15k: Caligula’s Callisto: 1993 Cadillac Allanté
Caligula (aka Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus) was the 3rd Emperor in the Roman Imperial age and is best known for his extravagance, cruelty and being an insane sexual deviant….an archetypical politician. If Caligula were alive in the age of Anthony Weiner and Larry Craig he would need a modern car to replace his gold plated chariot and we can think of nothing more fitting for an emporer than a Cadillac Allanté. Find this 1993 Cadillac Allanté for sale in SF Bay Area, CA for $15,995 via craigslist. Tip from Kaibeezy.
The original planned name for the Allanté was the Callisto (meaning ‘most beautiful’ in Greek) and it was a fitting name for the Cadillac with a body designed and built by Carozzeria Pininfarina in Cambiano, Italy. The Allanté cost nearly $60,000 when new and was heavily marketed to wealthy deviants in places like New York, Florida and California.
1993 is the only year for the Northstar 4.6 V8 in the Allanté –
all the earlier ones used the HT (Heinous Touch) 4100/4500 with an alloy
block and iron heads and according to Wikipedia “was prone to failure
of the intake manifold gasket due to
scrubbing of the bi-metal interface, aluminum oil pump failure, cam
bearing displacement, weak aluminum block castings and bolts pulling the
aluminum threads from the block.” Lucky for the next owner of this Allanté that it is powered by the later and much improved Northstar 32-valve V8 putting out 295 horsepower and 290 ft-lbs of torque into the front wheels.
Soilent green over band-aid beige was a very popular color in 1993, but this example looks in excellent condition inside and out – probably because it’s only been driven around for less than 1000 miles per year.
Let’s do a quick depreciation/mile check. $60k MSRP. 45k depreciation in 19k miles. That is $2.30 a mile in depreciation. Drive to the drug store and back = $5 in depreciation. Drive from LA to San Diego = $230 in lost value. LA-SD round trip…$500! PLUS gas, plus tires, plus tolls, plus expensive routine maintenance…yikes!
See a better example of the previous owner’s cash used to your advantage? email us here: tips@dailyturismo.com
"…and nervous indigestion."
How about the Buick Reatta instead? Hand built in good old 'Murica… We don't need no stinkin' Eye-talians to shape our luxury coupes 🙂 Besides, early-build Northstar maintenance is downright unfair to us poor folks in the Bible Belt. Only thing is you knew the owner had money when someone drove these cars around town. I recall the trade mags calling Caddy out for going through the trouble and complexity of construction and "grossly" inflating the price to keep up with the competition in terms of snob appeal. I'd rather have a Series I 3800 that can take 90+ degree temps allday without blowing a gasket and ruining my day because I'm taking back streets on "limp home" mode. Atleast GM tried, right?
don't miss the reatta rally next month in LA – reattarally.com
i've sent in one or two for DT to look at but none have been as minty as this allante
OK, I love you guys at DT, but I really think you have "jumped the shark" with this one. And kaibeezy, no offense, I've seen you make some fine suggestions here. But . . . really?
A friend's father bought one of these for the wife back in 1991, and both my buddy and I were embarrassed to be seen in it then; I wouldn't feel any more comfortable in it now.
You are correct that the Northstar V8 was a big improvement over the earlier version. Which is about the only good thing I can say about it. And okay, I thought of one other thing – the Bose audio system was pretty good, for a factory unit. But it handled like a dream. A very bad dream. Really, a nightmare.
Pininfarina is one of the world's greatest styling houses, responsible for some of the most beautiful automobiles ever created. This is not one of them. I thought at the time they had either completely phoned this one in, or had assigned it to a junior designer who was still completing "lesson 1: straight lines" as part of the in-house design curriculum, or perhaps they thought Italy was still at war with America and had offered this design to Cadillac as an intentional act of sabotage.
Can you seriously "think of nothing more fitting for an emperor than a Cadillac Allanté?" I had always envisioned the DT fellows as having much more gifted imaginations than that.
$15,995? Really? Granted, it appears to be an excellent example in mint condition. But, I wouldn't pay $15,995 unless it came with $15,000 in the glovebox.
Also, while I'm griping — I believe the proper spellings are "emperor" not "emporer" and "soylent green" not "soilent green." Although if this was meant as an obscure reference to the American metal band (and not the classic '73 film,) I guess soilent green would work.
"Dark Polo Green" was the Cadillac name, and it was fitting enough, with the use of "Polo" evocative of luxury insofar as it both made reference to an obscure game for the wealthy that few Allanté owners would ever attend or play, as well as the ever-popular Ralph Lauren cologne that most Allanté owners were probably intoxicated on when they drove home with their new Cadillac thinking they had made an excellent purchase.
none taken, anon – i aim the boat at that shark in all kinds of ways –head-on, sneak attack, saunter alongside– yet seem to be improving in neither precision nor accuracy, because after several months of this i still don't have much idea of when one or the other of those DT waterskiiers will attempt the jump – fun!
all i can say is many of my submits are completely irony-free (E28, 911, GTV, that marlin last week), some not (allante, lada), and others purely for fun (orange cars, vans with flames)
in defense of this allante, all i really have is: pininfarina, low miles – who picked that dashboard color? looks like the clay mockup, bleh
re soylent green, have you seen the new soylent beige? it's a drink, same color as those seats – for real! soylent.me
LOL @ kaibeezy — the marketing people at that Soylent Corporation have made some interesting choices, beginning with the name. I love that the site begins with "We've gotten a lot of inquiries about the ingredients that we're using for Soylent," and then answers the question with "While the formula for Soylent will change somewhat on the path to large-scale manufacture, we want to release the current list of ingredients today, and reassure our supporters and skeptics alike that in fact, Soylent is not people, and contains no person-derived compounds." HA!
Back to cars, I cannot find fault fundamentally with any well-presented E28, 911 or GTV, the Marlin was quite a nice find, I love the Eastern bloc cars, including Ladas, Wartburgs, Zastavas, Yugos, and their quirky comrades of dubious build quality, and frankly, who don't love an occasional orange car, or a van with flames?
But really, the Allanté just always struck me as a practical joke the Italians and Cadillac played on us. $60K for that thing 20+ years ago?! I mean, $60K remains a handsome sum for a car in 2013 – in 1993 $60K could have bought me a lovely 3BR craftsman bungalow in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I would have been far less embarrassed to live in Cedar Rapids Iowa than I would have been to arrive anywhere in an Allanté, unless possibly I could have convinced people it was either a rental car or a sweepstakes prize. That interior could not have been more beige if it had been sculpted of wood filler and silly putty, and frankly, I'm not going to be convinced that one or both materials are not present there absent laboratory testing.
OH, and I almost forgot – +1 to Friar Tuck for the Buick Reatta suggestion! I never drove one or knew anyone who owned one, but I always liked the looks of it for the time period. The early Reattas also had the unique, and VERY cool, VERY 80s high-tech "electronic control center" touch screen interface. So cool! I remember being completely smitten by that when I saw it at the dealership. It looked positively like something out of the Space Shuttle, or like it was designed for Knight Rider. I don't know if it actually functioned well or not, but in comparison, the center stack of the Allanté looks like several rows of brown chiclets stuck in a vending machine.
I saw one of these on the highway the other day, looked about as nice as this one. A young(early thirties)guy was driving with the top down, and looked like he was loving it. I thought then it would be a cool choice for a restromod till a little research reminded me it was a transverse mounted FWD POS.
Edmond's suggest a price under 4K, add a little premium for clean, low miles and it is still a reach at 15,995. Put 14K in the glove box and I might take a stab at it….lol