Article content First, the news: up from earlier estimates of $400,000 to $500k, the 2025 Cadillac Celestiq is now set to sticker from between $500,000 to $600,000. That’s no longer just a Rolls-Royce Ghost, but a full-on Phantom. That’s double a Merc-Maybach S, quadruple a BMW i7.
That sort of spend better come with a cure for some sort of personal dysfunction, just for good measure. Now priced past a half-million, this long-delayed Cadillac flagship is inserting itself into a league that even the Germans haven’t dared touch. What are the expectations, then? Is it still relevant after such delays? And, most importantly, is the Celestiq a credible top-tier product? General Motors has toyed with the idea of a limited-production luxury halo for generations, but institutional will and economic conditions never quite aligned.
Audiences flocked to the Sixteen show car back in 2003, for instance, a thousand-horsepower exercise which GM toured so extensively that the concept now bears more scuffs and scars than most any demonstrator of its type. The Sixteen was never truly primed for production, but feasible or not, Cadillac had some lofty ideas — and it wanted people to see them. Spendy fantasies paused through the bailout years, but high-luxe aspirations picked up once more in the twin Ciel and Elmiraj concepts — right as Cadillac was digging itself further downmarket to capitalize on the Mary-Kay bracket.
Nine years after Elmiraj, though, Cadillac rallied with the 2022 .
