Desert Rain

I am surprised that this is the first post with this exact title…

I guess I have to give the weather forecasters some credit. For about the last ten days an elevated chance of rain had been predicted for this time frame, although initially it was yesterday–Friday–that was thought to have the best chance of rain. In recent days, the highest probability for precipitation, actually the only day with a significant chance, was predicted to be today.

Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men…for the top video I was hoping to capture some lightning and thunder. Almost as soon as I stopped recording we had lightning and thunder.

The newly installed rain gauge in the courtyard at our house indicated about a half-inch of precipitation when we returned from breakfast this morning. This jibes very nicely with the reading from the gauge closest to our house and monitored by the county in which we live; that reading was .51 inches of rain in the six hours ending about 20 minutes ago.

I took some photos from the car on the way to breakfast, no I was not driving, but upon further examination they simply don’t convey the true sense of the sky. As I have mentioned before, sometimes what you see with your eyes (and brain) is not reflected in the camera.

I cannot remember the last time we had significant rainfall. Of course, our monsoon season was a dud, but that happens on occasion.

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From this Newsweek piece comes these words:

“Today, political correctness and the woke movement have defined words and images as weapons that should be banned for offending political categories and self-defined oppressed groups. It is tolerance of all ideas—except those they disagree with, and it follows the adage that if you can’t win the argument, you change the rules. It treats people as children who must be shielded from conversation, unable to manage a verbal exchange without supervision, and it is a direct threat to freedom of speech and liberty—as well as the truth.”

Amen to Michael Ramirez!

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This Hemmings piece begins,

“They’re calling it the “Great Reset” in the commercial property sector. In the fine art world, they are using the term “contraction.” Here in the collector car world, we might just want to call it a “reality check” as prices for our beloved vehicles are coming back down to Earth after years of a historic run up.”

Here is another excerpt from the Hemmings piece by Terry Shea,

“[A]verage sale prices at both live and online auctions [were] down some 17% in October 2023 compared to October 2022, according to Classic.com. The pull back in average values followed an 18% drop in September 2023 in terms of year-over-year values. The same set of aggregate data released by Classic.com showed a sell-through rate of just 62% for October, a drop of four points from the prior year and significantly below the rates of 2019, 2020, and 2021.”

Could the decline in auction prices signal a time to buy? In stock investing we are warned not to try to catch a falling knife. Of course, and as I have written ad infinitum, I don’t believe buying a car should be a financial investment, but an investment in the enjoyment of life. You should buy a car that you really want to buy and at a price with which you feel comfortable.

At Mecum’s last auction for 2023, November 30-December 2 in Kansas City, this car will cross the block on Thursday the 30th:

1990 Cadillac Allante Convertible

The inclusion of this car in one of my blog posts should, of course, come as no surprise to regular readers. This is a 1990 Cadillac Allante with an odometer reading of about 61,000 miles. The 1993 Allante was included in my last Ultimate Garage, version 3.0 published 28 months ago (!!).

I have seen these cars sell at auction for under $2,000 all in and I have seen them go unsold with high bids near $30,000. While I am NOT in the market for a car at present (sorry, DDM), and I don’t think I will buy another convertible as long as I own the F-Type, I am almost certain I will always think these cars look great.

Once again, I welcome thoughtful comments on the automobile auction market or any other topic you deem relevant. Of course, I have final say in terms of what is published so be civilized in addition to being thoughtful. Thanks.

#DesertRain

#~~Woke~~IsACult

#CadillacAllante

#IStandWithIsrael!

#somanyCARSjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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41 MPG

I have never owned a car capable of achieving 41 miles per gallon over an extended period of time. This is a picture I took of the Elantra dashboard yesterday; yes, my wonderful wife was driving. The 41.0 MPG reading is overall for the 329 miles we had driven the car when I took the photo, not a real-time, on the fly figure.

The official EPA rating of the car is 30 MPG city, 40 MPG highway and 34 MPG overall. We are fortunate in this part of Arizona that much of our driving takes place on roads with few lights and stop signs. Still, to get more MPG overall than the highway rating is odd.

I am probably adding two and two and getting five, but for each of the last four cars that I/we have owned where gas mileage can be tracked, I/we made more MPG than the EPA overall rating. I can’t help but wonder if the EPA is deliberately under-reporting gas mileage figures as a way to “encourage” people to buy electric vehicles. Sorry, no EVs for me. Yes, I know; your mileage may vary.

