Detroit Auto Show: First Look At The Ultra-Luxury 'Cadillac Sixteen'

GM'S Bob Lutz: 'This Car Will Show The World
                 That We Simply Take A Back Seat To No One.'

    NEW YORK, Jan. 5, 2003; In an exclusive preview, Newsweek gets
the first look at General Motor's latest creation, dubbed the Cadillac
Sixteen, maverick Bob Lutz's boldest bid yet to make Detroit iron hot again.
Detroit Bureau Chief Keith Naughton reports on the $250,000 Cadillac made
entirely of aluminum, with a steroidal 1,000 horsepower, V-16 engine and
profiles Lutz, GM's vice chairman and chief of product development in the
January 13 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, January 6).
    While it is only a design concept for now, the car will become a reality
if Lutz gets his way. Outfitted with silk carpets, a crystal Bulgari clock,
smoked-glass roof and a chilled champagne compartment, the Sixteen is a homage
to the elegant Caddys of the 1930s that served as chariots for presidents,
Hollywood stars and gangsters. But that mammoth engine beneath its gull-winged
hood -- the first V-16 Detroit has churned out in 62 years -- makes it
something new: a luxury muscle car, meant to be driven, not driven in.  Lutz
boasts, "This car will show the world that we simply will take a back seat to
no one."
    Newsweek exclusively tracked the car's development over the past year,
interviewing dozens of execs, designers and technicians inside GM's top-secret
studios and watching as Lutz's classic sensibilities and the Cadillac's cubist
style collide.  After hundreds of sketches and a tense "patio shoot-out,"
Lutz, decides on a Detroit design with classic lines and a modern edge which
would cost GM close to $1 billion to put into production.  Lutz, now in his
second year overhauling GM's new-model machinery, wants to prove that the
world's largest automaker can once again build the world's best car, and
Newsweek has learned that Lutz's contract will be extended beyond the three
years he signed on for.  Lutz aims to end Detroit's inferiority complex.
"Everybody is tired of taking crap," Lutz says in his smoky rasp.