A new "ride" is cruising the streets of the Hudson Valley.  It's a white-on-white '59 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible.  To people who know cars, the Biarritz is an exceptionally rare American-made jewel, crafted along the Detroit assembly lines at a time when chrome, shark fins, and opulence were king.

During the last 45 years, the car has seen a lot of miles and crossed the country at least once, trading hands, shedding owners, and shifting colors as it rumbled forward to its current home in the Hudson Valley in 2004.  The Biarritz now lives in Warwick, in the care of car collector and enthusiast Richie Cypher, a plumber who drives a 2000 Dodge Durango by day.  After a long hard road, this classic car is finally with a guy who drives it simply for the thrill of the ride.

For many car lovers, Cypher's relationship with his Biarritz is not unique, but rather an example of the way cars should be and in fact were venerated before cynicism seized the culture.  For the better part of the 1980s, classic cars-including the Biarritz-were being grabbed up by investors who stashed their cars away in private collections, hoping to inflate their street values.  More often than not, the resulting ballooning prices would place such cars out of the reach of classic car collectors.  Now prices may be finally falling back to earth-either that, or Cypher got very lucky.  This is his-and the Biarritz's-story.

A STYLING BENDER
Back in 1958, roughly two years before Richie Cypher was born, Cadillac's lead designer, David Holls, went on what could only be described as a styling bender.  In the age of fins and chrome, Holls set out to design a car with the biggest fins and the most chrome.  He played upon the nation's passion for airplanes, stealing design elements from a warplane called the P-38.  The result was a high-end version of the Eldorado called the Biarritz.

From the beginning, the lines of the Biarritz were very striking, running from back to front, with the cut of the car beginning lower, then racing forward and up.  Out front are four headlights and four running lights, and a grill that looks like six rows of silver bullets strung along silver cables stretching from end-to-end.  In back is a similar but smaller chrome-grill, and taillights shaped like afterburners on a combat jet.  Rising up like bookends around the trunk are fins-the highest ever to roll off the Detroit production lines-and clinging from them at the rear is a pair of fire-engine-red cone-shaped brake lights.  Finally, stretching the length of the car from the rear quarter-panels across the doors and along the front fenders are two parallel strips of wide chrome that culminate in rising metal gun sights pointing forward.

When Holls finished his design, the car moved straight into production.  Cadillac made 1,320 models of the Eldorado Biarritz, all convertibles, each with a sticker price of $7,401.  And with a turn of the ignition key, the '59 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz started up and nosed boldly out before a curious public-and no one could look away.

"How could you miss this car!"  says Paul Ayres, vice-president of the national chapter of the Cadillac-LaSalle Club.  "The styling of that thing was just so fantastic, so over the top.  It just blew you away."

In 1958, Ayres explains, car designers "were pouring chrome on everything.  In '59, with those fins, the styling was a little out of control.  I think Holls even agreed with that, finally admitting, years later, that the styling was a little excessive."

The Eldorado Biarritz came in 15 colors.  When Cypher's car first caught the light of day-on January 16, 1959-it was Argyle blue and headed for San Francisco.

ECONOMY OVER OPULENCE
In the decades to come, car design would change radically.  Cars were smoothed out and trimmed down in an effort to economize.  Opulence was sacrificed, followed by the amount of chrome, steel, and horsepower.  Over time, cars began to look, feel, and drive exactly the same.  The age of the economy model arrived, including the Dodge Omni, the Plymouth Horizon, the AMC Gremlin, and the Volkswagen Rabbit.

With devolution in design, the collector's movement intensified.  Since the introduction of the Model T Ford there had always been an American fascination with the automobile.  But when the key ingredients used in building an automobile became aluminum, vinyl and plastic, the nation's interest in car restoration clicked into overdrive.  Suddenly, even grandma's Chevy Nova had a street value.  As the generation born in the 1960s and 1970s grows older, the trend toward owning cars from that period grows.  In fact, a 1970 Chevy Nova SS that once sold for $3,500 new will fetch five to ten times that amount, depending upon the quality of the restoration.