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The collective musical IQ of the US population has declined dramatically in the last 50 years. Discuss amongst yourselves.

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I watched just two plays from the Nebraska-Colorado game yesterday. (I knew I should have taken Colorado and given the points.) I turned the game on with five minutes left in the first quarter (the score was 0-0) and Nebraska had the ball in Colorado territory on 2nd-and-12. A two-yard run made it 3rd-and-10 when new Nebraska quarterback Jeff Sims fumbled the snap with Colorado recovering. I decided not to watch anymore.

In the Cornhuskers’ first two games, Sims committed SIX turnovers: four interceptions and two lost fumbles. Nebraska wasn’t going to win yesterday, anyway, but could have won its opener without the mistakes. Even in today’s era, maybe I should write especially in today’s era, a quarterback at the major college level has to be consistently productive in the passing game and take care of the football. I don’t care how good a runner Sims is, he does not have either of those must-have traits.

Changing channels, for many years Texas was near the bottom of my college football hierarchy. I guess they are not, anymore. I watched virtually all of the Texas-Alabama game and wasn’t really rooting for either team. No, I am not an Alabama hater, either.

I thought Texas QB Quinn Ewers was very impressive showing NFL caliber arm talent and on-field poise. He outplayed Alabama QB Jalen Milroe, making just his third career start, and–not surprisingly–Texas won at Tuscaloosa. Of course, Texas also has more talent at wide receiver and tight end than Alabama. Even so, I think quarterback is far and away the most important position in sports. I guess that’s not exactly a revelation.

The primacy of the quarterback was something with which Vince Lombardi struggled. He noted that football was a team game, but the quarterback position had out-sized importance.

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Here is the title of this Why Evolution Is True post: “The National Science Foundation gives big money to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action.” Do you know that the NSF is the largest government source of non-health-related science funding in the US?

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This Hagerty piece describes and links to a video from a minion of the Evil Empire. It tours the abandoned Pininfarina factory in San Georgio, Italy where Cadillac Allante bodies were assembled. With the purchase of the F-Type, the probability I buy an Allante has diminished, but not all the way to zero.

Yes, the car was a huge failure for Cadillac/GM as just 21,430 were produced in seven model years (1987-1993, inclusive); the company had hoped to sell about 7,000 a year. Still, I will always believe it’s a beautiful car. It almost had to be since Pininfarina designed and built the body.

#41MPG

#BenchJeffSims!

#VinceLombardi

#CadillacAllante

#somanyCARSjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Finally, Rain

Thunder woke me. After another medical “event” I had fallen back to sleep, albeit fitfully, in my chair in the family room. A couple of minutes after waking (at about 12:05 AM) I received a text from my wonderful wife informing me it was raining.

Not forecast by either The Weather Channel or WeatherNation, we received at least 15-20 minutes of steady rain not ending before 12:30 AM. When I left at 6:15 AM to go grocery shopping, upon opening the garage door the air smelled cleaner. I even noticed some puddles by the side of the road after leaving our development.

Hallelujah!

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First question of the day…according to this (link shared by David Banner [not his real name]), Ford projected a sales total of 150,000 F-150 Lightnings, the all-electric pickup truck, for 2023. That’s about 40,000 per quarter. How many did they actually sell in the second quarter of 2023?

A. 10,000

B. 20,000

C. 40,000

D. 80,000

The answer is E. None of the above. Ford sold a “whopping” 5,000 F-150 Lightnings in Q2 2023. AMERICANS DO NOT WANT TO BUY ELECTRIC VEHICLES AND SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO DO SO!!!!!!!!!!!

Second question of the day…in Multi-Tasking, Etc. I wrote that the area where we live is not representative of the US as a whole in terms of EV use. How about the state of Arizona? For Fiscal Year 2022 what percentage of registered vehicles in Arizona were either battery-electric or hybrid? How about just battery-electric?

I’ll just tell you without making it a multiple choice question. A “gigantic” 1.3 percent were alternative-fuel of any kind and 0.7 percent were battery-electric.

About 5 percent of the increase from Fiscal 2021 to Fiscal 2022 can be accounted for by battery-electric vehicles; about 12 percent by any alternative fuel vehicle, meaning–of course–that the share of hybrids among registered vehicles rose faster than the share of “pure” EVs. Not only is our area not representative of the US as a whole, it’s not representative of Arizona, either.

LET THE FREE MARKET DECIDE!

