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Petrolicious eats up Rita Hayworth's 1953 Cadillac Ghia

The automotive industry has seem some wonderful transoceanic collaborations between America and Italy, from the Ford-powered De Tomasos of the 1960s to the alliance between Fiat and Chrysler today. Of course it's also seen unfortunate experiments in between like the Chrysler TC by Maserati and the Pininfarina-bodied Cadillac Allante. But before any of those, there was a beautiful tradition of rebodying American steel at the hands of Italian carrozzerie. And this could easily be among the most gorgeous of them all. It's a Cadillac Series 62 from 1953 with bodywork by Ghia. It's one of only two made, and has a star-studded history. The car was purchased by Aly Khan, prince of the Nizari Ismaili muslims and Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations, for his wife... who just so happened to be the inimitable Rita Hayworth. They split up, but she held on to the car. Today it's part of the permanent collection at the Petersen Automotive Museum in LA, so the videographical artisans at Petrolicious went by to check it out. You'll want to as well in the five-minute short above.

Cadillac applies to trademark Symboliq, Optiq and Celestiq names

GM Authority found a General Motors trademark filing with the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property for the phrase "Cadillac Symboliq" and the name "Symboliq." The documents submitted on July 22 were for the category of "Motorized land vehicles, namely automobiles.” It appears the Swiss action was GM following up on what it had done the day before in the U.S. On July 21, GM filed paperwork with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to secure three words and three phrases: Symboliq and Cadillac Symboliq, Optiq and Cadillac Optiq, and Celestiq and Cadillac Celestiq. Every name is listed for application to "Motor land vehicles, namely, automobiles." Cadillac recently explained its switch to model names that end in "iq," pronounced "ick," and the fact that the Celestiq name is among the recent trio leads us to believe the automaker has strong intent to use the other two on future products. We know the Celestiq — a large, hand-built, flagship sedan that will follow the Lyriq to market, predicted to retail for close to $200,000 whenever it goes on sale. We also know Cadillac has three more battery-electric products in the works after the XT5-sized Lyriq and "massive" Celestiq. As laid out in a 2019 GM Sustainability Report pitching 20 new electric vehicles across all brands by 2023, from Cadillac we're anticipating an XT4-sized crossover, an XT6-sized three-row crossover, and an electric take on the Escalade. Two of those three could get the Symboliq and Optiq names. The lineup, and more important, Cadillac's vision, will make more sense on August 6 when we finally get to see the Lyriq concept, with its single pane of 33-inch glass forming the instrument and infotainment display across the dash, tall taillights, and 22-inch wheels.   Related Video:

Cadillac's Johan de Nysschen clarifies a few points on the brand's future

Last week, Motor Trend ran coverage on a journo roundtable with Cadillac president Johan de Nysschen. During the roundtable, de Nysschen cited a few reasons for the decline in sedan sales, including gas prices, "young consumers" — read, millennials — less interested in driving dynamics than lifestyle accessories, and the state of U.S. infrastructure. Jalopnik homed in on the last two reasons, and those became the story, including here in our post on the roundtable. So de Nysschen called Jalopnik to add more context. The original reaction pieces painted de Nysschen's rationales as an excuse for sporty sedans not selling well, when the issue is Cadillac's sporty sedans not selling well. His main clarification: "I wasn't advocating the idea that the world is black and white, that if you're a young buyer a millennial or a teenager that you don't enjoy driving." On that note, it would be ridiculous to deny millennial and sedan-segment bugbears; de Nysschen has market research and the industry-wide, rabbit-like crossover breeding program to back him up. Yet even as he touted the success of the XT5, noting that it's "the third-best-selling luxury nameplate in the U.S. after the Lexus RX, and the Mercedes C-Class," he could add, "But the irony is not lost on me that the C-Class is a sedan." The circumstances laid out in the follow-up piece inject more likely color into the situation: the brand's onetime, singleminded focus on the U.S., followed by a singleminded focus on China that left the U.S. market wanting for attention. We could add to that: years of lackluster products and awful attempts at volume and brand engineering under the old GM at the same time that downsized premium luxury products, crossovers, and SUVs began their rocketship trajectories; trying to live off the Escalade success; and the carmaker's desire not to offend its older, traditional buyers while concurrently wooing "coastal influencers." De Nysschen also acknowledged that Cadillac interiors aren't where they need to be, saying, "We recognize that's where we want to improve." The result, as de Nysschen put it, "We're playing with the hand that we've been dealt.