Cadillac Is About to Sell a $300,000 Car. Can It Really Pull It Off?

Pebble Beach Car Week has come and gone. This year's festivities marked my 12th in a row, and the world's biggest automobile bash/gala/jubilee felt more lively and comprehensive than ever. I went as a guest of Cadillac, which was celebrating the brand's 120th birthday. Caddy showed off its Project GTP Hypercar, a stealth-fighter-esque concept that previews the upcoming third-generation prototype race car that will eventually contest the 2024 Le Mans 24 Hours. But the belle of Cadillac's current ball remains the Celestiq, the upcoming hand-built electric supersedan. How big a deal is this thing? GM CEO Mary Barra was at the Celestiq reveal party; I saw her with my own two eyes as I stuffed my maw with caviar-covered tater tots (fat and salt plus fat and salt is delicious—who knew?). Before the beef wellington and lobster were served, I got a long, hard look at the Celestiq and asked a whole mess of questions. Not to be one who bites the hand that feeds me foie gras, but I have some concerns.

Can Cadillac Really Sell $300K Cars?

First, though, it's important to consider whether the Cadillac brand is strong enough to support a $300,000 car. My take: Absolutely, yes. Even more so than Maybach, I feel Cadillac could compete on equal footing with Bentley and Rolls-Royce should GM ever choose to fully embrace that route. Yes, the Celestiq is being built to go toe to toe against both British brands' upcoming EV entrants. And in more ways than either Bentley or Rolls will ever publicly admit, the Escalade is a true competitor to both the Bentayga and Cullinan. I'll always remember former head of Rolls-Royce design Giles Taylor telling me the Cullinan had to be made much larger after American Rolls-Royce owners were shown a proposal and said something to the effect of, "You call that an SUV? I have an Escalade at the ranch that's three times as big!"

Obviously, the Celestiq's success is not a fait accompli. Everything can still go wrong. But for whatever reason, and aside from all the "Standard of the World" sloganeering, Americans simply have a soft spot in our hearts for great Cadillacs. But the XT4? Uh, no. It's a bad little thing our Buyer's Guide has ranked fifteenth in its segment. Fifteenth! Cadillac needs to make sure this sort of product is dead and buried by the time the Celestiq (pronounced "sell-EHS-tick," not "sell-ess-TEEK") shows up in 2024. And, hey, as a sign of good faith to those you're asking to plonk down three big bills, why not kill the XT4 now? "But they sell," I can hear someone all the way in Michigan saying back to me. As Dan Ammann, GM's former CFO, said when Cadillac briefly moved to New York City, "It's easy to look out your window in Detroit and think Cadillac's a success." A rising tide lifts all ships, while anchors do the opposite. If Cadillac wants the Celestiq to succeed, it has shed the dead weight.

It Needs to Be Truly Special and Bespoke

I raised the following several times at the Celestiq party: "I've been to Crewe. I've met the woman who takes 13 hours to hand-stitch every single Bentley steering wheel. And if a Bentley owner hasn't also been to Crewe and met her, they've seen the video. I've also met the guy at Goodwood who hand-paints every single pinstripe on every single Rolls-Royce. Do you have them? Have you hired these people?" I was not thrilled with the answers. I heard that, no, there's no one in-house right now to do those things on the production vehicle, but members of the design team are capable. Narrator's voice: No one on the design team will be doing anything like that on production Celestiqs. I kept pressing and heard a worse answer: The plan is to let items like this be handled by suppliers. Who, Johnson Controls? That's simply not an acceptable answer.

I'm not being snobbish for the sake of being snobbish. People who spent $300,000 on an automobile do so because they want to. It's an unneeded, wholly unnecessary luxury. You can't outsource the little things. You have to sweat 'em, which is why Bentley has a guy named Clive (or something similarly British) and his chisel handling the wood. To be fair to Cadillac, and seeing as how I received several different, uncoordinated answers, I don't think the brand has all the answers just yet. The car is still two years away from production. Everyone I spoke with did explain how the level of customization and individual personification will be tops in the industry. Have a guitar string that means something to you? Cadillac will incorporate it into the interior. Same goes for the guitar itself or Granny's dentures—whatever you desire. As one of those Americans with a soft spot in my heart for great Cadillacs, I want nothing more than for GM to get the Celestiq right. But you must at least rise to the level of the competition before you can beat them.