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About a week ago, Hagerty published this piece about eight “lost classics” of the 1980s, all priced at under $18,000. Many of the cars were foreign and the majority looked good to me, but this one stood out, of course.

1990 cadillac allante red convertible underappreciated classic cars

This is, do I have to tell you, the Cadillac Allante. The body was designed and built by Pininfarina of Italy; you know, the company that built bodies for Ferrari for more than 65 years.

Yes, when it was released in model year 1987 it was underpowered and not as reliable as it should/could have been. With an MSRP of $54,700 (about $147,000 at today’s prices) it certainly was no bargain, either.

Regular readers might remember that the 1993 version of the Allante, the last model year it was available, was included in my Ultimate Garage 3.0. That was the only year the Northstar V-8 was available and that gave the Allante some oomph (a technical automotive term) to go with its looks. Sadly, the new engine wasn’t enough to save the car.

The free market decided that this car was not worthy of buying and it was discontinued after seven model years and a very disappointing total production of 21,430 units. Cadillac sold 65,504 Fleetwood Brougham 4-door sedans in 1987 alone.

The old saying goes “There’s no accounting for taste.” I would add “or lack thereof.” A 1993 Allante is still on my radar screen although it’s a very big screen with poor resolution.

#FinallyRain

#AmericansDON’TWantToBuyEVs

#LostCarClassicsOfThe1980s

#CadillacAllante

#somanyCARSjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Two Weeks? Two Weeks!

It absolutely does not feel like two weeks since we moved into our new house. It feels like maybe one week and the time compression due to aging can be most discombobulating.

Today is a rarity, a day with no scheduled visits by service people. Hopefully, I’ll get in a good workout, which would be just my second since we moved. Anyway, here are a few relevant photos.

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From Jeff Bezos’ newspaper via this Why Evolution Is True post:

Consumers are mad as hell about the long waits for service while calling companies on the telephone. But whether we will “not take it anymore” seems to be up to the companies themselves, who claim, unbelievably, that customers like the robots and endless attempts to connect with a real human being.

It shouldn’t be this hard to speak to a human. But, increasingly, companies large and small are making it difficult to access a real, live person when help is needed. Contact numbers are hard to find. Wait times to speak to an operator are long — one industry analyst estimated the average wait tripled from 2020 to 2022 and says he believes they still are a third worse than before the pandemic. Some phone lines are seemingly staffed entirely by robots, forcing you to go through menu after menu in quest of a live, real person. Or, increasingly, companies don’t offer a telephone option at all.

This is not simply inconvenient. It’s contemptuous. And consumers pay the price in emotional aggravation, in precious time and in literal money, as people give up on legitimate financial claims because they are unable to surmount the barriers in their way.

Companies say they are reducing options for human contact by popular demand. They claim customers often prefer a virtual option — so said Frontier Airlines after it recently ceased offering customers access to live phone agents, directing them to text, chatbot or email instead. But as the Wall Street Journal noted late last year, Frontier is simultaneously telling its investors that call centers are “expensive,” while use of chatbots eliminates the customer’s ability to negotiate.

A survey by OnePoll in 2021 found that more than two-thirds of respondents ranked speaking to a human representative as one of their preferred methods of interacting with a company, while 55 percent identified the ability to reach a human as the most important attribute a customer service department can possess. “When people are anxious or have problems, they really, really want to talk,” says Michelle Shell, a visiting assistant professor also at the Questrom school. “You need human contact.”

I personally loathe and despise the automated VRUs, Voice Response Units. However, as they become more prevalent, avoiding them becomes virtually impossible. One answer might be to avoid big companies whenever possible and use local, smaller companies.

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When Mecum first held an auction in the Phoenix area (I think that was 2019) about 1,000 vehicles were consigned and the auction lasted three days. This year, 2,000 vehicles are consigned and the auction is scheduled for five days. I think this auction expansion is yet another of the countless examples of how strong the car culture is in this area.

Not having “champagne and caviar” tastes in automobiles, I like looking at the lots on the early days to see if something might entice me to bid. A car like this caught my attention:

That is supposed to be a picture of a 1991 Cadillac Allante in the same color as the one consigned to Mecum Glendale 2023. The 1993 Allante was a member of my Ultimate Garage 3.0, which was published almost two years ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if this car hammers for less than $10,000.

