Cadillac – Allanté

Vehicle Overview

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 Turin International Airport with 56 bodies at a time, arriving at Detroit’s 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.

All Allanté models featured a fully electronic instrument and control panel, which was angled towards the driver, and featured no knobs or manual controls. General Motors (GM) also implemented electronic controls in its mid-to-late 1980s vehicles such as the Buick Reatta, Buick Riviera, and Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo, although these vehicles included a touchscreen control panel called the Graphic Control Center (GCC), which the Allanté did not feature.