Cadillac may be known as the standard of the world now, or at least, they're headed that way. In the 1980s and 1990s, things weren't so bright. Cadillac had the wondeful Cimarron, which was a rebadged, pricier Chevy Cavalier; they also developed the DOD (displacement on demand) techonolgy before it was introduced to the masses. Cadillac called it the V8-6-4; like the name suggests, it was a complete flop. Then you had the FWD Cadillac Deville, which slowly replaced the Fleetwood Brougham. In 1987, things started to get better for the brand. GM commissioned legendary car stylist (because designer is too downmarket) Pinninfarina to design vehicles for GM. This partnership brought about the Buick Reatta, and the Cadillac Allante.
The Allante was GM's, and more specifically, Cadillac's first "modern" luxury convertible. Set to compete with premium brands such as Jaguar and Mercedes (Lexus wasn't around yet), it was a darkhorse. While Mercedes and Jaguar featured good old RWD architecture, GM opted to fit the Reatta/Allante twins with a FWD layout. This did not bode well for its image, simply because FWD cars generally are not fast, nor are they associated with speed. In addition to the unconventional layout, the price seemed to be another shocker. It was nearly $55,000 in 1987, which was more expensive than a Chevy Corvette at the time, although it did undercut the Mercedes SL series.
Since roughly 21,000 were produced (got that from wikipedia), they are relatively scarce on today's used car market. Finding one isn't necessarily challenging, but since relatively few were made, prices can fluctuate a bit. If it was me, I'd go for a later one with the 4.6 (1992 and 1993) models. Not only are those faster, but they're probably more reliable than the 4.1L and 4.5L V8 models. I'd try to fit nicer alloys on it, though, possibly sourced from an Eldorado.
No comments:
Post a Comment