An internal debate about buying another car has been about whether or not I need to give priority to cars that have appeared in any iteration of my Ultimate Garage. More and more I am moving towards the viewpoint that I don’t need to do that. In general, I think people waste too much time, money and effort trying to justify previous decisions.

Back to the ’91 Allante…when new the engine was rated 200 HP/270 LB-FT of torque for a car with a curb weight of about 3,500 pounds. You can see why I prefer the ’93 model since that was the only year the Northstar V-8 was offered (slipping head bolts and all), which was rated 295 HP/290 LB-FT. The ’93 model was about 200 pounds heavier than the ’91.

Once again, buying a car now is probably a most imprudent action, but the heart wants what it wants. I am not even in a position to offer a probability in terms of what I buy or when/if I buy it.

#TwoWeeks?TwoWeeks!

#GooseBumpsHouse

#ShameOnAmericanCompanies

#MecumGlendale2023

#CadillacAllante

#somanyCARSjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Car Market Tuesday

To be totally honest, this post is an attempt to “dump” all the articles I have in my email inbox about the automobile market, with particular attention paid to the recently concluded Arizona auction week. I would have made a terrible diplomat.

This article from Classic Cars that, frankly, is rather superficial is about a symposium held during the Barrett-Jackson auction about the state of the collector car market. Normally, we would have attended, but I think Alan Taylor–the moderator of these symposiums–is an awful host. In my opinion, a host lets the guests speak and just guides the conversation so it doesn’t get too off-track. Taylor tries to make these events all about himself. Yep, I’m no diplomat.

In the piece Mark Hyman, founder of Hyman Ltd Classic Car, is quoted as saying, “I warn everybody, yes, the cars have gone up in value. The cars have given us a good return, but I warn everybody don’t overpay for that reason.” As I wrote earlier, this article does not provide any useful or interesting details.

This piece, also from Classic Cars and much better than the first, reports that the average price per car for all of Arizona auction week increased by 33 percent from about $95,000 to almost $127,000. Here are two key points made in the article:

Online auctions are competing for volume and big cars, but live auctions can still produce record prices such as the 1970 Plymouth Road Runner Superbird that sold for $990,000.

Mecum’s Kissimmee auction in early January is rivaling the entire Arizona Auction Week in size and importance.

Total sales for the 2022 Arizona auction week reached $267 million despite 22 percent fewer lots than in 2020. Mecum’s Florida auction reached $217 million in sales.

This Hagerty article lists the ten most expensive cars sold at automobile auctions in January. Here is an interesting passage from the piece:

“Although the number of auctions and the number of consignments in Scottsdale were both down, almost every other number we can think of from the January auctions was up. “Fewer cars, higher prices” has pretty much been the state of affairs at in-person auctions since they returned from their pandemic hiatus. But January of 2022 set the bar even higher.”

1964 Mercedes Benz 300 SL Roadster front three-quarter

This 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL “Alloy Body” Gullwing Coupe brought the highest price of any car sold in January at an auction. Only 29 of these aluminum-bodied Gullwings were built and it had been six years since the last one was brought to an auction. This car sold for $6.825 million all in.

This article, from Classic Cars, is the monthly update on which cars brought the most searches on their website. From the piece, “Among the top-20 searches by year, make and model in January 2022 were five 1960s Ford Mustangs, four 1960s Chevrolet Camaros, and a pair of 1960s Chevy Impalas.”

Andy Reid, Classic Cars’ market analyst and East Coast editor, also noted that searches for Cadillac have increased significantly. His reason: “This is likely to do with the sheer numbers of different cars that are available at every different price point.”

Recently consigned to the Mecum auction in Glendale, Arizona that starts five weeks from tomorrow is a car like this:

See the source image

Once again (I am really tired of writing this), Mecum does not allow online photos of recently sold cars or future consignments to be captured. The car above is a 1991 Cadillac Allante. Mecum will be selling a ’91 Allante with a claimed 36,000 miles at the Glendale auction.

Every regular reader knows I love these cars. What few regular readers know (until now, I guess) is that I am about to spend more than $10k on a brake job for my Z06. (Carbon ceramic rotors are not cheap.) Those funds might have been used to buy this Allante, but barring a lottery win in the interim, I don’t think it’s prudent to buy another car now. Of course, who knows what I might think as the car crosses the block?

