The Allante, introduced in 1987, was Cadillac’s first two-seat automobile in more than 50 years. As a V8-powered roadster, it was designed to compete with similar European offerings and had its bodies designed and produced by Pininfarina in Italy (with final assembly in the U.S. This 1993 edition is from its last model year and sports the Northstar engine, the only time it would be offered in the Allante. We appreciate this tip from Barn Finder PRA4SNW .
Under the Allante was a modified Eldorado chassis and the car employed front-wheel drive like the Eldo. The decision to outsource part of the production abroad ruffled some feathers within Cadillac, but they went on to build more than 21,000 copies in seven years, nearly 5,000 in the final year which was also their best. We understand the car’s name resulted from a computer-generated algorithm that came up with 1,700 choices. The 1993 Allante was chosen to be the festival/pace car for the Indianapolis 500.
This was an expensive car for the day at $60,000 plus a gas guzzler tax. The seller provides little information about this Caddy, just telling us it’s had two owners, covered 84,000 miles, and runs great. The paint looks to be a dark green with a black top and a tan leather interior. We don’t know how desirable these Cadillacs are after more than 30 years, but this one can be had for $5,000 in Douglasville, Georgia, and here on Facebook Marketplace.
Always found Allante to be CADILLACKING. The North STAR makes it even less a Standard of the WORLD! 👎
I bought a 93 for it’s NS engine and it was a FWD rocket.
The downside, FWD.
Also…once these start breaking down, no one knows how to fix them and blamed Pininfarina for many maladies.
It was the most expensive American car in 1993 and won a M/T challenge against MB and Jag.
Nowadays they can be bought for peanuts.
I owned a 91, I enjoyed the car but once the car needed servicing & parts, it had to go, there are many Allante only parts on the car & nothing is inexpensive, I loved it & I hated it, but I was fortunate enough to sell it for what I had in it. One question for the seller, where is the hard top, without that, this is gonna be a hard sell, XLR’s are selling for just a bit more these days!
Show me a XLR for around $5000.
Notgonnahappen.
You will need deep pockets for this one. They were a maintenance nightmare when new. The convertible top never pulled down correctly. Just look at the picture of this one. And where is the hardtop? Caddy had a special stand for them when not in use. Allantes were great looking and fast though.
The hardtop was an option. Not all 93s came with one. The VINs are different for cars that came with the hardtop.
Fun factoid. The 1993 Allante was pace car for the 1992 Indy 500. That’s not a typo. Cadillac wanted to showcase the Northstar and production of the 1993 cars started in April 1992 to qualify for pacing the 92 500.
Thanks for the info. But Allante doesn’t set the Pace for me or apparently others posting! Fondly recall 56 DeSoto PACESETTER!
I have always thought these looked great, and did want one for a while, but read too much about the various problems of owning one so never got one. I still like the look though. They started out with a foreign engine, can’t remember which one, then made the NS engine available which has now become a negative for them. Undesirable engines and front wheel drive definitely make it a no for me. Maybe that comment that we see so often “put an LS in it” is appropriate here.
No foreign engines here. These started out with the Cadillac HT-4100, then upgraded to the 4.5L version of the same for ’89-92, then the final model year ’93 got the Northstar.
Makes me wonder if you got the powertrain out of a 5.3 FWD Impala, would it fit?
Have the same car, color as well. The wheels on this are aftermarket, but so what. Not all Northstars were bad, the first ones, ’93, ’94, and the last ones, were better than those built in the middle, which have givenn them all a bad rep. These are a very inexpensive way into the hobby, mine has 135,000 miles, runs like a champ, biggest issue is wind noise, top down, top up, hardtop on, wife will not ride in it. Plenty of power and goes around corners like on rails, fancy rear suspension which still works. There are three good sources for Allante only parts, one in NJ, one in San Diego, one in FL, mechancially, and seats, are standard Caddy for the most part, and avialable through the big auto parts retailers. Just put a new ECM in mine, solved the shifting issue (it wanted to go into limp home at random times), $139.00. Price, unfortuneatly, is right, they do not command the big bucks.
If that isn’t a bargain for $5000 I don’t know what is? Yes you can rag on it for its history, but that won’t change anything. Why not show a little compassion and give it a good home, for awhile.
I’ve owned two of these 93s, both in this same Polo Green. One with an analog dash, one digital. The first one succumbed to an accident on an icy road. The second was parked after numerous electrical and electronics problems cropped up at 150K miles. Great looking car, fun to drive, but unfortunately wrong wheel drive. I’ve had no problems with the Northstar or 4T80E trans.
I succumbed to the low price and bought a really clean one. I thought it was great until the first time I took it in for a repair. It was clear what a mistake I made. There is no such thing as a minor oil leak on a Northstar engine! Unloaded it for even less than what I paid.
I’ve always liked these too, but I prefer two door drop tops. Color combo is perfect.
This one is a bit ragged around the edges, and no hardtop. I would wait and pay a few more $$ for one with a better history.
One thing you can count on for sure. No matter a cars or model if it’s pulled from the front and not driven from the rear. 1. It didn’t finish in the top 10 of any slalom comparison test. 2. You can’t never call one a true sports cars and 3. They’ll only be worth peanuts years later regardless of how nice they are. Maybe that’s why none of your top European auto makers never used the platform on any of their luxury or performance cars and that’s the reason a car like this Allante will never be worth more than peanuts. The Northstar engine didn’t help either but what about others that had better engines? No cars were meant to be driven from the rear no front. BMW, Mercedes, and all the others premium Auto makers knew.
Cars were meant to be driven from the rear and not front regardless of the benefits something BMW, Mercedes, Audi and other premium auto makers knew and accepted decades ago. Toyota has a way of making anything work but this fact holds true. The big three curse some fine automobiles with the fwd car.