Elvis Presley loved expensive cars, but sometimes he seemed to enjoy giving them away even more than owning them.
Graceland says Elvis was famous for spontaneously giving people cars, cash and jewelry, and estimates that he purchased more than 200 Cadillacs during his lifetime for himself, relatives, friends and strangers.
One of the wildest examples happened in Memphis on July 27, 1975.
A 33-year-old bank teller named Mennie Person was outside Madison Cadillac when she noticed Elvis’s customized limousine and stopped to admire it.
Then Elvis himself appeared.
When she told him she liked the car, Elvis responded with an unbelievable offer: that particular Cadillac was his, but he would buy her one of her own.
He took Mennie into the dealership and told her to pick one out.
She chose a gold-and-white 1975 Cadillac Eldorado worth about $11,500. When Elvis discovered that her birthday was only days away, he wished her a happy birthday and reportedly had an aide give her additional money to buy clothes to go with her new car.
And Mennie was hardly alone.
Elvis bought cars for family members, bodyguards, employees, friends and people he barely knew. Graceland remembers his generosity extending beyond cars too: he paid medical bills, donated to charities and regularly handed out financial help when he heard someone was struggling.
His daughter Lisa Marie Presley later remembered that generosity as one of the strongest things about him, saying her memories were filled with watching her father give things to other people.
Elvis Presley’s Famous Cadillac Giveaways
The story of Mennie Person may be the perfect example of how unpredictable Elvis could be. She did not ask him for money. She did not ask for an autograph. She simply stopped to admire his Cadillac, and a few minutes later Elvis Presley had bought her one of her own.