Speaking of Corvettes, this Corvette Blogger article shows that C8 Corvettes rank second among all vehicles in terms of the highest percentage increase in the price paid for used cars compared to the price of new cars. From the piece:

New Corvette Ranks 2nd on iSeeCars' List of Top 15 Used Cars More Expensive Than New

This is the automobile market right now. Just like it’s not really a great time to buy a house in many parts of the country, it’s not really a great time to buy a car.

Hope you have enjoyed this hodgepodge post.

#CarMarketTuesday

#CadillacAllante

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Monday Musings 80

I am still not in the best of moods, so read accordingly.

This post from Why Evolution Is True is about Andrew Sullivan’s (he is a somewhat “famous” author, blogger and political commentator) belief that people are pushing back, hard, against the plague of ~~wokeness~~ to the point where it may be on the wane. The post author is not so sure, but sees some rays of hope.

One of Sullivan’s eight examples is this:

“Both The Atlantic and The New Yorker have just published long essays that push back against woke authoritarianism and cruelty. Since both magazines have long capitulated to rank illiberalism, this is encouraging. And since critical theory is an entirely elite-imposed orthodoxy, it matters when the ranks of the elite crack a little.

Anne Applebaum links the woke phenomenon to previous moral panics and mob persecutions, which is where it belongs.”

I hope Sullivan is right and I know Applebaum is. Still, I think the only solution will be dissolution. I have often thought about in which US spinoff I would like to live. The sad thing is that none of them would probably appeal to me.

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Today’s Pick Of The Day in the Classic Cars Journal is…a 1991 Cadillac Allante. The title of the piece is, “Pick of the Day: The Italian Cadillac.”

I suspect most of you reading know that the Allante was a collaboration between Cadillac and legendary Italian coachbuilder Pininfarina. The bodies and interiors were built in Italy and then flown to Detroit in specially equipped Boeing 747s where the rest of the car was installed. That production chain contributed to the very high price of these cars ($54,700 MSRP when introduced in 1987; a 1987 Corvette convertible was $33,172), which itself contributed to the failure of the car in the marketplace. Yes, I must show a picture:

This configuration, with the auxiliary hardtop in place, is how I think these cars look their best. By the way, this is post #1,201 and the 25th in which the Allante is mentioned. Some of you might think it’s the 250th.

To better days…

#MondayMusings

#~~Wokeness~~IsEvil

#CadillacAllante

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Slippery Sunday

I was remiss in not noting that this past Friday (the 27th) was the one-year anniversary of our reaching a tentative agreement to sell our house in the mid-Atlantic. In some ways, it’s not so difficult to think it’s been a year although in some ways it is. We didn’t actually close on the sale until early November as the house needed major repairs–primarily to the stucco in the front of the house–before we could close.

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This post claims that evidence is waning for the theory that the damn virus escaped from the virus lab in Wuhan, China. Here is an excerpt from the post:

“While we’ll never know for sure where the virus came from, the wet-market origin is looking increasingly likely…the precautions we’d take depend on the pandemic’s origin. If it came from a wet market, we’d want to take a close look at these markets, and possibly close them. (I think they should be closed anyway, for, as I’ve seen, the animals for sale are kept under horrible conditions.) If it escaped from the WIV, on the other hand, we’d want to institute more stringent regulations in lab.”

The Chinese government’s unwillingness to cooperate with any real investigation will always cloud any judgment. It should also serve as a reminder that their government is not one “of the people, by the people, for the people,” the phrase Lincoln used in his Gettysburg Address. They can call themselves the People’s Republic of China, but it’s just a name, not reality. Oh, I think the wet markets are disgusting. I don’t care how elitist or racist that may sound.

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This Hagerty article is titled, “9 tragically flawed GM vehicles whose heroic fixes came too late.” Here are pictures of the first two cars listed:

1990 cadillac allante red convertible

1988 pontiac fiero gt assembly sign

Of course, the top photo is a Cadillac Allante (the article specifies the 1993 model, the only year the car was equipped with the Northstar V-8) and the bottom shows the last two Pontiac Fieros ever built meaning they are from the 1988 model year.

Both of these cars have been written about and shown in this blog with the Allante earning a place in Ultimate Garage 3.0. Oh, here is the opening to the Hagerty article, which I think is extremely descriptive:

“Decades upon decades passed when General Motors could do no wrong, and the products rolling off its assembly line were proof positive of its business model’s supremacy. But nobody’s perfect, and mistakes had to be addressed to meet stockholder’s expectations. GM’s design and engineering teams made some great cars with serious potential that were packed with tragic flaws—and received heroic fixes that came right before their curtain calls. It’s all rather tragic, so here are nine examples to prove the point.”

