Wild and Garish Cadillac V16 Concepts From The Sixties
Bob Lutz’ Cadillac Sixteen concept wasn’t the first time a revival of the classic Cadillac V12 and V16 era was considered. In the mid sixties, Cadillac was seriously mulling production of one or the other, and several versions of a SOHC V12 engine (see post here) were built. But if you think the Sixteen Concept had a long nose and was a bit over the top, check out this rendering by Cadillac Studio Chief Wayne Kady. From the size of the steering wheel and dashboard, it appears they were planning to transplant the V16 from a tug boat. This must be where the infamous bustle-back trunk of the 1980 Seville originated. Well, this is just a not-so-small taste of the creativity that was unleashed when the designers were asked to come up with ideas.
Now this clay is flying a bit closer to Earth. A pretty stock ’63 front end married to a set-back coupe, to leave plenty of room for all those cylinders. They all have that Maybach Exelero look. Well, I haven’t shown you them all though, have I? But there’s a double treasure trove awaiting you this Saturday with the following two links: at hemmingsblog, there’s a reprint of a 1981 Special Interest Autos story detailing the whole program, including lots of clays, many design aspects of which later show decided similarities to cars like the ’66 Toronado (below)
and the ’67 Eldorado (below).
The other link is to Dean’sGarage, where a remarkable set of color renderings by Wayne Kady await your perusal.
Wayne Kady spent 38 years in the Caddy and Buick studios, and is responsible for the “highly successful 1971 Eldorado” (not my quote). The CC Deadly Sin for that is here. Mr. Kady is apparently also responsible for a number of questionable designs at Cadillac as its Studio Head from 1974 to 1988, which include the disastrous 1985 shrunken head mobiles.
No disrespect to Mr. Kady, whose renderings are highly creative, but I’m afraid history will not smile kindly on all of his production creations. But these wild flights of imagination sure brought a smile to my face on this dark, drizzly Saturday morning. I thank you for that, sir.
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Looking over the 1960s Cadillac concepts and some 1950s era Cadillac concepts here, I have to say that the 2003 Cadillac Sixteen concept makes them all the other in-house Caddy concepts look a little grotesque. The Sixteen is a brilliant design, the work of Brian Smith, who heads exterior design for Cadillac and also did the Converj concept.
The Sixteen could have gone into production. Contrary to some reports, the V16 was not just two LSx engines welded together. Well, in a sense it was, but only in the digital domain. The engine architecture was based on the LS family, but once they got all the design and finite element testing to optimize strength and weight, they sent the CAD/CAM files to a German company that die casts directly from the code, and made a single V16 crankcase. Since it's a 90 V and bore centers are the same as on the LSx, it could have gone down the same transfer machinery.
Franky, I like the stuff that Ed Welburn's team has done better than the work of supposed GM giants like Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell. GM Styling is one of the parts of the company that helped make any prospect of survival possible.
As an artist/designer I really love some of those concepts (the top one especially, It really evokes the 20-30's Bugattis perfectly) As a car guy, I can't imagine how those would manage in traffic built with 60-70's technology. But i wish they could have built one of these (and the newer '16' too, as an alternative for those who think a Phantom drophead is boring, or a Veyron isn't classy enough. I'm quite sure Cadillac could not have built it to the expectations of their buyers though.