The Cadillac Orleans is a 4-door hardtop from Cadillac, built from 1953, at the height of the post-war boom. Under the bonnet: NNN cuin.
The background
The Cadillac Orleans was a concept car designed by Cadillac for the 1953 auto show circuit. It was the first four-door hardtop concept. The hardtop design eliminated the traditional B-pillar found on most cars of the era. Powered by a Cadillac V8 engine with an output of 210 hp (157 kW), the Orleans was never put into production.
The design innovations on this car would not be put into a production car until the 1956 Sedan de Ville. The car also featured suicide doors, a wrap around windshield, full air conditioning, and several safety improvement attempts, such as a feature which resulted in the doors only being able to be opened if the car was in neutral. Another unique luxury feature was the addition of an AC/DC converter and a normal household outlet to allow electronic devices to be plugged into the car. A compartment in the backrest held a men's electric razor, a vanity case, and a mirror.
The engineering
Power comes from NNN cuin. It weighs NNN -. The wheelbase is NNN in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Where it sits
Its family tree is legible: assembly was at Detroit. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Chevrolet Corvette, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL — show what else the money bought that year. Its Cadillac stablemates include the Cadillac 353 and the Cadillac ATS.
What it costs now
There is no federal ownership record for the Cadillac Orleans — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.