires slicing the slush like butter. Nick follows it with his eyes until it turns onto Jefferson and disappears into the mist of snow and exhaust.
He stays a moment longer, staring at the stained brick wall where the delivery just happened. A wall that’s seen a lot of backdoor handoffs lately.
“They’ll take his money,” Nick mutters, turning his collar up higher. “But not his face in the showroom.”
At the corner, a delivery truck barrels through a red light, horn screaming. Nick steps back just in time, snow soaking his boots. He heads up the block toward the Cadillac service department, tucked around the side like a necessary shame. He’s not due back for another fifteen minutes, but he’s wired now. Pissed. Not at Dr. Jordan—at the brass, at the system, at the silence that always pretends there’s no problem while standing right in the middle of one.
Inside the garage, it smells like antifreeze, oil, hot rubber. The smells he’s known since he was twelve and too small to lift a tire but old enough to scrub engine blocks for nickels. He punches back in, peels off his coat, and heads for Bay 4.
Duke’s already under the hood of a Series 355. White guy. Mustache. Forearms like sandbags.
“You see it?” Nick asks, grabbing a rag.
Duke grunts. “Jordan?”
“Yeah.”
“Back door again?”
Nick just nods.
“Shit’s wrong,” Duke mutters, not looking up.
Nick tightens a bolt with too much force, the wrench slipping hard enough to scrape his knuckles. Blood wells up immediately.
He wipes it on his pant leg and doesn’t say a word.
Because here’s the truth nobody says out loud: half the Cadillacs still being sold in Detroit are being sold to Black folks. Not the broke ones, either—doctors, business owners, bandleaders, teachers, undertakers, people who’ve clawed their way into enough money to want what every other successful person wants. Something shiny. Something that tells the world I made it. Don’t you dare look away.
But the dealerships do look away. Or worse—sneer. Refuse to show cars. Demand full payment up front. Deliver keys through the service entrance like handing a dog a bone.
And still, they come back. Still, they buy. Because it’s not about Cadillac—it’s about what Cadillac means.
Nick knows it. And he’s pretty sure the company does too. They just don’t want to admit it. Not yet.
He glances toward his locker. Inside is a small black notebook. Just names. No one told him to write them down. No one even knows he’s doing it. But every time one of those customers comes in—polite, cash in hand, wearing better suits than the salesmen who sneer at them—he makes a note.
He doesn’t know why yet.
But something in his gut tells him this list is going to matter.
Under the Hood
Monday morning hits like a hammer. Snow’s melted to a filthy crust, and everything smells like slush, oil, and cold metal. Nick Dreystadt’s already sweating under his coveralls by 8:15, sleeves rolled, boots soaked, trying to coax a stubborn ignition coil back to life on a ’32 Fleetwood that smells like cigar smoke and last chances.
The morning rush brings a line of Cadillacs stretching halfway down the block—V-8s, 355s, a few rumbling V-12s. And one that makes every mechanic in the bay glance sideways: a V-16 two-tone coupe that pulls up like a sledgehammer wrapped in silk.
Nick doesn’t need to see the driver to know who it is.
Mr. Samuel Polk, funeral director. Owns three parlors and a warehouse full of caskets. A tall man with a low voice and a taste for quiet power. Always pays in cash. Always arrives early. Always waits by the garage door like he’s not sure they’ll let him in.
Nick drops the wrench and waves him forward.
“Morning, Mr. Polk.”
Polk nods. “Morning, Mr. Dreystadt.”
There’s a flicker of something in the man’s eyes—gratitude, maybe, or just relief at being treated like a human being before ten in the morning. Nick opens the passenger door and starts jotting down mileage.
“You had her out much this week?”
“Twice,” Polk says. “Procession on Tuesday. Then a wedding.” He pauses, lets the irony hang. “Girl’s father wanted the groom to look like he’d already arrived.”
Nick chuckles, but not loud. Not here. Humor’s private in this space, especially when it’s tinged with class and race and the simple math of who gets to show off and who gets watched for doing it.
He finishes the intake sheet and hands Polk a stub.
“I’ll have her back in shape by noon.”
Polk tips his hat. “No rush. She’s worth the wait.”
Inside, the V-16’s engine is warm. Nick lifts the hood slow, like a giddy child opening a new friend’s toy box. He runs his hand along the valve cover—Fleetwood-embossed, polished like church silver.
Duke whistles low. “Jesus. How much you think he dropped on this?”
“Seven grand, easy.”
