2008 Cadillac Cts Base Sedan 4-door 3.6l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

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:

GM laying off 510 amidst slow Cadillac, small car sales

General Motors is laying off about 510 workers from two factories beginning in January, and it could be months before the automaker needs some of that latent capacity to come back on line. A combination of poor sales and high dealer inventories are prompting the cutbacks, according to Automotive News.
The largest changes come at GM's Lansing Grand River plant, where the Cadillac ATS and CTS are made. An entire shift of about 350 workers is being laid off, but the automaker hopes to find positions for some of them at other nearby factories. The decision leaves just a single shift building vehicles there. According to Automotive News, the move is partially spurred by Johan de Nysschen's plan to make Cadillac a more exclusive brand.
The lost shift will likely return for production of the next-generation Chevrolet Camaro at the plant, according to the report, but GM isn't saying when that will be. A previous announcement from the Canadian Auto Workers union indicated that the Oshawa, Ontario, factory would lose the coupe in late 2015 or early 2016.

Junkyard Gem: 1981 Cadillac Eldorado with V8-6-4 engine

Skyrocketing fuel prices caused by geopolitical events in 1973 and 1979 led to gas lines, federal fuel economy requirements, and an increasing reluctance on the part of American car shoppers to buy big, thirsty Detroit luxury machines. General Motors had pulled off some amazing technological feats in the past — the small-block Chevrolet V8 engine and Hydramatic transmission being two extraordinarily successful ones — and so Cadillac's bosses figured that a combination of computer wizardry and clever mechanical engineering would give the 368-cubic-inch Cadillac V8 a cylinder-deactivation system and resulting superior fuel economy. Here's a very rare example of one of those 1981 Cadillacs, found in a California self-service wrecking yard. The idea behind the V8-6-4 was that computer-controlled solenoids would physically disengage the rocker arms for one or two cylinders on each engine bank under low-load conditions, converting the engine from a 368-cube V8 to a 276ci V6 or 184ci V4 (that's 6.0, 4.5 or 3.0 liters, respectively, for the metric-system aficionados among us). This sort of variable-displacement magic is commonplace today, but it was science-fiction stuff in 1981. An "MPG Sentinel" display on the dash would let the driver know how many cylinders were active at the moment, and the car would get Chevy Citation fuel economy with Cadillac luxury. The V8-6-4 was the standard engine in all 1981 Cadillacs (except for the Seville, which had the troubled Oldsmobile diesel engine as the base powerplant and the V8-6-4 as an option). Unfortunately, the V8-6-4 worked about as well as the Oldsmobile diesel: very poorly. Within a few years, most owners of these engines had disconnected the rocker-deactivation solenoids and just drove their cars as regular full-time V8s. This one has the snazzy "Cabriolet Roof Treatment" option, which boasted "textured elk grain" vinyl and could be had in one of 17 available colors. Front-wheel drive gave the early-1980s Eldorado plenty of interior space, despite its more proletarian Olds Toronado origins, and these velour-covered seats made for very comfortable road trips. The price tag started at $17,550, or about $51,650 in 2019 dollars. The 1981 Imperial went for $18,311, and that car was based on the same platform as the lowly Plymouth Volare. Meanwhile, A BMW 733i cost $28,945 and a new Toyota Cressida a mere $11,599. The 1981 Cadillacs were just a little too much ahead of their time, it turned out.