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Chip Foose is bringing life to a Cadillac sketch from 1935

General Motors, automotive home of Harley Earl, was a pioneer in the early days of car design. But for as many wild concept cars and even production cars as the company's studio created, there were still many that never got off the paper. Chip Foose is working to change the fate of one of those designs. According to Foose Design, Chip Foose's latest project is based on a sketch from 1935. Car dealer Wes Rydell and his wife Vivian commissioned a custom Cadillac coupe that was sketched out by GM designer Art Ross. It would take an existing Cadillac sedan, shorten it, lower it and give it a removable hardtop. The drawing is as far as the project got. Now Chip Foose is working on realizing the design in real life using a 1939 Cadillac Series 60 Sedan. He plans to follow the initial design brief, but with his own unique touches. He has also named the project "Madam X" in honor of what Harley Earl would call client projects. It is scheduled to be finished and ready for unveiling at the end of the summer. Foose is a well-known designer who has won some of America's most prestigious custom car awards such as the Ridler Award and designed vehicles for the TV show Overhaulin'. The final product should be quite a striking machine. You can see how it's coming along, as well as Foose's sketch of what the car will finally look like, in the gallery above. Related Video: Featured Gallery 1939 Cadillac Series 60 by Chip Foose View 13 Photos Image Credit: Foose Design, Inc. Auto News Celebrities Design/Style Cadillac Classics chip foose overhaulin

GM claims it's first to sell million 30+ mpg vehicles

As we continue to put together all the data for the year-end edition of By The Numbers, General Motors has announced that it sold more than a million vehicles in the US last year that achieved at least 30 miles per gallon on the highway. More impressively, GM managed this feat using multiple strategies including small vehicle size, turbocharged engines and hybrid or plug-in technologies across four brands (Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC) accounting for 13 separate models. This number will grow even more in 2013 thanks to cars like the all-electric Spark, the diesel Cruze, the range-extended Cadillac ELR and the Buick Encore compact CUV.
GM's small car sales were up 39 percent last year helping to attain this million-sales mark for 30-mpg models, and almost 40 percent of all GM sales consisted of cars with fuel-efficient I4 engines. In regards to more advanced means of improving fuel economy, GM says that it plans on having 500,000 vehicles with "some form of electrification" on the road by 2017.
Scroll down for the full list of GM's million 30+ mpg cars as well as an informative press release.

Cadillac abandons plans for six-digit flagship sedan

So much for that party. Cadillac has announced that it is walking away from plans to build a high-dollar, rear-wheel-drive ultraluxury sedan. The low-volume model would have been based on the lusty Ciel Concept, and the production iteration would have carried a price tag well over $100,000. Executives with the automaker reportedly claim the model wouldn't have bolstered the brand enough to be worth the investment.
Even so, Automotive News reports Cadillac is still on track to build a range-topping four-door to go head-to-head with the BMW 7 Series and Mercedes-Benz S-Class. That model will likely be constructed on the company's upcoming Omega rear-wheel-drive platform, but we won't see it bow until at least 2016. Right now, the front-wheel-drive XTS sits at the top of the Cadillac lineup, and while that machine and it's twin-turbocharged V6 variant makes a compelling argument against certain luxury entries, it falls short serving as a legitimate competitor for the likes of the 7 Series and S-Class for enthusiast drivers.