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Cadillac Shelves Plans For a 12-Cylinder Super Sedan

Cadillac hasn’t built a V12 sedan since 1937, but back then they were the "standard of the world". Well it looks like the plans to bring Cadillac back to its prestige have been ground to a halt. Cadillac had been toying with the idea of a V12 flagship sedan for quite some time now, but gas prices and the general direction in which Cadillac is going rules out such an extravagant vehicle.

Instead, Cadillac planners are focusing on developing a single high-end model to replace both the front-wheel-drive DTS and rear-wheel-drive STS. Both sedans kind of occupied the same consumer space and they sort of competed against each other on the showroom.

The new sedan is known internally as DT7, using a new stereotypical alphanumeric naming system that Cadillac is considering for its future production vehicles. While names like Seville and Deville will never die, it seems Cadillac wants to distance itself from that image. Cadillac last built 12-cylinder cars in the 1930’s, but it displayed an experimental 750-horsepower, 7.5-liter Northstar-based V12 in the 2002 Cadillac Cien concept car. That 7.5-liter, 750-hp engine featured direct-injection and displacement on demand, both very new and advanced technologies in 2002. It seems for now though, that’s where Cadillac’s V12’s are staying, in the past.

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This 7.5-liter monster packed technology ahead of its time.