Restored and ready. . . Some questioned spending $20,000 of museum money to buy Isaac Hayes’ famed Cadillac. But it made sense to Sherman Willmot who knew the car was “sort of the embodiment of Isaac Hayes’ success, coming from sleepin’ in the back of his grandma’s car growing up to driving a beautiful tricked out Cadillac.” (Courtesy photo)

            The customized Cadillac Eldorado that once belonged to Isaac Hayes is a centerpiece of the Stax Museum.

            Sherman Willmott, who helped secure it, said that’s true on three counts: “A, because it is so big, B, it’s so beautiful, and C, it was such an important status symbol for the times.”

            Willmott was the curator of the museum and finding memorabilia was high on the procurement list. Hayes’ car was a “very important piece that we were looking for.”

            An interview was set up with Henry Nelson at radio station 103.5. Nelson helped him send on-the-air shouts out for specific things they were looking for. Hayes car was one of them. About an hour after Willmott returned to the museum, he was handed a note by the head of the office and told to call the person listed.

            The name was that of a Memphis police sergeant who had bought the car. In the 70’s, Hayes had a very public bankruptcy and lost most of his possessions. Someone had bought the Cadillac and donated it to the Orpheum. Every year, the Orpheum would auction it off and the person who bought it would drive it for a year and give it back to the Orpheum for re-auction.

Willmott said in the early 80’s the police officer bought it and never gave it back. “He held on to it, kept it going and oiled up and once a year he would bring it out for a parade or whatnot or joyride around town. It was in his garage in South Memphis.”

The officer said he would part with the car for $20,000 – “a very fair price for a car of that fame and, of course, being Isaac Hayes’ car it was, to me, worth more than that with or without the museum.”