We were perusing www.philly.com, the website of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, when we came across a story about a Cadillac. Not just any Cadillac, either, but a 1980 Fleetwood Brougham sedan about to auctioned off in Wildwood, the real Ground Zero of the Jersey Shore. And a nearly perfect Cadillac that was owned by a pivotal figure in modern Philadelphia history, Frank L. Rizzo.
The story by staff writer Melissa Dribben explained that the Cadillac had been bought new for Rizzo by his son, Frank Rizzo Jr., known around Philly as Franny and a longtime city councilman. Out of Potamkin Cadillac, the Brougham still had barely 16,000 miles on it. Franny Rizzo was offering it for sale as this past weekend’s Wildwood Classic Car Auction, with a reserve of $40,000. According to the Inquirer, bidding reached about $28,000 before the younger Rizzo agreed to sell it to George Poulous, a former Nissan dealer from Philadelphia, for an undisclosed price. The Inquirer photo by Clem Murray shows Franny Rizzo with his father’s car. Frank L. Rizzo, a controversial former police commissioner, died in 1991 while running for a third term as Philadelphia’s mayor.