Duke lets out a low laugh. “Cash?”
Nick doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.
There are five other Black customers that morning—two chauffeurs, one school principal, and a nightclub singer named Etta who flirts with the grease monkeys just enough to make them forget she’s wearing heels that cost more than their wedding rings. All five vehicles go straight to Nick’s bay. Not because he asks for them, but because everyone knows he handles them with care—and doesn’t look sideways when someone walks in wearing a better suit than the man who sold it to him.
Nick wipes his hands on a rag, walks over to his locker, and pulls out the black notebook.
He turns to a blank page.
Polk, Samuel. V-16 Coupe. Full cash. Third vehicle serviced. Treated cold by sales floor. Delivered behind building.
The notebook is nearly half full now. Fifty-two names. Men and women. All paying more than white customers. All getting treated worse. Some of them own entire businesses. Some have degrees. All have stories, and Nick remembers every single one. Because no one else is bothering to.
A voice behind him: “You still working on that list?”
Nick doesn’t turn. “You still pretending you don’t believe it matters?”
It’s Franklin—the parts guy. Rail-thin. Smokes Lucky Strikes in the back room like he’s paid to shorten his life. He doesn’t say anything, just leans against the post, watching the cars.
“They’ll never market to ‘em,” Franklin says eventually. “Even if they’re the last ones buying.”
Nick finally looks at him. “Then we’ll go bankrupt with our eyes closed.”
Franklin shrugs. “Won’t be us going bankrupt. It’ll be the suits upstairs.”
Nick doesn’t answer. He’s too busy flipping to the first page of the notebook, where he’s started organizing repeat buyers—men like Polk who own more than one Cadillac, whose loyalty is quiet and costly.
It’s not just a list anymore. It’s an argument waiting to be made.
He doesn’t know when he’ll make it. Or to who. Or how he’ll even get into the room.
But every time another cash-paying customer gets sent around the back, every time another polished V-16 purrs away from the service bay under the hands of someone denied eye contact at the sales desk—
—Nick knows he’s one day closer.
And when that day comes, they’re gonna have to look.
The Closed Door
The first time Nick Dreystadt asks to speak at a management meeting, they laugh.
Not mean-spirited. Just dismissive. Like he’s a child asking to sit at the grown-ups’ table. Like the idea that a grease-stained foreman from the Cadillac service floor might have something to say about sales is cute. A novelty. Maybe even charming.
“Stick to carburetors, Nick,” one of the assistant managers chuckles, slapping him on the back with that familiar brand of condescension that thinks it’s kindness.
Nick forces a smile. “Sure. But just for kicks—ask your floor how many V-16s they’ve sold this month. And then ask me how many of them came through my bay.”
That shuts him up for a second.
But only a second.
Nick doesn’t give up. He starts staying late. Not to fix cars, but to sharpen his math.
He studies Motor & Equipment Manufacturer Association bulletins. Learns how to break down profit margins, inventory flow, even dealership-level losses. He figures out the real cost of not selling a car that’s already been built and polished and parked on the lot for ninety days.
And he starts matching it—line for line—to the list in his black notebook.
By January, he’s added twenty more names. All Black customers. All paid in cash. Most referred by word of mouth—by pastors, doctors, barbers, musicians, businessmen who understand that prestige is armor in this country. Even if the people handing it to you don’t want you to wear it.
At night, he sits at his kitchen table with a single lamp burning, drawing rough graphs on butcher paper. Sales trends. Cash vs. credit. The ratio of V-8 to V-12 to V-16. He traces the spike in Cadillac sales in majority-Black neighborhoods in Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, and Philadelphia—small, but undeniable.
No one at GM is talking about it. But the numbers don’t lie.
The company’s dying. And the only people still buying are the ones it refuses to see.
In March, he tries again.
He shows up to the executive offices on West Grand Boulevard in a freshly pressed suit, hair combed back, nails scrubbed raw, black notebook tucked under his arm like scripture.
This time, he gets past the receptionist.
Just barely.
A junior manager—Bernie Rozenfeld—agrees to meet with him for fifteen minutes.
They sit in a side office with a window that looks out over a gray, oil-slicked parking lot full of unsold Cadillacs.
Nick lays it out: the notebook, the numbers, the trend lines, the names. Not stories, not sentiment—money. Cash buyers. Repeat customers. Community loyalty. Professional referrals. Prestige spending.
Rozenfeld listens without interrupting. He taps a pen against his knee. He asks one question:
“Are you saying we should market to Negroes?”