General Motors descent from invincible leviathan to village idiot (OK, maybe that last phrase is a bit of an overstatement) did not, of course, take place overnight and in one giant fall. Still, in the early 1960s GM was very worried about being the target of government action because it occupied more than half of the US automobile market. Three decades later and three decades ago (1991) GM lost $4.5 billion and announced a plan to close 21 manufacturing plants. Of course, by 2008 GM’s losses ballooned to almost $31 billion and the next year the company had to file for bankruptcy and be reorganized.

Since the bankruptcy and reorganization, General Motors has usually been profitable. For 2018-2020 the company had an aggregate profit of almost $21 billion. Still, it is not the king of the hill and it doesn’t seem as if it ever will be again.

Just as some automotive historians think that Studebaker’s bankruptcy and receivership of 1933 meant the company was ultimately doomed, GM’s bankruptcy will prevent it from regaining its dominant status, at least for the foreseeable future.

I welcome thoughts from you.

#SlipperySunday

#DamnVirusTheory

#CadillacAllante

#PontiacFiero

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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Eight Eight Two One

From this piece:

“It is your business to craft a philosophy of life that makes sense to you and that serves you. You can’t entrust that task to anyone else and you can’t just buy any existing philosophy or religion hook, line, and sinker.” [Emphasis mine]

Once again, I strongly believe that being a blind adherent or a slave to any ideology–political, religious, philosophical–usually leads to bad outcomes and is a waste of our brainpower.

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This piece from Hagerty is their first look at the 2022 Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing. The article is full of praise for the car, although to me it reads as if the author thinks the car won’t be successful in the marketplace given the failures of the ATS-V and CTS-V. From the article, a picture:

CT4-V Blackwing side profile

This is the Blackwing V-6 version; the CT-5 Blackwing is the V-8 version with the LT4 engine used in the C7 Z06 and the current Camaro ZL1. Yep, a lot of alpha-numeric gobbledygook.

The CT-4 Blackwing is powered by, basically, the same 3.6 liter V-6 we have in our 2015 Cadillac ATS and rides on the same Alpha platform. Of course, our ATS doesn’t have 472 horsepower because the engine isn’t turbocharged like the Blackwing. Both a six-speed manual and ten-speed automatic transmission will be available.

The piece ends:

“On a personal note, your narrator has thought about this thing a significant amount since leaving VIR. [Virginia International Raceway] Mostly in terms of financing and personal credit.

And so here we are, in the twilight of the gasoline performance car, gifted one of the last great fossil-drinkers. One of just a few modern vehicles to prompt deep and emotional thoughts concerning changing times.

Just before we moved on, there were great heights. And boy hell yes, child, it was good.”

To me, this piece reinforces the notion that Cadillac makes and has made good products, but has suffered a seemingly permanent disconnect with most of the car-buying public. I don’t think the switch to electric cars will help Cadillac differentiate itself in the marketplace, either.

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Speaking of Cadillac:

This is the Allante of which I recently wrote that is parked in a driveway on our street. This house seems to have a lot of “non-standard” cars parked. I don’t know if the homeowner is a collector, a mechanic or both. I have walked down to the house two or three times, but have never managed to be there while a garage door was open.

Even in White, not a favorite color of mine, the car is beautiful in person to me. I wish I had been able to take a photo before the car “cover” was strapped on.

The Allante’s MSRP was $54,700 when introduced in 1987 and $61,675 in its last year, 1993. Hemmings currently has 23 Allantes listed–model years 1990 to 1993–and eight of them have a list price of less than $12,000. Remember, of course, that 1987 dollars or 1993 dollars are not the same as 2021 dollars. The 1993 MSRP is about $116,000 in 2021 dollars.

OK, I’ll stop babbling about this very idiosyncratic favorite of mine. As I tried to convey with the Frugal Friday posts (thanks to David Banner, not his real name), interesting cars don’t have to be expensive.

