The Cadillac Allanté was Cadillac's first venture into the luxury roadster market and was sold from 1987 to 1993. Its chassis and engine were taken from the Cadillac Eldorado.
Introduced in 1987, its primary competitor was the Mercedes-Benz 560 SL. The car, when introduced, had a 4.1 L port fuel injected (PFI) V8 engine (based on the standard Cadillac throttle-body injected V8 engine block of that time), although this was later enlarged to a 4.5 L PFI V8 rated at 200 hp (150 kW). This remained unchanged until 1993, the last year of production when the Allanté received the 4.6 L Northstar DOHC engine with VVT rated at 295 L (220 kW).
The car ran with few changes through 1993 when it ceased production. Only 21,000 were built.
The chassis of the Allanté was made in Detroit then was loaded onto specially equipped jets and shipped to Italy where the body (which was designed by Pininfarina of Ferrari fame) was mounted to the chassis. Afterward the cars were loaded back on the jetliners and shipped back to the USA for completion. This led to a few interesting nicknames, such as "the flying Cadillac from Italy" and "the world's longest assembly line."
The Allanté was initially priced at US$54,000, far above the price of any other contemporary Cadillac. Today's Cadillac XLR, also a convertible roadster, at roughly $70,000 is similarly priced at the top of the Cadillac range.
The car has appeared in the movies Cadillac Man, Terminal Velocity and Lethal Weapon 3.
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