Cadillac allante

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Cadillac Allanté is a two-door, two-seater luxury roadster produced by Cadillac from 1987 until 1993. It used a Cadillac chassis and running gear with a body built in Italy by coachbuilder Pininfarina. It was expensive to produce with the complete bodies flown to Detroit for final assembly. Over 21,000 were built during its seven-year production run.

The name Allanté was selected by General Motors from a list of 1,700 computer generated selections. Originally designed to compete with the Mercedes-Benz SL and Jaguar XJS, the Allanté originally featured a slightly modified variant of the 4.1 L V8 used across Cadillac’s model line. This was expanded to 4.5 L in 1989, and upgraded to the 4.6 L L37 Northstar in its final year, 1993.

The Allanté incorporated an international production arrangement that was similar to the early 1950s Nash-Healey two-seat sports car. The Allanté bodies were designed and manufactured in Italy by Pininfarina and were shipped 4,600 mi (7,403 km) to the U.S. final assembly with domestically manufactured chassis and engine. Specially equipped Boeing 747s departed from Turin International Airport with 56 bodies at a time, arriving at Detroit’s Coleman A. Young International Airport about 3 miles northeast of Cadillac’s new Hamtramck Assembly plant, known as the «Allanté Air Bridge». The expensive shipping process stemmed from GM’s recent closing of Fisher Body Plant #18, which had supplied Cadillac bodies since 1921. It was not the first time that Cadillac utilized Pininfarina, having farmed out body production for the 1959 Eldorado Brougham and design and coachworks for several one-offs, customs, and concept cars.

Cadillac Allante Discontinued

«»

The 1991 Allante production slumped to 2,500 cars, even with suspension, steering, and audio system improvements.

2007 Publications International, Ltd.

What few outside GM knew was that this much-improved Allante arrived long after the painful decision had been made to discontinue it. «We had to decide in the latter part of 1991 whether to continue it beyond 1993,» Grettenberger said.

«It was due for a significant styling change, it needed a power top, and a number of new technological features were scheduled to be introduced on it. All that would have required a very significant investment…$300 to $500 million dollars…at a time when GM was hemorrhaging money and struggling to survive, which was very hard to justify on such a low-volume car, even though it was serving us well as an image vehicle.

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«What would be the best use of that capital? Should it be invested in the low-volume Allante, or should we put it to work on higher-volume vehicles in the Cadillac lineup? That was ultimately where that money went, to the Eldorado, Seville, and De Ville, where it could have a much greater payback for our customers and stockholders.

Regrettably, it was economics that killed Allante, not the car itself, which reached the point in 1993 where it was absolutely a leader among any vehicles in the world in performance, handling, image, and presence. In retrospect, it was probably the right decision, but it bothered me — and a lot of other key people in the Cadillac family — a great deal that we had to discontinue it.»

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A more powerful 1993 Allante came out in early 1992 and served as the pace car for the Indianapolis 500.

2007 Publications International, Ltd.

So why put a new high-tech engine in a car that was already canceled?

Grettenberger explained: «The purpose was to give the Northstar a year in a low-volume vehicle where we could keep track of every one of them before introducing it…in a much-larger number of cars. It was there as a one-year test bed with a few thousand owners to make sure everything was right. As it turned out, that engine was so good, it was almost foolproof.»

The last Allante built was flown to Turin on July 2, 1993, and completed at Detroit-Hamtramck 14 days later. With 21,430 built, assemblies averaged just a little more than 3,000 a year throughout the car’s lifetime.

Buschman describes the day he had to confirm Allante’s cancellation with the dedicated Pininfarina crew: «When I went out to the plant to meet with the people firsthand, most of them broke down and were crying. ‘Please tell us this is not true,’ they were saying in Italian.

«I had to tell them it was true . . . and try to explain why as best I could. That’s a moment you never forget. It gives you some idea of the tremendous importance that this had for those folks.»

Editor’s note: Some of the quoted material in this article comes from «The Story Behind the Cadillac Allante» by Rich Bednar (audio tape) 2002.

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Все поколения Cadillac Allante

1989 – 1996

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