Thursday, December 10, 2020

1989 Cadillac Solitaire Concept

Cadlillac's 1989 Solitaire concept car was essentially a coupé version of its 1988 Voyage sedan concept.  Some background on the Solitaire is here.

Of the two, I found the Voyage a better, more interesting design and wrote about it here.  Unlike the Voyage, the Solitaire had no impact of the styling of future GM production cars.

All images below are from General Motors.  Some are of the Voyage for comparison purposes.

Gallery

Front quarter Solitaire view.  The below-the-beltline part of the car as seen here is generally similar to the Voyage, though details such as front lights and hood shaping vary.

This aspect of the car is quite different from the Voyage.  The beveled trunk is an interesting touch.  But storage capacity was thereby reduced, and that might have affected sales had the Solitaire entered production.

It's difficult to see in these images, but for some reason there is a see-through panel along the upper edge of the door but on the roof above the roll-down window.  I find no functional or aesthetic reason for that detail.

Behind the B-pillar is a wraparound rear window (backlight) whose lower edge is slightly raised above the belt line.  This odd touch and the adjoining greenhouse profiling seem at odds with most of the rest of the design because there is no sleekness.  In fact, this area strikes me as being rather dumpy.  Worse, the rounded shaping of the rear fender and forward part of the trunk echo this despite a touch of sharp sculpting. 

A sharper view, perhaps of a styling model.

For comparison, the Voyage seen from a high front quarter perspective.

High rear quarter Voyage view.

The Voyage in profile.

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