1987 Cadillac Eldorado on 2040-cars

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GM lays off 450 at Lansing Grand River Assembly

General Motors will lay off 450 employees at its Lansing Grand River factory, The Detroit News reports, which is 100 more than the company said it'd be letting go last month. Lansing Grand River Assembly currently builds the Cadillac ATS and CTS, both of which have suffered sluggish sales, with the smaller sedan down 20 percent through last month and the larger model down 2.3 percent, The Detroit News reports. "We are adjusting plant production capacity to better align with market demand. Beginning in January 2015, the plant will operate on a single shift," a GM statement read, before explaining that not all the laid off Grand River employees will be jobless. Of the employees that have been laid off to make room for the single work shift, around 200 will transfer to the Lansing Delta Township factory, home of the Lambda-platform crossovers, GM's statement confirmed. The News expects this one-shift arrangement to continue until at least late next year, when the Alpha-platform Chevy Camaro transitions from General Motors' Oshawa, Ontario factory to Lansing. Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen said at last month's LA Auto Show, "It may not necessarily be permanent, a time may come when we've gained momentum and we can reinstate it. But for now, the adjustment to production capacity is in alignment with our plans for 2015."

Cadillac Celestiq previewed as a flagship luxury electric car

Last year, our Autoblog Green editor, John Beltz Snyder, got a sneak peik of GM's upcoming electric car roll out. No photos were given, but he described them in great detail. Now we finally get our own peek at one of those cars, the Cadillac Celestiq flagship sedan. Sadly, we don't get a particularly clear look, since Cadillac is only teasing the car at this point, but it's better than nothing, and better than most teasers. We get a top-down shot that reveals the car will share some key cues with the Lyriq crossover EV. Most obvious is the rear with the boomerang taillights and fastback roof, which is a glass unit separated into four pieces. Each piece can be individually adjusted for transparency, and it appears they can be illuminated as well. The front also appears similar to the Lyriq with a geometric grille covered in a transparent panel. The grille looks significantly larger, though. It also features illumination like the crossover. We also get a look at the interior, which prominently features a full-width screen for instruments and infotainment. There appears to be a screen in the center console/stack that can control functions including the roof panel illumination. According to Snyder, the interior also has extensive wood and metal trim intermingling with nifty ambient lighting. Cadillac didn't say much about the mechanical aspects except the basics. It will use GM's Ultium battery technology that will be shared with other products such as the aforementioned Lyriq and the GMC Hummer EV. It will also feature four-wheel steering as well as all-wheel-drive, undoubtedly courtesy of dual motors, one front and one rear. Cadillac previously confirmed that the Celestiq is headed for production. We also suspect that some of the fancy features such as the screens and multi-panel glass roof could make it to production. This is because it's meant to be a halo product showing off the ultimate in luxury and technology from the brand, and it could have a price tag larger than $200,000. We're expecting Cadillac to fully reveal the Celestiq in a few months, but it could be a while before the production version hits the road. The Lyriq isn't going on sale until late next year, and we would bet the Celestiq wouldn't come ahead of it. Related Video:

Al Capone’s bulletproof 1928 Cadillac Town Sedan is back on the market

It turns out that infamous mob boss Al Capone played an early role in the development of the modern armored executive car, and now there’s another chance to own his bulletproof 1928 Cadillac Town Sedan, which is being offered by Celebrity Cars of Las Vegas for a cool $1 million. It was last seen netting $341,000 at auction by RM SothebyÂ’s in 2012 and does not appear to have undergone significant restoration since then, raising the question of why its value has jumped nearly threefold. Painted green with a black roof, fenders and bumpers, the car is said to be the earliest surviving bulletproof vehicle, with nearly inch-thick glass and once lined (but no longer; read on) with nearly 3,000 pounds of asbestos-wrapped steel armor plating. It features a rear window rigged to drop quickly, so the tough guys in the rear seats could fire on any pursuers. Heavy spring lifts operated the side windows, which were also rigged to raise higher than usual to reveal a circular cutout big enough for the muzzle of a machine gun. In this case, the factory specs may be the least interesting part of the car, though it is undeniably a looker. It features a Series 341-A, 90-bhp, 341 cubic-inch L-head V8 engine mated to a three-speed manual, with a beam front axle and full-floating rear axle with semi-elliptical leaf springs and four-wheel mechanical drum brakes. It has only 1,111 miles on the odometer, having spent much of its history in museums or on display at carnivals and amusement parks. ItÂ’s believed to have flown under the fedsÂ’ radar in a Chicago garage owned by Emil Denemark, a known mafia associate and South Side Cadillac dealer who was related to Capone by marriage, when the mob boss began his slide into legal troubles leading up to his eventual felony conviction and jail time. In 2008, an elderly man named Richard “Cappy” Capstran told a friend that he had once helped his father install armor plating on a Cadillac owned by Al Capone. His father, Ernest Capstran, had repaired another of CaponeÂ’s vehicles and earned the mobsterÂ’s business fortifying the brand-new Cadillac. “My dad said, ‘We donÂ’t do that kind of work here.Â’ And they (CaponeÂ’s men) said, ‘You do now,’” Richard Capstran recalled in a recorded interview, per SothebyÂ’s. CaponeÂ’s associates reportedly also backed the car into the shop so no one could see what kind of work was being done to it.