Since then, driveways across America have become littered with works-in-progress, and the Hudson Valley, which boasts several collectors' cars shows and clubs, is no exception.  What neighborhood doesn't have at least one guy with an old relic sitting at the end of the driveway or under a tarp in the backyard?  The Hudson Valley abounds with examples of the most popular cars for restoration-1960s and '70s muscle cars like the Mustang, Thunderbird, and Corvette, along with oddities like the Nash Rambler and the Volkswagen Thing.

Paul Ayres says there are three kinds of car collectors: ones with the skills and talent to refinish a car; ones with the desire and cash to pay others to do the work; and finally, the dreamers, who do most of the work themselves just for the love of it.

The Hudson Valley is filled with classic car lovers.  Typically, an enthusiast seeks out a particular vehicle-like the 1965 Mustang-buys it, restores it, and keeps it forever.  But Cypher's is a rarer passion.  "I like to roll the dice," he says.  "I'm constantly buying and selling cars, trying to one-up myself and others."

Cypher calls his obsession with working on classic cars a sickness, one that car2 magazines have dubbed "Collectible Automobile Restoration Syndrome" or CARS.  Cypher has a serious case of it.  At 43, he's owned more than 60 vehicles.  A veritable cross-section of the auto age has been parked in his driveway: foreign and domestic, cars and trucks; Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, Mercedes.  In each case, the vehicle arrived in decay and he cleaned it up, owned it for awhile, and then sold it and acquired something new.  But so far, the Biarritz has him hooked.  Not only has he added a new bay to his garage for housing it in winter, but he recently had all of its chrome pieces rechromed at a Connecticut factory.

Attending car shows provides good resources for finding parts, ideas, and the next ride.  Cypher is a regular at car shows throughout the Northeast.  It was at the 30th annual Rhinebeck Auto Show in 2002 that Cypher caught wind of a rumor.  There was a '59 Biarritz near the New Jersey border, he was told, which could possibly be for sale.  At first Cypher didn't dare get his hopes up.  Among car enthusiasts, rumors like this are common, and usually it turns out that cars that rare are never within reach, so in the case of the Biarritz, Cypher assumed it couldn't be true.  But it was.  A truck driver had bought it for his wife who later became fatally ill, putting the car's restoration on hold.

CAR SHOW CULTURE Our contact with classic cars is usually incidental: chance encounters on the Thruway, in a parking lot, or along a country road.  But there are many opportunities for closer looks.  The best source is Hemmings Motor News (www.hmn.com), the  bible of the classic car movement, which runs a directory of events, large and small. Most car events are hosted by car clubs.  There are at least 480 clubs across New York State hosting "cruise-ins," informal gatherings of classic cars at local restaurants or malls.  Think: McDonald's crowded with scores of classic tin, and you'll get the idea.  Try [link=http://www.tristatecarclubs.com target=_blank]www.tristatecarclubs.com[/link] for a good list. The Hudson Valley is overrun with car shows in all shapes and sizes.  Locally, try Warwick, Sugar Loaf, Goshen, New Paltz, Kingston, and Red Hook.  Two of the region's largest shows happen at Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck.  In the spring,  the Hudson River Swap Meet and Car Show draws 25,000 people.  And opening September 17 is the Good Guys Classic Rod and Custom Car Show,  featuring 1,500 chopped and modified street cars.  Or consider driving down to Englishtown, NJ or Carlisle, PA for their professionally managed car shows.  These are huge events, drawing upwards of 150,000 or more. Finally, there's Hershey, PA, home of the largest car show on the East Coast.  Upwards of 300,000 people will attend the 49th annual AACA Eastern Division National Fall Meet on October 6. This event-by any measure-is daunting.  Ten-thousand venders line up, shoulder to shoulder, selling all things automotive: hubcaps, license plates, fuzzy dice, T-shirts and ball caps with car logos, die-cast metal toys, and roadside memorabilia from old "filling stations" and truck stops.  Parts dealers lurk like dark angels behind tables covered with mechanical gadgets, engine parts, chrome pieces, light bulbs and spark plugs.  and beyond the venders are the cars themselves, all cordoned off into two sections: cars for show and cars for sale.  It's not uncommon to find a Model A or T alongside a '57 Bel-Air, a '60 Lincoln Continental or a 1977 AMC Gremlin.  And then there's the judging area.  Cars are lined up by make and model and scored on a scale from 1 to 10.  There are no perfect 10s.  Hershey has over 36 classifications,and no grand prize.  So everybody wins. -Michael Scully

