Car Mosley's 1984 Eldorado Took Three Years and $40,000, and It Carries His Sister's Name

Carzavier Mosley bought his 1984 Cadillac Eldorado just before his sister Charlene died. Building it became the way he dealt with losing her. "I put all of my effort into my car because of my sister passing," Mosley told the Houston Chronicle. "So to me, this is something I enjoy doing and I put all of my grief into it."

The result is a baby blue Eldorado convertible that took him a little more than three years to rebuild and, by his own count, about $40,000. "R.I.P. Charlene" is inscribed in the trunk, and the car carries her name. Mosley, who lives in Katy and goes by "Car" among friends, brought it to the fifth annual Houston SLAB Holiday Car Show & Concert at 8th Wonder Brewery on June 23, 2019, where Chronicle reporter Julian Gill caught up with him.

The first slab he ever saw

Mosley's slab story starts in Bryan, at a McDonald's. He told the Chronicle he was about nine years old when a blue Oldsmobile Cutlass pulled in "slabbed out": candy color, loud system, a lit message in the trunk and 4-inch swangas, which by then were getting hard to find after going out of production. He never forgot it.

Back then, Mosley said, the wheels were the whole statement. "That's how you got your respect," he told the Chronicle. "If you rolled [on swangas] and you paid for them, everybody knew you had some money and there was more respect with that." He remembered neighborhood kids picking out their favorite cars as they rolled by in the 1980s. "Once we got older that was something we wanted to do," he said.

An '84 on 84s

Mosley's choice of car is about as traditional as a slab gets. He told the Chronicle most traditional slabs start as big-bodied American cars from the late 1970s and 1980s, Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Chevrolets, while younger builders also use early-2000s models. An '84 Eldorado sits right at the heart of the old school, and for a reason that goes beyond looks.

As Hagerty laid out in its 2021 history of the scene, some Cadillac dealer accessory managers had Cragar supply a version of its Star wire wheel for 1983 Eldorados. The centers stood about 4 inches proud of the tire. The wheels came back for 1984 with a slightly different design and a bit more poke, then disappeared from the dealer catalog. Those are the wheels the scene still calls 83s and 84s. In other words, Mosley's car is the very model the original swangas were made for.

The Chronicle's photos show how he finished it: baby blue paint, a white convertible top, a chrome grille with the classic upright Cadillac look, Vogue-style whitewalls with the gold stripe, and wire wheels that poke well past the fenders. Inside, the seats are redone in tan with a matching dash and a wood steering wheel. Mosley told the paper he rebuilt it from the engine to the upholstery to the sound system.

UR DREAMS MY REALITY

Every slab owner gets one line to say who they are, and it lives under the trunk lid. "The sign is typically your slogan," Mosley told the Chronicle. "With your slogan, it's more like you're making a statement. Like when you're coming down the boulevard, you want to let them know who you are and what you represent."

His reads UR DREAMS MY REALITY, lit up in blue and gold letters over a cream trunk with a Cadillac script molded into the box. He explained it plainly. "A lot of people dream about doing things, and they say they want to do it, but they never do," he said. Below the sign sits the line for his sister.

It is worth noting how often slab culture works this way. The cars are loud and proud by design, but the trunk is personal. Hagerty listed sign messages it saw around Houston that ranged from boasts to affiliations to something close to a prayer, and one of the examples it printed was the same phrase on Mosley's lid. The trunk is where an owner explains the whole car.

Slow days only

Mosley does not drive Charlene every day. He told the Chronicle he chooses his days carefully, and when he does go out he has a network of slab owners to ride with. "Typically, a slab comes out on days like this," he said, meaning car shows, holidays or a nice sunny day when you just want to pull out and ride.

Tony Davis, who grew up in Mosley's neighborhood and runs the fabrication shop Creative Actions, showed his own Oldsmobile slab at the same event and described the same pull toward the past. He said he tries to feel like he is back in the 1990s when he rides, and that he dedicates his car to the people who taught him how to build them. "That's why I like the old school," Davis told the paper.

That is the real story of Charlene. It is a period-correct slab built on the car that started it all, with the right wheels, the right color and the right sign. It is also a memorial that happens to have a sound system. "It's very special," Mosley said, and the trunk makes the case for him.