Vile-Looking ‘Cadillac de Grill’ Smoker Pops up for Sale on Marketplace

We all love a little backwoods ingenuity , but there are some places where it just isn’t the right solution. Would I trust my mom’s cousin Mark (rest his soul) to fab up a smoker out of scrap? If he started with an old metal drum, maybe. But a 1980s Cadillac Sedan de Ville ? I’m calling off the family barbecue if I see this thing roll up. Sorry, cuzz.

Such a Cadillac is currently listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace outside Nashville, Tennessee for a mere $3,000. That’ll buy you one hell of a Traeger , or just this Cadillac de Grill (as I’ll call it), made from a 1985-1988 Sedan de Ville. It has been attached to a trailer frame—or at least the front of one—and had its front wheels removed, and their wells covered over. The leaf blower poking through the melted grille and peeling paint on the hood tell me its engine has been replaced with a combustion chamber, which I imagine is used for charcoal. Hank of the Hill would not approve.

What used to be the cabin has been gutted and replaced by two tiers of metal mesh, which looks like the stuff used to build playgrounds where I grew up. It’s not clear how (or if) you can access the floorboards where ash and drippings accumulate, but I’m certain it wouldn’t be fun to clean. If the owner has even bothered, that is. The drip tray out of my dad’s grill is one of the nastiest things I’ve ever touched, and I say that as someone who worked at Subway when they were selling that “pastrami.”

There’s more of concern, too. That peeling paint on the hood tells me whoever built this didn’t consider what’d happen when you get paint really hot . I suspect they didn’t sandblast the interior to get rid of the stuff before firing up the de Grill for the first time, so god knows what kinds of chemicals are floating around in there. That goes without mentioning the ones that might come from the seam sealer in its unibody or other plastic parts that weren’t removed—like that sagging, melty grille up front. If you’ve eaten a meal out of this car, you probably have enough Cadillac de Ville in you to be legally eligible for a VIN.

Suffice it to say, this ain’t ServSafe-certified, and I bet any health inspector would have an aneurysm if they saw this. You can make it yours if you have $3,000 lying around, but if you ask me, this thing is irredeemable. Tennessee’s muggy climate has probably made its interior smell downright awful. Just send it to the crusher before the critters move in—if they haven’t already.

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