The pricing on Cadillac’s Allante varied quite a bit. Initially, all the cars came with a removable aluminum hardtop. Usually I like the idea of removable hard tops, but the one the Allante featured did not look good on this car. The base price for the car in its first years was around $55,000. Eventually, the hardtop was made into an option, which dropped that base price to around $51,500 in 1990. The price topped out in 1992, when the Allante with the hardtop option carried an MSRP of just over $64,000.… And remember, this is 1990’s money. Adjusted for inflation, that’s over $100,000 today.
The Allante’s mission was to compete with the likes of the Mercedes Benz SL and the Jaguar XJS. That is at least part of the reason for the high pricing of the vehicle. After all, buyers of the Merz and the Jag aren't exactly trolling the bargain lots to find their vehicles. Price a competitor too low, and it won’t be considered a competitor anymore due to its more accessible price point. Price it too high, and it will get picked apart in the consumer’s quest to figure out what justifies the asking amount. Price the car just right, and it will seem like a viable alternative, and it may just manage to steal away the competition’s customers.
That’s not to say that the Allante was completely overpriced…. It was overpriced, but there were real expenses behind the development and production of this car, and there were a lot of costly technologies that went into the Allante to at least partially justify the amount on the window sticker. Already, there has been mention made of that removable aluminum hardtop, which doesn't do the car any favors in the looks department, but can be a nice thing to have if you’re like me and tend not to favor soft tops.
There was also talk of the Pininfarina designed body, and that certainly added cost to the car, as the bodies were both designed and constructed in Italy, then shipped to Detroit to be fitted onto the cars they were destined for. The Allante isn't a bad looking car, and of course it wouldn't be, with Pininfarina involved in its outward appearance. It doesn't quite have the same flare as the little Reatta from the last post, though it certainly can be told apart from the other Cadillacs of its era, even the Eldorado on which its frame is based.
Pininfarina did not take a heavy handed approach to the design of the Allante. The vehicle’s aesthetic DNA is still unmistakably Cadillac. Essentially, it appears to be a attenuated version of the Eldorado. Not so much watered down as made more sleek by the bulk that appears to have been shaved and trimmed away from the billowy form that was common of its domestic Cadillac siblings at the time. Its body is more or less a squared-off and low-angled wedge shape with trimmed in body lines running along the length of the vehicle’s sides to accentuate its planar geometry and enhance its form. The Allante’s profile features a tenuous arc that dips down into the beltline along the length of the passenger compartment, contrasting elegantly against the horizontal body flow prevalent in the rest of its contours.
This wasn't a daring design. It was meant to be tastefully refined and appropriately understated while at the same time setting the Allante apart from the rest of the Cadillac lineup. I believe this cultivated subtlety contributed to the Allante’s eventual failure because while it may have been sumptuous, it was perhaps not quite radical enough to get potential buyers to turn their gaze away from the German and British imports they were buying instead of this Detroit-by-way-of-Italy domestic luxury drop top. Cadillac may have considered the overall look of their vehicles to be iconic, and they certainly didn't want their fancy new Allante to look completely out of place in the showroom next to Devilles, Sevilles, and Eldorados, but if buyers are expected to pay a severe price for the car, they may have been expecting iconoclastic styling as part of the deal to set it apart from the lineup of automobiles they had already dismissed in their car shopping.
The bodywork was not the only part of the Allante that pushed its price tag up so high. The cars were not built in huge volume, so that contributed as well. In addition, the Allante came to market dripping with expensive features and novel technology. The cars were endowed with 4 wheel independent suspensions. The ride quality was remarkably smooth thanks also to electronic road sensing suspension adjustment, which was controlled by a set of sensors that scanned the surface of the road and automatically adapted the suspension either firmer or softer to match. Other features of the Allante that made appearances over the course of the production run included speed-dependent suspension damping that firmed up the ride in increments as the car gained momentum, speed-sensitive steering, an industry first power retractable cellular/AM/FM antenna, an option for an integrated cellular phone mounted in the lockable center console, standard Bose sound system, digital dash cluster, power adjustable Recaro seats (not racing seats per se, but certainly better bolstered than your standard Cadillac Lay-Z-boy type seat), traction control, power decklid pulldown, and a power latching mechanism for the convertible top.