#EightEightTwoOne

#ThinkForYourself

#CadillacCT4Blackwing

#PlightOfCadillac

#CadillacAllante

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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A Or B, Self-Indulgent Edition

It’s been some time since I wrote an A Or B post. Today I will ask you to formally choose between two idiosyncratic favorites of mine, two General Motors products that had promise, but were either out of sync with the market or poorly executed at first or both. Alphabetically by make:

See the source image

The top photo of a Buick Reatta is from streetpeep.com and the bottom photo of a Cadillac Allanté is from Barrett-Jackson. Both cars were offered from the late 1980s through the early 1990s. Combined in a total of eleven model years—seven for the Allanté and four for the Reatta–only about 43,000 of these were sold. Coincidentally, sales for the two cars were very similar: 21,751 for the Reatta and 21,430 for the Allanté.

As every regular regular reader knows, I am quite enamored with the looks of these cars. The Reatta was never a performance car and only in its final year of production, 1993, was the Allanté a solid performer.

OK, kind people: Buick Reatta or Cadillac Allanté?

#AOrB

#BuickReatta

#CadillacAllante

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

If you like this blog please tell your friends and share the blog URL (https://disaffectedmusings.com). Thanks.

Here are the dimensions (in inches) for the last production year of each car:

CAR	Wheelbase	Length	Width	Height
Buick Reatta (1991)	99	184	73	51
Cadillac Allanté (1993)	99	179	74	52

Random Musings

Please check out some or all of the following posts by Colin Windell in Colin on Cars:

Changing Laws Will Be Meaningless

Ghost With A Body

Oldies Come Out To Play

Big Data Getting Bigger

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I guess some cars are just deeply rooted in my brain, or what’s left of my brain. One of those is pictured below:

Yes, a picture of a Cadillac Allante. I am not so bad a photographer that I forgot to put more of the rear in the picture; I didn’t want to show the license plate.

My wonderful wife and I were in her beautiful 2018 Corvette convertible and just happened to see this car at a gas station. Here is another picture:

That’s the Pininfarina badge from just above the rocker panel. Pininfarina was Ferrari’s “coachbuilder” from the 1950s through 2017. I guess that provenance didn’t/doesn’t resonate with American car buyers. Pininfarina designed and built the Allante body.

As recounted in this blog before, the Allante was a bust. Cadillac/General Motors had hoped for annual production of 6,000-7,000 units per year. Whether or not that was a realistic goal, the Allante never came close to those expectations with total production of 21,430 cars in seven model years from 1987 to 1993. As quoted here, the late John Grettenberger, former Cadillac General Manager, offered reasons the Allante failed:

“We probably brought that car out a little quicker than we should have. The quality wasn’t at the level that Cadillac was historically known for. It was underpowered at the start…It wasn’t fast enough off the line and it didn’t have the top-end speed that we’d like. And it didn’t have an automatic top. Those that were designed by Pininfarina failed every durability test we put them through and it was too late in the program to bring that design responsibility back into Cadillac engineering. The car never did get an automatic top, which I think hurt it.”

From this article about the Allanté by Eric Peters:

“Then came 1993 and the major updates which might have saved the car – had they been effected back in 1987 or ’88. Chief among these was the installation of an all-new powerplant that was, at last, up to the car’s potential and promise. This was Cadillac’s excellent 4.6 liter/279 cubic inch DOHC Northstar V-8, rated at 295 hp. The addition of nearly 100 hp transformed the Allante into the exotic GT it might have been at the get-go. Zero to 60 times dropped by more than two full seconds to just over six seconds – while top speed climbed to nearly 150 mph. A revised suspension with speed sensitive steering, auto-adjusting road sensing ride control and upgraded brakes rounded out what had, at the 11th hour, finally become an impressive package. So impressive, in fact, that a mechanically stock 1993 Allante was able to serve as Pace Car for the Indy 500 race that year – with only the addition of track-required safety equipment differentiating it from a standard model. There was also a new power-assisted optional hardtop [my note: this somewhat contradicts Grettenberger], one-piece side windows and a new Delco-Bose premium audio system with high-frequency speakers. Most of the hideous quality control problems had been fixed, too.”

“But though it wasn’t too little – it was definitely too late. GM had already decided to euthanize the Allante. Even though sales of the ’93 model were by far the best to date – 4,670 were sold, despite a base price that had by then climbed to $61,675 – there would be no more Allantes after this final hurrah.”

With the hardtop in place I think the Allante is simply one of the best-looking cars ever made. One never fails to stop me in my tracks; I made my wonderful wife turn around so I could see the one pictured here up close.

It’s not a practical car and it’s not a performance monster, but I would love to have one.

I was going to write about Maserati bringing back the GranTurismo and showing a new car, the MC20, but that can wait for another day.

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