Cadillac E62 1950 Street Rod “LOTACAD”

Built by Griffey’s Hot Rods and Restorations, the 1950 Cadillac Series 62 street rod known as LOTACAD lays low to the ground, wears chrome on chrome, carries a full custom interior by Steve Holcomb of Pro Auto Custom Interiors, and hides a modern 6.2-liter V8 making a little over 500 horsepower where Cadillac’s original 331 once lived. It can be naughty or nice, as its builders put it. Read on to see how far this build pushed past Cadillac’s 1950 engineering.

Somewhere under all that chrome and that ground-hugging stance sits a 1950 Cadillac, from the year when the brand’s all-new overhead-valve V8 was still turning heads for being lighter, shorter, and stronger than anything Cadillac had built before. That is a serious piece of engineering heritage to build a custom on top of, and the car Griffey’s Hot Rods and Restorations calls LOTACAD does not hide from it; it leans all the way in. The builders did not simply modernize this Series 62. They created something that makes you look twice, from the golden-age bones to the modern muscle hidden under the hood. So what exactly did Cadillac get right in 1950, and how far has this build pushed past it?

Cadillac’s Most Important Platform of 1950

1950 was a landmark year for Cadillac. The Series 62 alone accounted for more than half of the brand’s total sales, making it the car that carried Cadillac’s fortunes through the postwar boom. It offered the widest range of body styles in the lineup and struck the balance between size, price, and prestige that buyers wanted. Building a street rod on a Series 62 means starting with the most representative Cadillac of its era, the car that defined what the brand looked like on American streets at the dawn of the fifties.

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The Engine That Changed Cadillac

Under the hood of a stock 1950 Series 62 sat the overhead-valve 331-cubic-inch V8 that had debuted the year before. It made around 160 horsepower, a genuinely strong figure for 1950, and it weighed roughly 200 pounds less than the flathead V8 it replaced while being noticeably shorter and lower. Cadillac engineered it to take advantage of the higher-octane gasoline arriving after the war, which meant it could run more compression than any Cadillac engine before it. That 331 became the foundation for a generation of Cadillac performance and one of the most respected engines of its day.

The Modern Rocket Where the Old One Lived

LOTACAD replaces that historic 331 with a modern 6.2-liter V8 putting out a little over 500 horsepower, a figure that would have been unthinkable to a 1950 Cadillac engineer. Where the original engine was a marvel for making 160 horsepower from a compact, lightweight package, the modern powerplant delivers more than three times that with fuel injection, electronic management, and reliability that allows the car to be driven anywhere. It is the single biggest transformation on the car, and it is invisible until the hood opens or the throttle does.

Laying Low: The Stance That Defines It

The first thing anyone notices about LOTACAD is how low it sits. The car lays close to the ground, a stance that turns a large postwar sedan into something menacing. Achieving that on a 1950 Cadillac is not a matter of cutting springs; it requires reworking or replacing the suspension so the car can sit that low and still drive, steer, and stop properly. The result reshapes the car’s proportions entirely, stretching the long hood and fender lines and turning Cadillac’s stately design into something that looks like it is moving even when parked.

Naughty or Nice

Griffey’s Hot Rods and Restorations described the car as able to be naughty or nice, and the phrase captures the build’s dual personality. Parked at a show with its chrome gleaming, it presents as an elegant, immaculately finished custom that honors Cadillac’s golden-age styling. With more than 500 horsepower on tap, it can also behave like a muscle car wearing a tuxedo. That range is difficult to achieve, because most customs commit fully to one side or the other. LOTACAD manages both, which is why it draws attention from restoration purists and hot rodders alike.

Steve Holcomb’s Custom Interior

Inside, the car carries a full custom interior by Steve Holcomb of Pro Auto Custom Interiors, a name well known in the custom and hot rod world for high-end work. A 1950 Cadillac interior was luxurious for its time, but a build at this level demands materials and finish that match the exterior, along with the ergonomics and comfort a modern driver expects. A custom interior of this caliber ties the whole car together, so the experience behind the wheel is as complete as the view from the curb.

Body Gaps, Straight Panels, and Chrome

The body has been gapped and made super straight, according to the builders, and that phrase deserves emphasis. A 1950 Cadillac is a large car with long, complex panels and heavy chrome, and getting every gap even and every surface dead straight requires enormous hours of metalwork before any paint is applied. Then there is the chrome, and there is a lot of it. Cadillac’s 1950 styling was chrome-heavy from the factory, and LOTACAD embraces that, with brightwork restored or refinished to a standard that makes the car glow under show lighting.

Cadillac Customs Among the Hot Rod Crowd

Postwar Cadillacs have always held a special place in the custom world. Their size, their long fenders, and their abundance of chrome made them natural subjects for lead-sled treatment in the fifties, and they remain favorites for builders who want a big, elegant canvas. LOTACAD fits that tradition while updating it, pairing classic proportions and a low stance with a modern drivetrain rather than a period-correct engine. That approach reflects where high-end customs have gone in recent years, toward cars that look vintage from every angle yet drive like something new.

What a Build Like This Involves

A project of this scope touches every system on the car. The chassis and suspension must be reworked to achieve the stance and handle the power, the drivetrain swap requires custom mounts, cooling, fuel delivery, and wiring, the body demands hundreds of hours of metal and paint work, the chrome has to be restored or replated, and the interior is built from scratch. Shops like Griffey’s Hot Rods and Restorations exist precisely because coordinating all of that to a single high standard is beyond the reach of most home builders. The finished car is the sum of dozens of specialists’ work.

Respecting Where Cadillac Started

The best thing about LOTACAD is that it does not treat the 1950 Cadillac as raw material to be erased. The Series 62 was the brand’s best-seller, the 331 V8 was a genuine engineering leap, and the styling defined American luxury at mid-century. This build honors all of that in its proportions and its chrome while completely rewriting what the car can do with a 500-plus-horsepower modern V8, a custom interior, and a stance that would have startled Cadillac’s designers. Naughty and nice in equal measure, exactly as advertised.

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