The Allante went through 3 different power plants during its run. Initially (1987-1988), the cars featured a 4.1L V8 that produced 170 HP and 235 lb-ft of torque with a 0-60 time of 9.3 seconds). For 1989-1992, a 4.5L V8 sat under the hood to make 200 HP and 270 lb-ft of torque and a 0-60 time trimmed down to 7.9 seconds. In fact, the 1992 example we are looking at today is one that features this engine. For its final year, the Allante gained a 4.6L Northstar V8 engine with a considerable output of 295 HP and 290 lb-ft of torque, a 0-60 time of 6.4 seconds, and a top speed of 140 MPH.
1992 represents the year that the Allante’s price tag topped out at $64,000. It’s also the year that has the lowest production numbers (1,931 made). The Allante’s final year, 1993 saw the arrival of the Northstar V8, which is a fantastic leap in power from its previous offering. It was also the year that the Recaro seating was taken away in favor of less expensive seats made by a company called Lear. The stationary vent window that the previous model years featured was also deleted, replaced by large front side glass sheets. The Bose sound system was also stricken in 1993 in favor of a less expensive Delco system. Even prior to this year, buyers had the option to get an analog gauge cluster in lieu of the digital dash (which is good, because that digital dash stuff is trouble just waiting to happen), and the aluminum hardtop was an option rather than automatically included in the price. 1993 was the last hurrah for the Allante, and was also the year that had the highest production numbers (4,670) even though there were clearly some sacrifices made to fit that Northstar V8 into the vehicle’s budget.
The problem with expensive, cutting edge technology is that it so quickly becomes obsolete. In many instances, solid, proven technology would have made the car less expensive to build, and ultimately helped the Allante build and maintain its appeal and value. For example, analog gauges and reliable, less finicky ways of maintaining ride quality that didn't involve sensors and electronics that can malfunction would have sufficed and actually enhanced the car in the long run. The optional cellular phone built into the center console was probably neat for 1987, but anybody who has a cell phone (and who doesn't at this point in history?) can attest how quickly that technology evolves. Over the course of just a couple years, buyers went from having a super-cool communication gadget mounted in their center console to having a brick of outdated tech that they couldn't give away taking up space in their console.
My hindsight-enhanced view of what could have been done differently with the Allante would have included a request to Pininfarina to amp up the styling cues a bit more. I would have also scrapped the digital dash in favor of analog, left out lots of the electronic gadgetry, and kept the Bose stereo and Recaro seats throughout the production run. Granted, that the Nortstar V8 wasn't available right away for the Allante, but perhaps the development dollars that went into some of the techy stuff could have bumped that up by a couple years to be included earlier. Ditch that removable aluminum top all together to cut costs -after all, if buyers wanted a coupe, they could buy an Eldorado. The front wheel drive thing was big at the time, though clearly it didn't do the Allante any favors, and a manual transmission offering would have been nice, too.
So, what’s the verdict with the Allante? Definitely overpriced and completely unable to maintain its value. They aren't bad looking cars, but they‘re not anything that will make your head spin, either. The technology was cutting edge at the time, but of course, outdated now, but not in a cool retro way. That old tech is novel for about 5 minutes in the same way that playing an Atari video game might take one back to their 1970’s and 80’s childhoods for a nice nostalgic moment or two before its relative simplicity becomes tiresome when stacked up against more modern offerings.
The Allante we’re looking at today is a beautifully preserved specimen from the year this car was at its price peak, and it has taken a real nose dive in value, from over $60,000 down to its current asking price of $10,950. A look online finds a substantial range in pricing on the Allantes that are offered for sale now. The cheapest operational example I was able to find was a 1988 model year with undisclosed mileage out of North Carolina that was priced at $3,495 (about the price of what the removable aluminum hardtop option alone would have been back when the car was new). The most expensive example I found was a Pearl White 1993 model year with 30,000 miles on the odometer out of Dallas, Texas, complete with the optional hard top for $17,500.
All these cars are old enough now to qualify for wearing collector plates like the one today bears, but they aren't really being recognized by collectors as objects of desire just yet. I’d estimate there are a few more years of drooping values to go through before the Allante bottoms out. During that time, the ones that haven’t been well kept or treasured will continue to deteriorate to the point of being parts cars or scrap metal. Eventually, the number of viable examples will dip so low that the value will have to go up based entirely on rarity. For now, a 1993 would seem to be the only year that offers appeal, and even that needs to be tempered with a cheap asking price before I’d recommend springing for one. It has been a long tumble down for the Allante. They’re not bad cars, but the could have been better had they not been electronically overwrought.
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