Car Of The Day: December 25, 2011

Today's car of the day is Hot Wheels' 2003 Cadillac Sixteen.

The Cadillac Sixteen was a prototype of a stylish and high performance automobile first presented by Cadillac in 2003.

The vehicle was equipped with a 32-valve V16 concept engine displacing 13.6 liters (~830 cu. in) and was mated to a four-speed, electronically controlled, automatic transmission driving the rear wheels. The engine featured fuel-saving Active Fuel Management technology, much improved from its notorious ancestor, debuting in 2004 on some 2005 GM models. On the Sixteen, it would seamlessly shut down twelve cylinders in light driving, eight during strenuous driving, and only awaken the entire engine under full acceleration. With this type of system, the engine was capable of 20 mpg Imperial under normal conditions. The engine was said to produce 1,000 horsepower (750 kW) using no form of forced induction. The car itself weighs about 2,270 kilograms (5,000 lb).

For more information and pictures of the real car please visit: Cadillac Sixteen

This is 2011's custom Christmas RAOK from Ivantt (thanks Ivan!).  I've liked this concept car since it came out, and I have most of the regular releases of this one.  I don't know which is more a sign of what was wrong with the "old GM" (and by some accounts, is still wrong with the current GM also): the fact that they designed this car that would be almost impossible to produce profitably; or the fact that they didn't put it into production because this is exactly the kind of car that has been missing in the USA since the 1950s (it could be argued back to the 1930s).  The last American-made ultra luxury car I can think of was the Continental MK II.  Before that we have to go back to the Depression and the three P's (Packard, Pierce-Arrow, and Peerless).  Packard cheapened themselves to be more mainstream to survive the Depression (it worked) while the other two were gone before World War II started.  If Cadillac wants to seriously threaten the German luxury brands, they need to build something like this.  Sure, they need to keep building the cars they're making too, as those will sell much better and remain the company's bread& butter, but something like this acts as a halo model generating traffic into showrooms and perception of the brand as a whole.  They need to get people to start thinking "Sixteen" and less "Cimarron".

The car was conceptually related to the Cadillac V-16 of the 1930s. The actual design of the car was a combination of Cadillac's current "Art and Science" design theme and 1967 Cadillac Eldorado cues. Additional original design elements were provided by an in-house design competition led by GM Vice President Robert Lutz. The Sixteen has the Cadillac logo carved out of solid crystal on the steering wheel and a Bulgari clock on the dashboard.

Although the Sixteen fell short (narrowly, by some accounts) of production approval, its legacy is alive in Cadillac's future product planning. The subsequent generation of Cadillac products, particularly the revised CTS, have incorporated elements of the Sixteen's design. A scaled-down version of the car, referred to as the ULS (Ultra Luxury Sedan) or XLS, with a standard V8 and an optional V12, has been rumored for production since 2005, but was shelved in favor of the Cadillac XTS.