When Cypher first saw the Eldorado Biarritz, he knew he wanted it.  It was over four decades old and had been painted Olympic white, with a white vinyl roof and white interior.  Because it was a California car, there was no body rust-a very rare thing-and it was certainly a car worth owning.  However, he found a few causes for concern.  "It was one of those 20-foot cars," Cypher recalls.  "It looked great from 20 feet away, but up close, there were problems."  Through the paint, he could see the scars left by previous attempts at restoration-mostly bad bodywork.  Cypher still wanted the Biarritz, but affording it was another matter.

SKYROCKETING PRICES
In the middle of the 1980s, the pricing formula for classic cars changed dramatically and commodities-style cynicism took over.  Opposite a finite number of rare-marquee vehicles was a growing and overwhelming demand to possess-not necessarily drive-a classic.  It's believed that of the 1,320 Biarritzes produced, only half remain.  Of these, many have been exported to Europe, leaving perhaps 600 here in the United States.  There may be a dozen in New York State.  According to Bob Waldock, a '59 Biarritz aficionado living in Sandusky, Ohio, during the '80s there was actually a movement afoot to "corner the market on the vehicle."  He explains, "There were investors out there with very deep pockets that were out to literally own every '59 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz that was out there."

Such thinking sent prices soaring.  "In the early '80s, you would pay $25,000 for a '59 Biarritz, but by the end of the decade, that same car was going for $125,000," Waldock says.  And there were forgeries: "People were cutting the roofs off coupes, making convertibles that looked like the Biarritz."  Since then, however, interest in the Biarritz has fallen away.  "The bubble burst a few years ago," Waldock says.  "Now, these cars are falling back into the hands of the collectors, into the hands of the people that simply love cars."

When it came time to negotiate for the Biarritz, Cypher says the owner simply acquiesced, perhaps because he saw his unrestored car as symbolic of a promise he hadn't kept.  In the end, the owner slashed the price of the Biarritz by about a third without much debate.  Cypher won't reveal what he paid for it; he will only admit that he bought the car with enough hundred dollar bills to fill a shoebox.  That was 22 months ago.

Once Cypher got the Biarritz home to his garage, it didn't take long for CARS to set in, Cypher says: "I just couldn't live with it the way it was.  It's such a great car and I'm such a perfectionist."  For eight weeks, he tore the car down, removing the chrome and stripping the paint down to the metal.  Next came plenty of bodywork until the car was as smooth as it was the day it was new.  Two to three coats of paint were applied, sanded and finished with a four-stage polishing process.  Cypher then cleaned the engine and corrected suspension problems.  While comparing the vehicle's VIN number with records at Cadillac's parent company, General Motors, Cypher realized that the car was originally blue.  "My heart stopped," he says.  "I thought I'd bought a forgery."  But he managed to find traces of the original blue on the air ducts beneath the dash.  "You can imagine my relief," he says.

Today, Cypher's white-on-white Biarritz is a showpiece that people marvel at in parking lots and during car shows.  "It's far from perfect," he says, pointing out things like the broken silver loop called a horn ring on the steering column.  "It will never be finished," he says.  "It will always be my work in progress."

During winter, the white Biarritz remains locked inside Cypher's garage.  But each spring and summer, Cypher and his Biarritz take to the roads of the Hudson Valley.  If you see them, give a wave, honk your horn, and appreciate the fact that you're looking upon something very rare and very special.