Nick doesn’t flinch.
“I’m saying you already are. You just don’t have the guts to admit it.”
Rozenfeld exhales. Looks out the window. Doesn’t say no. Doesn’t say yes.
Just says, “Let me think about it.”
Two weeks later, Nick’s summoned back. This time, upstairs.
The conference room is all glass and leather and walnut. A long table. Twelve men. All white. All older. All staring at him like a fly that landed on their lunch.
Rozenfeld introduces him quickly. “Mechanic. Foreman. Been with us twelve years.”
Nick nods. Opens his folder. Doesn’t ask permission. Just starts.
He walks them through it—the sales data, the loss projections, the cash intake that’s coming from buyers you won’t even acknowledge on your marketing ledger. He names cities. Names customers. Names numbers.
He saves the story for last.
“Last month,” he says, “a doctor from the West Side bought a V-16 in full. Wasn’t allowed to test drive it. Wasn’t offered floor mats. Wasn’t handed the keys inside the showroom. They made him pick it up from behind the building. Right next to the garbage.”
A pause.
“I detailed that car myself.”
The room is silent.
Finally, one executive clears his throat. “There’s still risk. If we start courting colored buyers—openly—it could alienate the white market.”
Nick leans in, voice steady.
“Gentlemen, you’re not worried about alienating white buyers. You’re worried about admitting that Black buyers saved your ass.”
That night, he walks home in the cold. Doesn’t know what they’ll decide.
But for the first time, he’s not carrying the list.
He left it on the table.
The Room Where It Happens
They don’t call him back for weeks.
Nick goes back to the service floor, back to busted timing belts and spark plug gaps and men who call customers “boy” even when the customer owns more property than they do. He keeps his head down, keeps the notebook closed.
But he watches.
And what he sees tells him something’s changed.
It starts small. A new pamphlet in the waiting room. A shift in tone from one of the salesmen—nothing dramatic, but a forced politeness that wasn’t there before. Then a memo gets posted in the breakroom, reminding staff to use “uniform courtesy with all customers regardless of background.” It’s vague. Bullshit, probably. But it smells like smoke from somewhere up the chain.
Then the phone rings.
Rozenfeld. Four words: “They want you back.”
This time, the air in the boardroom crackles.
There are fewer jokes. No smiles. Just twelve serious men, two smoking, one scowling like Nick insulted his lawn. The president of Cadillac is in the room now. So is a vice chair from GM.
Rozenfeld doesn’t speak. He nods once. It’s Nick’s show.
He doesn’t repeat the data. They’ve seen the numbers. Now it’s time for the argument.
Nick steps forward.
“Let’s call it what it is,” he says. “You’ve already sold to hundreds of Black buyers. You just refuse to treat them like customers. They’re paying more. Getting less. And coming back anyway. You don’t have a marketing problem. You have a pride problem.”
A few of the suits shift uncomfortably.
“Look at the trend lines,” he continues. “You’re bleeding white buyers who can’t get financing. Meanwhile, Black professionals—doctors, funeral directors, bandleaders—are paying in cash.”
Someone scoffs. “A few cars here and there. That’s not a strategy.”
Nick opens the notebook. Just flips it, page after page, showing the names. “That’s sixty-eight sales in two years. That’s revenue. That’s loyalty. And it’s growing.”
A heavy pause.
Then the GM executive speaks. Older man. Measured voice. “Let’s say we entertain this. What does it look like?”
Nick already knows the answer.
“You don’t make it a campaign,” he says. “You make it quiet. Let the cars speak. Let the owners speak. You fix the service bias. You make sure they walk in the front door and walk out with the keys in their hand, not through the alley behind the building.”
He closes the notebook.
“And if we don’t?” another man asks.
Nick shrugs. “Then you go bankrupt trying to sell luxury to people who’ve stopped buying luxury. You drown in your own silence.”
That line hangs there, sharp and clean.
Rozenfeld finally speaks. “Gentlemen, we have two choices. We can protect our discomfort, or we can protect our business.”
No one moves. No one wants to be first.
Then the Cadillac president leans back. Lights a cigarette. Flicks ash into a tray.
“Get it done,” he says.
Just like that.
The room exhales.
Nick doesn’t smile. He nods once. Picks up the notebook.
But before he leaves, he tears out one page—Dr. Everett Jordan’s—and lays it on the table.
“Start with this one,” he says. “He’s owed a handshake.”
The Door Opens
The new dealership opens on a rainy Thursday.
