Being really, really rich isn’t the only prerequisite for the chance to purchase a Cadillac Celestiq—the brand’s new hand-built $340K-plus electric flagship. Prospective customers also have to be vetted before they get the green light to buy one of these super-low-volume rolling sculptures. Getting on the Celestiq’s exclusive waiting list is just the beginning of a commissioned build process that’s more like what ultra-wealthy Rolls-Royce owners expect than anything a Cadillac customer has ever seen.
To see how the other half lives, and—more important—to get an inside look at how a bespoke Celestiq is built, we were invited to visit Cadillac House at Vanderbilt. The original building was designed by architect Eero Saarinen but is now named after Sue Vanderbilt, a pioneer designer at General Motors who penned famous Caddys like the 1958 Eldorado Seville coupe “Baroness” and the Saxony convertible during a career that spanned from 1955 until she retired in 1977. The glass-walled Cadillac House is prominently situated on GM’s Global Technical Center campus in Warren, Michigan.
Getting Hosted at Cadillac House
Celestiq customers start out answering preliminary questions that help the design team better understand who the buyer is, which obviously plays an important role in learning that person’s sense of style. That initial process is done virtually, and the rest of the highly personalized experience can be too, if the customer so chooses. But for those who want to make the trip to Cadillac House, they get to work hand in glove with an expert concierge.
Cadillac first started hosting clients at Cadillac House around the end of summer 2023. We visited this past April, and when we arrived, we were greeted by a friendly concierge. The first thing you see when you walk inside the airy midcentury building is a shiny sculptural wall (pictured above) that was originally designed in the ’50s by Detroit-based artist Harry Bertoia. We were then led up to a stepped floor where we came face-to-face with a Celestiq shimmering in Infrared paint.
With Celestiq chief engineer Tony Roma and design chief Erin Crossley among those tagging along during our tour, they reminded us of the EV’s journey from an ambitious concept back in mid-2022 to the production version’s reveal last fall. Recall that the Celestiq was pitched as one of the most important Cadillacs in the brand’s 120-year history, with the goal of reconnecting with its heritage (remember the Standard of the World slogan?), reboot its image, and be the flagship of a brand that plans to be entirely electric by 2030.
In a nutshell, the Celestiq is a battery-electric avant-garde four-passenger hatchback that’s built by hand and tailor-made for individual customers. It also features a unique platform based on General Motors’ Ultium battery technology, with dual electric motors that provide all-wheel drive as well as 600 horsepower and 640 pound-feet of torque. Cadillac estimates a full charge will take the Celestiq about 300 miles. Now back to the build process.
Customizing the Celestiq
When it comes to personalizing the Celestiq, it’s really about how far down the rabbit hole you want to go. Cadillac has mastered 200 exterior colors, but the paint choices are infinite, as the company will color-match anything. And we mean anything. Want your Celestiq to match the Honolulu Blue worn by the Detroit Lions? Done. Have a classic car with a discontinued paint job that one of your grandparents used to own? Just get the Cadillac design team a sample and voilà, you’ll be turning heads and honoring your loved one.
The interior upholstery options are equally endless. But, again, any material you want, you can have. There’s even an option for leather-wrapped flooring, because why wouldn’t there be? Cadillac told us that one customer put together their Celestiq in around 30 minutes, while others have taken much longer. An unnamed professional athlete had their number engraved throughout the car. The cast-aluminum piece on the dash, in particular, allows for custom engraving. The metal elements on the doorsill and the edges of the floor mats are other areas ripe for customizing.
As you might imagine, Celestiq customers who visit Cadillac House in person are treated like kings and queens, receiving a very personalized experience that’s intended to be more of a social hour than the traditional business transactions that happen daily at dealerships. Along with the concierge guiding them through the build process, customers have access to a Cadillac designer and other exclusive services. Most sessions are said to take between two and three hours.
The building itself, which was previously a campus cafeteria, has an open floor plan with a lounge area on one end and an area to pore over the myriad paint and upholstery options on the other. A wall with various sections opens to reveal an array of samples, making the experience feel even more theatrical. And on the other side of the wall is a space with sewing machines and other tools that can be used to create customer samples on demand.
When the entire process is completed, customers will have their very own one-of-a-kind Celestiq. Not only will no two models be the same, but the odds are high that two won’t be in the same place at the same time. While production won’t be capped, volume will be extremely low. For comparison, Cadillac claims Rolls-Royce Ghost production is 10 times greater than that of the Celestiq. We’re told U.S. volume is expected to be between one to two per day, with those cars built by hand just down the road at the Artisan Center.
Touring the Artisan Center
Among the many things that make the Cadillac Celestiq special is that every example is hand-built at the Artisan Center, also located on the Tech Center campus. The secure building is where GM used to build show cars and prototypes, and now the Celestiq is the first production model assembled there. Inside, the controlled environment is designed to keep out dust and other airborne particles to keep the space as clean as possible.
The workers who assemble the Celestiq from the ground up are hand-picked after completing a four-year apprenticeship program. Cadillac says 15 people currently build the cars, with 10 people working on the line that has up six cars at any time. There are seven stations, and every car spends about four hours at each. The Artisan Center is capable of churning out about 400 Celestiqs per year.
As for the cars themselves, Cadillac employs a distinct manufacturing process to build each one. With the biggest sandcasting 3-D printers in the world, the company uses a low-pressure procedure to form the six mega-size aluminum castings that together make up the Celestiq’s underbody. The front piece alone is said to require 24 hours of machining work that takes 120 different tools.
The Celestiq has more than 300 fabricated parts that also forgo traditional stamping techniques. A crazy amount of pieces are created with 3-D printing too, such as the Caddy’s steering-wheel trim and other interior bits (115 such parts in total). The Celestiq’s meticulous paint process is said to take more than two weeks to complete. During the development process, Cadillac said it had to tune the alignment of particles in the paint to avoid interfering with the car’s radar-powered driver assists.
The Celestiq shows that Cadillac spared no expense designing a car that truly encapsulates its old slogan. While we can’t say that it has singlehandedly restored the brand’s status as the Standard of the World, it’s evidence that the company can build something that’s truly desirable to some of the world’s wealthiest people. You have to go way back to the last time anyone said that about a Cadillac, proving the Celestiq is a step in the right direction.
Eric Stafford’s automobile addiction began before he could walk, and it has fueled his passion to write news, reviews, and more for Car and Driver since 2016. His aspiration growing up was to become a millionaire with a Jay Leno–like car collection. Apparently, getting rich is harder than social-media influencers make it seem, so he avoided financial success entirely to become an automotive journalist and drive new cars for a living. After earning a journalism degree at Central Michigan University and working at a daily newspaper, the years of basically burning money on failed project cars and lemon-flavored jalopies finally paid off when Car and Driver hired him. His garage currently includes a 2010 Acura RDX, a manual ’97 Chevy Camaro Z/28, and a ’90 Honda CRX Si.