The fate of the Boeing 747s that transported Cadillac Allantés as part of a $100,000,000 deal

Cadillac once decided the best way to build a luxury car was to fly it around the world.

Not as a finished car, either, but in pieces, stacked inside giant cargo planes.

The car was the Cadillac Allanté, and the planes were Boeing 747s crossing the Atlantic every week.

And while the Allanté didn’t last long in the end, the story of those planes turned out to be quite enthralling.

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The $100 million airbridge that made the Cadillac Allanté possible

In the 1980s, Cadillac wanted to prove it could still play with the world’s luxury brands. 

The Allanté was supposed to be that proof. 

It was sleek, expensive, and styled by Pininfarina, the same Italian design house that worked with Ferrari. 

That alone was a big deal for an American brand trying to look global again.

Instead of building the car entirely in the US, GM split the job in half. 

The Allanté’s body and interior were built in Italy, fully trimmed but missing the engine, suspension, and wheels. 

Once that part was done, the unfinished cars were loaded onto Boeing 747 cargo planes and flown to Detroit for final assembly.

This wasn’t cheap or simple. 

GM signed deals worth about $100 million with Alitalia and Lufthansa to keep the flights running. 

Inside the planes were custom-built aluminum racks that could hold up to 56 Allanté bodies at once. 

Add the 747’s hinged nose – which opens like a giant mouth – and suddenly loading half-built Cadillacs into a jet became possible.

The flights ran several times a week at first, then slowed as sales dropped. 

Some parts even flew back and forth across the ocean more than once before a single Allanté ever hit the road. 

And Cadillac openly promoted the flights, calling the process an ‘airbridge.’

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What happened to the Boeing 747s after the Allanté program ended?

When Cadillac’s Allanté project slowed down, the planes didn’t all vanish overnight.

Lufthansa was the first to walk away in 1988 as sales fell, leaving Alitalia as the main airline flying unfinished Cadillacs across the Atlantic.

The most important aircraft in the program was an Alitalia Boeing 747-243F.

It was the flagship of the entire airbridge and even appeared in Cadillac’s own marketing. 

After Alitalia retired it in the early 2000s, the jet was sold on to cargo operators and kept flying. 

Remarkably, that same plane is still in service today, now registered in Moldova as ER-BAR, hauling freight across Africa and Asia with its giant nose door still intact.

Not all of the Allanté planes were that lucky. 

Several Lufthansa-operated Boeing 747s that may have carried Cadillac bodies were sold to cargo airlines in the 2000s, then scrapped as they aged. 

A few ended up with Evergreen International Airlines in the US before being dismantled. 

One aircraft was destroyed after a runway accident in the Middle East. 

And others were simply taken apart once newer, more efficient cargo jets replaced them.

So while the Cadillac Allanté disappeared from showrooms decades ago, its flying factory lived on in the skies. 

With at least one of the Boeing 747s that once carried half-built luxury cars across the Atlantic still working today, long after the car that justified the journey faded into history.

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