Cadillac
Luxury coupes where performance is not the main goal are just about extinct in 2025. Mercedes has the CLE Coupe, BMW has the 2 and 4-series, and Lexus has the RC. American brands don't have a single luxurious two-door at all. Gone are the days of the Chrysler Cordoba, Ford Thunderbird, and Cadillac Eldorado (the most iconic of them all). It's the ideal Cadillac of yesteryear. It was huge, flashy, incredibly comfortable, and could burn a set of tires if the desire struck it. But as American automakers moved away from coupes (and almost sedans in general), the Eldorado faded away into history with 2002 being the last model year.
But, with Cadillac experiencing a recent renaissance with EVs like the IQ and Celestiq and big V8-powered monsters like the CT5 Blackwing, is it time for the Eldorado to make a return? That question is a little easier asked than answered. Most automotive fans (yours truly included) would love to see a modern Eldorado with either an electric or gas-powered drivetrain, but would it make sense in today's climate? That needs some more digging.
An EV Eldorado
Cadillac
Before you can look at the boring business sense, let's hypothesize a bit as to what an Eldorado would look like for a 2025 or 2026 model year. As of now, most newly announced Caddys are electric, so an EV Eldorado (maybe called the EQ or something to keep with the naming convention) would at least follow a coherent logic. Using something like the Celestiq's motors and batteries wouldn't be too monumental of a task, and given a lot of Cadillac model's six-figure price tag, offering an extremely expensive coupe wouldn't raise any hackles among the buyer base.
Given the Celestiq's specs, it's certainly possible to have a 600+ horsepower two-door with 300 miles of range. Is that much power necessary? Probably not, and it might actually betray the Eldorado's original ethos of big power being more of a side-effect than the actual point of the car (after all, the old Eldorados did have giant V8s). A detuned EV drivetrain might be the ticket for a future Eldorado. However, the air ride suspension, magnetic ride control, and active aerodynamics that are present on the Celestiq and other EV Caddys are almost required if you want the most comfortable riding car this side of the Atlantic.
On the gasoline-powered end, the tried and true 6.2-liter V8 that currently sits in the engine bay of a number of different GM products would be a natural choice as the powerplant of a new Eldorado. But given the push towards electric cars and the general lack of true hybrids in GM's repertoire, a pure EV would be more likely in this fictional scenario.
It's not personal, it's business
Cadillac
Now for the bummer, it probably won't happen any time soon as it just doesn't make business sense for Cadillac or General Motors. As of late-2025, Cadillac is the only GM brand that sells sedans at all, and aside from the Corvette, GM doesn't sell a single two-door. Retooling or creating a new factory line to make a single two-door for a single brand wouldn't be super logical given the reality that Cadillac can make just as much money selling a bunch of Escalades. Additionally, General Motors could make even more money selling Silverados and Sierras until the heat-death of the universe.
As cool as it sounds, it's just not in the cards for the Eldorado to make a comeback. The current landscape just doesn't support it. The one glimmer of hope is that market trends can be fickle. The sentiment could shift to where it might be worth the time, money, and effort for GM to experiment with a new Eldorado. But right now, if you were to talk to any experts in the industry, it would be an uphill battle.
