1991 Cadillac Allante

GAA, Greensboro, North Carolina 25-27 July

NEXT MONTH is Pebble Beach month, where everything from hotels to mixed drinks and the cars on offer is frighteningly expensive. So, this month, let’s celebrate summer with cheap convertibles.

The Allante was meant to be Cadillac’s answer to the Mercedes SL. To say it didn’t work out well for GM is an understatement.

The Allante was not wholly from Detroit, because Pininfarina in Italy built the bodies. Cadillac had worked with the Italian design house before, notably in 1959 and 1960 when 201 cars resulted. This time around the bodies were shipped by the ‘Allante air bridge’, specially equipped Boeing 747s flying between Turin and Detroit.

In 1987, the first year of production, Cadillac offered original buyers a guarantee that the Allante, priced at a huge $54,700 (a base Eldorado was just shy of $24,000) would not depreciate faster than a comparable Mercedes SL. Needless to say, General Motors wound up writing more than a few cheques.

The lofty sales goal of 8000 units a year proved to be a mirage as leaky hardtops, faulty electronics and other ills plagued the cars, and buyers complained of a lack of power from the 4.5-litre V8. In 1993, the final year of production, GM offered the Northstar V8 but it was too little, too late.

But to be overpriced and a sales failure when new can often stoke interest from collectors as time goes by. We might not live long enough to see it, but an Allante will surely grace the fairway of a toptier concours some day. Meanwhile, at just $3025 this 80,000-miler might prove a shrewd punt.

Dave Kinney is an auction analyst, an expert on the US market scene and publishes the Hagerty Price Guide.