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Artist imagines eerie world where cars have no wheels

The wheel ranks right up there with the telescope and four-slice toaster in the pantheon of inventions that have moved humankind forward. But what if a circle in three dimensions had never occurred to anyone, and we all had just moved on without it? Perhaps we'd be driving around in Lucas Motors Landspeeders with anti-gravity engines. Or maybe we'd have the same cars we do today, just without wheels.
That's the thought experiment that seems to have led French photographer Renaud Marion to create his six-image series called Air Drive. The shots depict cars throughout many eras of motoring that look normal except for one thing: they have no wheels. The models used include a Jaguar XK120, Cadillac DeVille (shown above), Chevrolet El Camino and Camaro, and Mercedes-Benz SL and 300 roadsters.
Perhaps one day when our future becomes our past, you'll be able to walk the street and see with your own eyes the rust and patina of age on our nation's fleet of floating cars. Until then, Monsieur Marion's photographs will have to do.

Junkyard Gem: 1969 Cadillac Coupe DeVille

The Cadillac Division was riding high in 1969, with sales numbers far surpassing those of Lincoln and Imperial. A few more years remained before fuel prices would go crazy, and prosperous Americans knew that a sleek DeVille or Eldorado gave them bragging rights at the country club. Here's a thoroughly used-up '69 Coupe DeVille, finally at the end of its journey and residing in a self-service wrecking yard in Denver, Colo. This inspection certificate shows that the car lived in Louisiana a decade ago. Since this is the sort of pervasive rust that occurs in places much wetter than arid High Plains Colorado, we can assume that this DeVille spent many years in the land of gumbo and alligators. The decklid sports Fleetwood badging and a Rickenbaugh Cadillac emblem, but Cadillac didn't make two-door Fleetwoods in 1969. Perhaps a Colorado-sold Fleetwood donated its decklid to replace a rust-ravaged lid on this car. Actually, there's a good chance it was purchased at this very yard. The once-opulent interior has suffered greatly over the decades, with the reek of mildewed carpeting and irradiated leather giving it That Hooptie Car Smell. Try to picture what this scene looked like in happier days, a half-century ago. The 1969 Cadillac V8 engine displaced a mighty 472 cubic inches (that's 7.8 liters to those of you living under the cruel knout of the metric system) and delivered a gross 375 horsepower and 525 lb-ft of torque. Scaling in at 4,595 pounds (about a half-ton less than a new Escalade), the DeVille needed that power to keep up with those cheap-but-V8-equipped Chevy Chevelles. For 1970, Cadillac would stroke this engine to a staggering 500 cubic inches for Eldorado buyers. This engine family lasted through 1984, after which it was replaced by the much-loathed High Technology V8. The build quality and snob appeal of the 1969 Cadillacs kept them on the road for decades after most of their peers got crushed, but this one was just too far gone to be worth restoring. Featured Gallery Junked 1969 Cadillac Coupe DeVille View 21 Photos Auto News Cadillac Automotive History Classics

Cadillac teases two new V-Series prototypes at the Detroit Grand Prix

We told you earlier this week that there would be more to come from Cadillac's V-Series of performance vehicles following the introduction of the brand's CT4-V and CT5-V performance sedans. We just didn't expect it to come quite so soon. Cadillac surprised attendees of the 2019 Detroit Grand Prix as two new prototypes took to the track for what we figure must have been demonstration laps in between other official race events. A CT4-based machine wearing funky blue camouflage joined a red-hued CT5-based prototype on the track, with driving duties split between Mark Reuss, president of General Motors, and Ken Morris, vice president of Product. Cadillac CT4 V-Series prototype View 3 Photos Exactly what's powering these prototypes is still a mystery, but we have our suspicions that these two beasts are putting down a lot more power than the 320-horsepower CT4-V and 355-hp CT5-V that underwhelmed enthusiasts earlier this week. We wouldn't be surprised if there was a version of Cadillac's twin-turbo Blackwing V8 engine under the hood of this V-badged CT5 prototype. Cadillac is being coy with further details, saying only that these two vehicles "represent the next step in Cadillac's V-Series performance legacy." So we'll just have to wait for now. But in the meantime, feel free to peruse the images above and speculate in the comments below.