Start with what the Cadillac Allanté is: a 2-door convertible with 4.1 , built from 1986 to 1993, in the age of turbocharging and the first electronic engine management. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Mario Vernacchia at Pininfarina. 21,430 were built.
The story
The Cadillac Allanté is a two-door, two-seat luxury convertible roadster marketed by Cadillac for the 1987 to 1993 model years. with either a standard or optional removable hardtop.
In an unusual arrangement, the Allanté used a Cadillac chassis and mechanicals, while its bodywork was manufactured in Italy by Pininfarina, and airfreighted to Detroit for final assembly. With its Allanté model name selected by General Motors from 1,700 computer-generated potential names, over 21,000 were manufactured over seven years of production.
What is underneath
The engine is 4.1 other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. On the scales it comes to 3720 lb. Drive goes through a 4-speed Turbo-Hydramatic 125#Turbo-Hydramatic 440-T4 / F-7 automatic transmission / automatic (1987–1992) / 4-speed GM 4T80 transmission#4T80-E / 4T80-E automatic (1993). The layout matters: the engine drives the front wheels, the packaging choice that gives a small car a big cabin. The wheelbase is 99.4 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Its place in the line
In the Cadillac line-up the Cadillac Allanté has a clear place: it handed the line to the Cadillac XLR; the factory was Pininfarina#San Giorgio plant. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Jeep Wrangler, the BMW 5 Series, the Ferrari F40. Nearby in the Cadillac catalogue sit the Cadillac 353 and the Cadillac ATS.
Owning one today
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Cadillac Allanté has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.