This car was on stage. It was in the spotlight. It was a hip hop star. Snoop Dogg was on board this 1966 Cadillac Deville Convertible in the 2007 MTV Music Awards opening act. Then the car spent ages abandoned in a field. It was a complete mess when Sam found it.
Sam, who is the owner of Hard Up Garage, says he’s been into Spice Girls and Taylor Swift, but it has always been Snoop Dog who has had a special place in his heart ever since he was a kid, even though he was not allowed to listen to music with naughty words in it. And Snoop’s lyrics are, indeed, naughty, to say the least.
Sam has also been fascinated by the cars that have shown up in Snoop Dogg’s music videos. They were low riders with an attitude, they bounced up and down to the hip hop beat, and had just the right paintwork. And there was also one or more beautiful ladies right next to those cars or onboard them.
Well, Sam found one of those cars rotting away in a field, and his heart skipped a beat. He wanted to save it from being disintegrated by the elements and, eventually, from ending up in a crusher to become as contorted as a can of Pepsi.
Sam went to the London Motor Museum about a decade ago. It is a paradise for petrolheads, a heaven for car people. But in the Low Riders’ section, there was a car that reportedly belonged to Snoop Dog, tagged as Snoop-De-Ville.
Photo: Hard up garage | YouTube
It is the car that he showed up on stage with at the 2007 MTV Music Awards. And every time he went to London, he reportedly used that exact same car. Some of the photos from 20 years ago showed a signature on the armrest, presumably belonging to Snoop Dog. But in more recent photos, there was no signature.
Furthermore, the presence of the German flag colors on the hood was also confusing. It just didn’t add up. Why would a German flag do on the hood of a Caddy used by a US-born artist who was in love with Jamaica? Sam wanted the car even if it didn’t make sense. He negotiated and managed to buy it.
But he was horrified by what he found inside. The interior was a complete mess. The car went the shortest way from being in the spotlight to rotting away. Back in 2007, it was on stage with Snoop Dog sitting in the back, on the backrest, surrounded by beautiful ladies, in the MTV Music Awards opening act.
The story goes back to early 2007 when MTV called Snoop and told him they were giving him a Mercedes-Benz to go on the stage with. He didn’t even want to hear about it. Well, those were not his exact words, but his can’t exactly be written here. MTV eventually offered him the 1966 Cadillac Deville Convertible, and he agreed. The car was shipped to Amsterdam for a makeover.
It was then, in 2007, that the rapper signed the armrest. Almost two decades later, the car was found abandoned, after its MTV days of glory and its years spent in the museum in London, and was in a dilapidated state. The seats looked like they were covered in yogurt and dust. In fact, the white leather started to turn green, as if the poor old Caddy spent all those years in some swamp. The detailer threw up while working on it. That was how bad it was.
Photo: Hard up garage | YouTube
One day, Sam got a comment on his YouTube video from someone saying that there was no way in a million years that would be Snoop’s car. The man said he had been on tour with him for 20 years and had never seen that car in his life.
Sam thought that he was either trying to set him off or his story was real. Then, three weeks later, he got another comment. He was told that Snoop has seen the video about the lost and found Cadillac, and his eyes lit up. He instantly recognized it. The car had been on his Up in Smoke tour in 2000 and in the opening act of the 2007 MTV Music Awards.
Snoop will be opening the Olympics in Paris this summer. Sam hopes to drive the Cadillac to Paris and show it to Snoop himself in August. He thinks that this way, he would do the Cadillac justice after all it has been through. Sam cleaned it up, fixed everything mechanical that needed to be fixed on it, and put in a new sound system, one that would even impress a hip hop VIP. He is also going to repaint the bodywork and repair the interior. So, Paris, here comes the Cadillac!