What About the Car?

I still can't figure out the design. The size is right—read: massive—but I neither love it nor hate it. I think that means I haven't gotten a great look at it yet. Yeah, there were the mediocre press photos, and I saw the car at night in a crowded party, but I still don't feel like I've really seen the thing. The front end is imposing but eyeless, like a blind shark. The hard side is different to the point that I'm not sure what to make of it. I see an Audi concept car mixed with SUX 6000 from Robocop. The rear glass needs a tint, and I'd love to see a Celestiq in a color other than gray. The rear end is the most successful part of the design to my eyes, but still there are angles—much like the new Nissan Z—that make me suddenly go, "Hmmm." I think the actual production version needs to be a grand slam knockout. Nothing should be able to be questioned.

The interior is commodious, a true four-throne luxury villa. Although, boy, it would have been cool to have seen a themed interior, one showing off the customization Cadillac kept bragging about. Caddy, I have one of Billie Joe Armstrong's guitar strings from a Green Day show in 1992 (before they sold out!) in a box somewhere if you need it. Speaking of cool, the interior felt a bit frore, like sitting in a robot's lap. Cadillac's design team kept stressing that, "Everything that looks like metal is metal." Indeed, but how about some leather and/or wood?

The most troubling thing about the interior is the massive screen that spans from one A-pillar to the other. Why's that a problem? Well, unless Cadillac has the software engineers on hand to make sure the screen is constantly filled with car-appropriate stuff, you're instead going to have a big, empty screen. That ain't world-class luxury. I asked if there's a way for the screen to go away, pointing out that in both Bentleys and Rolls-Royces there are ways to hit a switch and the screen is suddenly replaced or covered by wood. Cadillac's answer was no. But what if a customer doesn't want to see the screen? The key to cars like this is being able to answer yes, almost no matter the request.

Postscript

There was much sarcastic chatter about Cadillac's plan to fly customers to GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, when it's time to begin customizing the car. 'Thank you for your $300K, here's your ticket to Detroit.' And, 'where is Cadillac going to hotel these well-heeled customers, downtown at the Book Cadillac?' Mind you, these were dudes from Detroit making these cracks. I've always admired the Tech Center from afar—it's a mid-century architectural masterpiece—though I've never visited. I have been to Crewe and Goodwood, Maranello and Sant'Agata Bolognese, and Porsche's Exclusive Manufaktur showroom in Zuffenhausen, all places where people visit in order to customize cars at this price point. Making this sort of visit a positive one is vital. I think Cadillac's on the right track here.

The night after the Cadillac Celestiq party, I attended the annual Bentley Signature Party where Bentley's CEO Adrian Hallmark took the wraps off the brand's not very good-looking Batur. (It looks like it could be the 2028 Infiniti Q60.) Once inside the fabulous house on Pebble Beach's 17th fairway that Bentley rents year after year, I noticed the whole team from Crewe was dressed like dandies. Rule Britannia and all that, but my word, did the Bentley team look well tailored. Classy, high end, like the sort of people who might know a thing or two about selling you a $300,000 car. Team Cadillac? Far too many white T-shirts from multipacks worn under dress shirts. It's a Midwest thing, I get it, but come on.

But let's back up, all the way to the night before the Celestiq party. That evening, I attended the Land Rover party where we were shown the Range Rover Carmel Edition. It's going to be the rarest Range Rover ever built, limited to just 17 units (one for each mile of 17-Mile Drive), has a pretty nifty interior, and stickers for $345,000. Yes, I spit my champagne out when the price was revealed. However, Joe Eberhardt, the CEO of Jaguar Land Rover, did mention that the only people being invited to purchase a Carmel Edition were standing right there. I heard the car sold out later that weekend. Perhaps that means $345,000 ain't what it used to be. Maybe Cadillac knows exactly what it's doing. Check back here in 2024.