It’s on the East Side, near Hastings and Farnsworth, tucked between a barber college and a brick insurance office with a Black family’s name on the sign. The building isn’t new—used to be a Packard shop—but the Cadillac banner stretches bold across the front now, letters gleaming in gold even in the wet.
No press release. No ribbon cutting. Just a soft launch and a quiet memo: “Expanded sales district. All customers welcome.”
Nick parks across the street in his beat-up LaSalle and watches from behind the wheel. Wipers ticking. Coffee going cold in the holder.
The lot is already full.
Two V-8s. A black-and-cream V-12. And then—rolling in smooth as thunder—a fresh V-16 Coupe with whitewalls so clean they look illegal.
Dr. Everett Jordan steps out, umbrella in hand.
This time, he doesn’t go around back.
He walks straight through the front door.
No one stops him. No one glances sideways. A salesman—young, Black, crisp suit—meets him inside with a handshake. Opens the umbrella for him. Takes his coat.
Nick can’t hear the words. He doesn’t need to.
He sits, eating lunch across the street, soaked boots on the mat, watching the handshake like a man watching his name get spelled right for the first time.
He leans back in his seat and lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and smiles.
Inside the glovebox is the black notebook. It’s heavier now. Ninety-three names. Some scratched out, moved out of state, lost to layoffs or illness. But most? Still buying. Still showing up in fedoras and furs and polished shoes that tread lightly across streets that never wanted to carry them.
He doesn’t open it.
He doesn’t have to.
Because it’s not a list anymore.
It’s the beginning of a record.
The sound of history clearing its throat.
That night, back in the service bay, Duke walks in holding the memo.
“You see this shit?” he asks. “They’re offering delivery to homes now. In person. White glove.”
Nick just nods.
“They even offering it in the West Side district.”
Another pause. Then Duke lowers the paper.
“You think they mean it?”
Nick wipes his hands on a towel. Looks down at the grease smeared across his palms. The same hands that built those engines. Cleaned those bumpers. Turned those keys over behind the goddamn dumpster.
“I think,” he says, “they finally noticed who’s been buying the cars.”
Dr. Jordan drives through the city that Sunday, church-bound in his V-16. Same camelhair coat. Same posture. Same pride.
But this time, the crowd on the sidewalk doesn’t turn away.
They look.
And this time, they nod.
Not at the car.
At the man.
It wasn’t charity. It was survival.
And they paid in full.
Author’s Note
During the Great Depression, white Americans were devastated by the collapse of the financial system they’d built their lives around. With savings wiped out, mortgages defaulted, and credit frozen, even the upper and middle classes found themselves unable to afford what had once signified success. Black Americans, forcibly excluded from those same systems—denied loans, barred from banks, and locked out of generational wealth—had long relied on their own. Through church tithes, burial societies, mutual aid funds, and Black-owned insurance companies, they built a financial world inside the margins. Money was pooled, saved in cash, lent person-to-person, and kept alive by a deep culture of self-reliance and community resilience. So when the crash came, many Black professionals still had money. And they knew exactly what it meant to drive a Cadillac.
Cadillac wasn’t just faltering. It was spiraling. By the early 1930s, the company had lost over 80% of its business, bleeding prestige buyers who could no longer make payments. Meanwhile, Black doctors, lawyers, funeral directors, business owners, and bandleaders were paying cash for Cadillacs—quietly, steadily, and without the company’s acknowledgment. They were often denied test drives, forced to pick up cars behind buildings, and refused basic service at white-owned dealerships.
That began to change in 1934, when a 35-year-old Cadillac mechanic-turned-service-manager named Nick Dreystadt made a daring presentation to GM: he showed the data, the names, the trendlines, and the money. He told the board the truth—that Black Americans weren’t just customers. They were the reason Cadillac still had a heartbeat.
The company adapted. Slowly, quietly, and without crediting the people who saved them. But doors opened. Sales rose. And Cadillac survived.
Not because it was brave.
But because Black America had already learned how to build what others refused to share.
This story is a fictional dramatization of what really happened. But Nick Dreystadt really did bring his case before the board. That decision didn’t just boost Cadillac’s success. At the time, it saved the brand’s life. Nick was pulled out of the shop and given an executive position as the head of the Cadillac division where he served for seven years before being put in charge of GM’s tank and military production programs during and after WWII where he served until his unexpected death in 1948.
Black Urban professionals continued to dominate Cadillac’s customer base until the mid 1980’s when more prestigious foreign luxury brands would gain a foothold in US markets.
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