Now then Cadillac was funded and free to create cars like Celestiq (potentially) worthy of the brand’s heyday, it’s (likely) fitting for an icon of that golden age to return. The luxury carmaker announced it would bring back the Flying Goddess hood ornament created in 1929 to its V16 models like the 1930 Sport. Phaeton. Cadillac today gave GM Design sculptor Richard Wiquist took on the job of hand-sculpting a new Goddess for Celestiq, symbolizing the brand’s legacy and craftsmanship embodied in the $300,000 electric car, and that’s it. , in posture as well as metaphor, will indicate the way forward.
This move is the next step in the return of the Goddess, in fact, the designers have placed her image on the infotainment dial of the Model Escala 2016. A few years ago, Cadillac said the layout “provides a glimpse into the future of Cadillac’s infotainment system.”
The short plot is that in the 1920s, hood ornaments started to become a must-have for luxury carand they became standardized symbols of brand identity in the 1930s. British sculptor Charles Sykes sculpted Rolls-Royce’s Spirt of Ecstasy in 1911. British painter F. Gordon Crosby created the second Flying B that would become the Bentley standard after first appearing on 1930 8 Liters, as well as Jaguar Leaper made its debut in 1938. In the GM subsidiary, which created the carmaker’s brightest work at the time, sculptor William Schnell created the Flying Goddess to represent for “a spirit of unsurpassed agility and strength, coupled with perfect grace and balance.”
Cadillac has made her an option on its V8, V12 and V16 cars. Two other sculptors in the same subsidiary perfected her look in 1933. Cadillac put her on V16 models in 1934, then 8- and 12-cylinder cars. She remained a fixture in a few more developments until 1956. Her last appearance was on 1959 Eldorado Brougham She wears a Pininfarina bodywork, but she is so stylized that she could be mistaken for a bird or abstract artwork.
Wiquist has based its version for the Celestiq from the 1933 model dedicated to the Cadillac Sixteens. She will appear in three locations on the car, starting with her image above the words “Handmade in Detroit” on a polished billet aluminum plate encased in glass on the front panel. A Glow Goddess icon appears above the charging port. And as previewed by Escala, she reappears inside the infotainment dial, which is backlit and always points to the right no matter which direction the knob is turned. No, she won’t appear at the front of the hood, but we have a feeling it’s only a matter of time before Cadillac corrects that omission.
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