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Cadillac sold a Corvette-based roadster with a folding metal roof, a head-up display and a $75,000 sticker, and most people have already forgotten it. This 2005 Cadillac XLR on Bring a Trailer has 18,000 miles, is offered at no reserve, and sits at $12,000 as of this writing. The auction ends Monday, November 2, at 3:59 p.m. ET.
What the XLR Actually Was
The XLR was Cadillac's answer to the Mercedes-Benz SL, and it arrived for the 2004 model year as the spiritual successor to the troubled Allanté. If that earlier flop is new to you, here is why the Allanté failed. Instead of importing bodies from Italy, GM built the XLR in Bowling Green, Kentucky, at a dedicated station next to the Corvette line. It shared its basic structure with the C6 Corvette, including the hydroformed steel rails and composite body, while the engine tune, interior, suspension settings and bodywork were unique to Cadillac.
The party trick was the power-retractable hardtop. Built by Magna from aluminum and magnesium, it folded away in under 30 seconds, at the cost of most of the trunk. Under the hood was the 4.6-liter Northstar V8, rated at 320 horsepower and 310 lb-ft in standard form. For 2006 Cadillac added the supercharged XLR-V with 443 horsepower. We took a look at the XLR as Cadillac's turnaround sports car back when the idea still felt hopeful.
Why It Disappeared
The numbers tell the story. Roughly 3,700 XLRs sold in the U.S. in both 2004 and 2005, then sales fell every year after that, to about 1,750 in 2007 and 787 in 2009. Production ended on March 31, 2009, with 15,460 built in total. My read is that it got squeezed from several sides. It launched at about $75,000, which put it against the Mercedes SL and the Lexus SC 430 at a time when Cadillac's badge still couldn't command that money, and the Corvette it was built next to cost far less and was faster. Then came the financial crisis and GM's restructuring, which made a low-volume, niche roadster an easy cut. Cadillac has a long history of this kind of bold, short-lived swing, and the hand-built Blackwing sedan we covered recently is a more recent example.
The result is a car that most people simply stopped seeing. Depreciation hit XLRs hard, and plenty of them ended up as cheap daily drivers. A low-mile example is much harder to find than the production numbers suggest.
About This One
This XLR has been driven 18,000 miles by two registered owners, and the first kept it for a total of 19 years. It's finished in Satin Nickel over Shale leather and has the five-speed automatic, Magnetic Ride Control, 18-inch seven-spoke alloy wheels, quad polished exhaust finishers and adaptive xenon headlights. Inside are heated and cooled power seats with driver memory, a Bose stereo with a six-disc changer, navigation, Keyless Access with push-button start, adaptive cruise control and the head-up display. Behind the wheel are Bulgari-branded gauges, a bit of Cadillac luxury theater that was very early-2000s in the best way.
It comes with the owner's manual, a clean Carfax report and a clean Florida title. The seller notes some blemishes and shows them in the photo gallery, so look through those before bidding. The selling dealer is in Hilton, New York, and the car is offered at no reserve, so someone is going to take it home. The full listing is on BaT, and the auction closes Monday afternoon.
