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The Cadillac Allanté was Cadillac's first venture into the luxury roadster market. 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 liter PFI (port fuel injected) V8 engine (based on the standard Cadillac TBI (throttle body injected) V8 engine block of that time), later enlarged to a 4.5 liter PFI V8 rated at 200 horsepower (150 kW). This remained as constant until 1993, the last year of production when it was given the 4.6 liter Northstar DOHC engine with VVT rated at 295 horsepower (220 kW).
The car ran with few changes through 1993 when it was cancelled.
The chassis of the Allanté was made in Detroit then it was loaded on to specially equipped jets and shipped to Italy where the body, which was designed by Pininfarina (of Ferrari fame), was mounted to the chassis. After this the cars were loaded back on the jetliners and shipped back to the USA for completion. This gave it a few interesting phrases such as "the flying Cadillac from Italy" and "the world's longest assembly line."
The Allanté was initially priced at $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.
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