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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.

GM may kill 6 car models as it works with UAW to tackle sales slump

The president of the United Auto Workers union said on Thursday the union is talking with General Motors about the potential threat to plants and jobs from slumping U.S. car sales. GM's response will be more trucks and SUVs, and sources say at least six slow-selling car models may be killed off. "We are talking to (GM) right now about the products that they currently have" at underused car plants such as Hamtramck in Michigan and Lordstown in Ohio, and whether they might be replaced with newer, more popular vehicles such as crossovers, Dennis Williams told reporters. "We are tracking it (and) we are addressing it," Williams added. GM has cut shifts at several U.S. plants this year as inventories of unsold cars have ballooned. Industry analysts said more jobs could be at risk as the automaker wrestles with permanently shrinking production of small and midsized sedans. GM is reviewing whether to cancel at least six passenger cars in the U.S. market after 2020, including the Chevrolet Volt hybrid, which could be replaced in 2022 with a new gasoline-electric crossover model, Reuters has learned from people familiar with the plans. Other GM cars at risk include the Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac CT6, Cadillac XTS, Chevrolet Impala and Chevrolet Sonic, sources said. Some analysts have singled out GM's Hamtramck plant in Detroit as one of the most vulnerable because of plummeting car sales. The plant, which opened in 1985, builds four slow-selling models: Buick LaCrosse, Chevrolet Impala, Cadillac CT6 and Chevrolet Volt. In the first half, it built fewer than 35,000 cars, down 32 percent from the same period in 2016, according to suppliers familiar with GM's U.S. production schedule. The typical GM assembly plant builds 200,000-300,000 vehicles a year.COMING ATTRACTIONS: TRUCKS AND SUVS GM must "create some innovative new products" to replace slow-selling sedans "or start closing plants," said Sam Fiorani, vice president of AutoForecast Solutions. The auto maker already has begun to shift future production plans from cars to trucks, according to Morgan Stanley auto analyst John Murphy. He estimates that fewer than 10 percent of the new vehicle models that GM will introduce over the next four years will be passenger cars, with the rest divided among trucks, SUVs and crossovers. GM plans to add production of the new Cadillac XT4 crossover next year to its Malibu sedan plant in Fairfax, Kansas.

Chinese-made Cadillac CT6 Plug-In starts US sales

General Motors has started US sales of the Cadillac CT6 Plug-In after taking its first domestic deliveries of the China-produced sedan last month. The model is GM's first new plug-in hybrid in the US since the automaker discontinued sales of the ELR extended-range plug-in last year. The arrival and sales, first reported by InsideEVs, were confirmed by Cadillac spokesman Andrew Lipman. Not surprisingly, the sedan isn't cheap, as the CT6 Plug-In is priced at $75,095, or almost $12,000 more than the gas-powered variant, though that figure doesn't include federal and state tax credits for electric vehicles. For that tab, buyers get a 335-horsepower luxury car that can go 31 miles on electricity alone, and 0-60 miles per hour in a little over 5 seconds. The model gives GM three plug-in vehicles to sell to the American public, or the same number US competitor Ford offers. InsideEVs estimates that about 100 of the sedans have been delivered to US dealers, so the car remains a relatively low-volume affair. By comparison, GM's Chevrolet division has sold 5,563 Volt extended-range plug-ins and 3,092 Bolt electric vehicles through March. Cadillac sold 534 units of the ELR in 2016 after moving 1,024 the previous year. GM opted to produce the plug-in hybrid in China because of that country's receptiveness to new models that feature alternative and environmentally friendlier powertrains. Additionally, such production shortens the distance to the CT6's battery maker LG Chem, which is producing the car's battery packs in South Korea. On that note, GM has previously estimated that the Cadillac CT6 Plug-In will move more units in China than in the US. Related Video: