[Auto-Moto] 2025 Cadillac Celestiq, a Dramatic EV Flagship, Is a Bid to Return to Standard of the World Turf

[Jeenyuhs]

 

• The Cadillac Celestiq concept has been unveiled as a dramatically styled hatchback sedan with futuristic lines and features, yet full of nods to the brand's history.
• An all-wheel-drive electric powertrain will be standard; it uses General Motors' Ultium battery technology.
• The production Celestiq will be built—by hand—in limited quantities at GM's Warren, Michigan, Technical Center, and buyers will be able to customize the car any way they like.

 

The Cadillac Celestiq concept has been unveiled as a dramatically styled hatchback sedan with futuristic lines and features, yet full of nods to the brand's history.
An all-wheel-drive electric powertrain will be standard; it uses General Motors' Ultium battery technology.
The production Celestiq will be built—by hand—in limited quantities at GM's Warren, Michigan, Technical Center, and buyers will be able to customize the car any way they like.

 

 

But the Celestiq is not a mass-market sedan in the vein of the now discontinued CT6. Nor is it a merely a generously equipped EV meant to challenge the Lucid Air or the Mercedes-Benz EQS—although it is that, too. Cadillac is taking a page from the Rolls-Royce playbook and will employ a small team of craftspeople to hand-build each Celestiq onsite at GM's Global Technical Center in Warren, Michigan.

This isn't going to be the first hand-built Cadillac, but the Celestiq will be the first production vehicle built on the company's engineering and design campus since the property was built in 1956. GM says it's investing $81 million to retrofit a low-volume assembly line for the Celestiq inside an existing building on the campus grounds.

The production version of the Celestiq is expected to debut as a 2025 model. It is a pleasant surprise that, according to Cadillac, the concept you see here is essentially production intent.

 

Modern Design with Vintage Roots
Cadillac's designers and engineers chose to mold the Celestiq into a four-door sedan rather than an SUV, a deliberate decision that underscores the car's retro-future motif. Throughout the design you'll find a number of clues to Cadillac's past, including an image of the brand's Flying Goddess hood ornament from the 1940s carved into frosted glass trim on the car's front quarter-panels.

 

The Celestiq's long hood, sloping roof, and hatchback-style rear end give it a sleek silhouette, and although it shares some design themes with the Lyriq SUV—namely the grille and hockey-stick-shaped taillamps—it manages to look completely original. The two Cadillac EVs were penned by the same designer, Magalie Debellis, who told Car and Driver that the first version of the Celestiq's design was striking enough to cause GM leadership to fall in love with the car.

Perhaps it was the emotional connection that helped get the Celestiq greenlit as Cadillac's next flagship sedan, but it took a team effort to pull it off.

"It helps the entire company and engineering to work collaboratively with design to really make the car become a true story," Debellis said.

 

 

"CarandDriver"