Yesterday I went to the Cars & Coffee in Tucson Arizona. This is run by the Obession Car Club and they do it twice a month or so. It is a really good show with around 500 cars at least. Sadly I don’t see many Cadillacs there as a huge base of car owners are into other brands more. Yesterday though there was a 1990 Allante. Here is the video I took along with some info about the Allante.
The Cadillac Allanté was designed to appeal to wealthy buyers looking for something different. The name “Allanté” is French for “mirror.”
In 1986, General Motors introduced the Cadillac Seville, a large sedan based on the Chevrolet Citation. The Seville had been GM’s best selling vehicle since 1974. A smaller version of the Seville, called the Fleetwood Brougham, was also offered.
General Motors wanted another small luxury car, and the Allanté was developed to fill that role.
Designer Peter Schreyer came up with the design. He drew inspiration from the Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing and the Porsche 924 Carrera GT.
The Allanté was produced by Italian coachbuilder Pininfarino S.p.A., which had already built cars for Ferrari, Maserati, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, and Lamborghini.
Pininfarino built the body panels, dashboard, doors and rear quarter panel, along with the interior door handles and steering wheel. The front bumper and headlamps were supplied by American firm AMX Corporation.
The Allantés’ powertrain consisted of a 3.0L V6 engine producing 220 hp (164 kW).
Vinny,
Cadillac produced the Allante for seven years, from 1987 – 1993. It was introduced with a great deal of fanfare and high hopes for sales in the range of twenty one thousand units per year. With the incredible production costs and the huge “rollout” the the car sold for around $60,000 – a substantial sum in those years. The cars were fully optioned – initially the only customer option was a car phone. However the sports car appeal was lost on the “sports car” public with the V8/automatic drivetrain and the Cadillac customers were not accustomed to the “sports car” like ride and handling of the car. Add in the fact that the owner had to raise and lower the convertible top manually after shelling out $60,000 and the sales numbers were, at best, dismal. In the seven years that the car was offered they sold a total of about 21,000 units.
All that taken into account – I wouldn’t part with my 1992 model for anything. The Allante is the answer to the question; “What puts a smile on your face and makes you feel like you are 18 again?”
Great to hear from you Earle. The owner of this Allante had a huge smile on his face when people would ask him questions about it. I totally get it.