Of all the cars Elvis Presley ever owned, one stands out. It’s pink and white, and you can still go see it in Memphis today.
Elvis gave it to his mother, Gladys. And she loved it.
But the story of that famous car starts with a different pink Cadillac, and a scary night on the road.
Back in 1955, Elvis was a young singer still making his name, and he spent a lot of time on the road. His first pink Cadillac was a used 1954 Fleetwood Series 60, pink and white. On June 5, 1955, on the road between Hope and Texarkana, Arkansas, its brake lining caught fire. The car burned on the side of the road.
Back home, Gladys had no way of knowing any of that. Elvis Australia, a longtime fan site, tells it this way: “Elvis’ mother, Gladys, will always recall how she was awakened out of a sound sleep at home.” She’d woken up with a feeling that something was wrong.
Elvis needed a new car, so he bought one. It was a brand-new 1955 Cadillac Fleetwood Series 60, but it wasn’t pink at all. It was blue with a black roof.
That didn’t last. Elvis had a neighbor repaint it, and the neighbor mixed up a custom shade of pink. He even gave the color a name: “Elvis Rose.”
The car had one more bump in the road. On Sept 2, 1955, Elvis’s guitarist, Scotty Moore, was driving it when it hit another vehicle in Texarkana. Elvis had it fixed and repainted in the pink and white look that fans know today.
And then he gave it to his mom.
Gladys was proud of it. According to Elvis Australia, “Gladys Presley would always proudly point to it as ‘her’ car.”
So what was the problem?
Gladys couldn’t drive it. Graceland’s own history spells it out: “He gave it to his mother Gladys, who had no driver’s license.”
Elvis Australia agrees: “Gladys Presley never had a driver’s license.” So the pink Cadillac that belonged to Mom spent most of 1955 and 1956 out on the road, with Elvis and his band doing the driving. Gladys stayed home with the bragging rights.
It’s one of the sweetest little twists in the whole Elvis story. A young man wanted to give his mother something beautiful. He picked a car she couldn’t use, and she loved it anyway.
Today the car sits at the Presley Motors Automobile Museum at Elvis Presley’s Memphis, right across from Graceland.
Graceland made an episode of its “Gates of Graceland” series all about this car museum, where Gladys’s pink Cadillac is kept. It’s a nice way to see the place before you plan a trip, or if you just want to visit from your couch.
A look inside the Graceland car museum that keeps the pink Cadillac
So the next time you see a photo of that pink Cadillac, you’ll know the funny part. It’s one of the most famous cars in the world, and the woman it was bought for couldn’t drive it herself.