1951 Cadillac Convertible From Southern California on 2040-cars

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Remembering Pierre Cardin's automotive legacy

Pierre Cardin has passed away at age 98, and while the designer had a great impact on the world of fashion, he also brought his signature style to the automotive realm, chiefly with the unlikely partner of American Motors. At the dawn of the 1970s, AMC decided to seek out a little glamour for its freshly renewed product lineup by having famous fashion designers work their magic on AMC cars. The first model to get the fashion treatment was the Hornet Sportabout wagon, with a special Gucci edition that became available for 1972. Later that same year, Pierre Cardin's Javelin was introduced. The Cardin Javelin arrived midway through the '72 model year as an interior option package. The designer had submitted as many as 10 proposals to AMC, and the chosen selection was a black interior with a wild multi-hued stripe of silver, white, red and purple that grooved across the seats, touched the door panels and continued onto the headliner. "People should feel like they're sitting in a living room rather than a machine," the designer was quoted in ads introducing his eponymous Javelin. In a press release, AMC said, "Cardin takes an ultra-modern abstract approach to his interior design." The Cardin interior option package was available with specific exterior colors: Snow White, Stardust Silver, Trans Am Red, and Wild Plum. For the '73 model year, Diamond Blue was a new exterior color option. The Pierre Cardin option was only $85 and was offered exclusively on the Javelin SST, although it's reported that the Pierre Cardin option also appeared on a handful of Javelin AMX models. For 1973, you could officially get a Pierre Cardin Javelin AMX. A total of 4,152 were built over the two model years. AMC's next fashion special was the Matador coupe, but the automaker tapped Oleg Cassini for that gig. Pierre Cardin was not finished with the automobile business, though. In 1975, he put his touch on the Sbarro Stash, an obscure supercar based on the SV1, with the result displayed at the Paris auto show. The designer next customized a run of early-'80s Cadillac Eldorados, and this time the treatment extended beyond the interior. A redesigned front end featured hidden headlights behind a full-width horizontal-car grille but unfortunately made the already-considerable front overhang even longer; the rear treatment was similarly modified with the factory vertical taillights replaced with horizontal units.

GM's Mark Reuss explains why a performance Cadillac ELR-V won't happen

Hey, I've got enough things to worry about. That's one interpretation of General Motors executive vice president Mark Reuss' response to a question posed by Driving the Nation about the recently-introduced Cadillac ELR plug-in hybrid. Reuss said GM will "definitely expand the tuning envelope" for the ELR. The question was whether GM would consider adding magnetic ride control to the quite-powerful-for-a-plug-in Caddy, creating an "ELR-V" model in the process. Reuss' non-answer: "Good question, can't really answer that," but then elaborated that magnetic ride control uses up "a lot" of power otherwise spoken for in terms of providing the longest electric-only range possible. Interestingly, he did add that GM will "definitely expand the tuning envelope" for the ELR, as you can see in the video below. With the model retailing for north of $75,000, fewer than 60 percent of US Cadillac dealers were carrying the ELR as of last month and just 99 ELRs were sold during the first two months of the year. In an effort to sell more vehicles, GM said in January that it would offer the ELR for a 39-month lease for $699 a month for qualified lessees and with a $5,999 down-payment required. Autoblog's First Drive impressions of the ELR can be found here.

GM may kill 6 car models as it works with UAW to tackle sales slump

The president of the United Auto Workers union said on Thursday the union is talking with General Motors about the potential threat to plants and jobs from slumping U.S. car sales. GM's response will be more trucks and SUVs, and sources say at least six slow-selling car models may be killed off. "We are talking to (GM) right now about the products that they currently have" at underused car plants such as Hamtramck in Michigan and Lordstown in Ohio, and whether they might be replaced with newer, more popular vehicles such as crossovers, Dennis Williams told reporters. "We are tracking it (and) we are addressing it," Williams added. GM has cut shifts at several U.S. plants this year as inventories of unsold cars have ballooned. Industry analysts said more jobs could be at risk as the automaker wrestles with permanently shrinking production of small and midsized sedans. GM is reviewing whether to cancel at least six passenger cars in the U.S. market after 2020, including the Chevrolet Volt hybrid, which could be replaced in 2022 with a new gasoline-electric crossover model, Reuters has learned from people familiar with the plans. Other GM cars at risk include the Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac CT6, Cadillac XTS, Chevrolet Impala and Chevrolet Sonic, sources said. Some analysts have singled out GM's Hamtramck plant in Detroit as one of the most vulnerable because of plummeting car sales. The plant, which opened in 1985, builds four slow-selling models: Buick LaCrosse, Chevrolet Impala, Cadillac CT6 and Chevrolet Volt. In the first half, it built fewer than 35,000 cars, down 32 percent from the same period in 2016, according to suppliers familiar with GM's U.S. production schedule. The typical GM assembly plant builds 200,000-300,000 vehicles a year.COMING ATTRACTIONS: TRUCKS AND SUVS GM must "create some innovative new products" to replace slow-selling sedans "or start closing plants," said Sam Fiorani, vice president of AutoForecast Solutions. The auto maker already has begun to shift future production plans from cars to trucks, according to Morgan Stanley auto analyst John Murphy. He estimates that fewer than 10 percent of the new vehicle models that GM will introduce over the next four years will be passenger cars, with the rest divided among trucks, SUVs and crossovers. GM plans to add production of the new Cadillac XT4 crossover next year to its Malibu sedan plant in Fairfax, Kansas.