Art and Science Dead? Cadillac Design Concept Will Debut Wearing Curves In Monterey

Cadillac will introduce a new design concept this coming Thursday during California’s Monterey Car Week.

At 10:45 p.m. EST on Thursday, August 18, Cadillac will debut a car the company says, “will feature an array of curved OLED screens, co-developed with LG Electronics.”

Cadillac has stayed relatively true to the edgy themes of 1999’s Evoq Concept for nearly two decades. But that theme, Paul Snyder, chair of the Transportation Design Department at Detroit’s College for Creative Studies, told Automotive News last January, has softened. “It’s gotten more artistic and less scientific,” Snyder says.

Could the curved OLED screens Cadillac describes in the company’s 65-word press release portend a new design direction for Cadillac? There’s no time like the present.

Once the standard of the world, Cadillac is now suffering from declining sales in its home market. Globally, Cadillac sales declined 1.5 percent to fewer than 130,000 units through the first-half of 2016 as the company’s transition from its SRX best seller into the new XT5 impaired growth. (Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Lexus all sold more than 150,000 new vehicles during the same period in the United States alone.)

When asked for further detail on the Monterey concept’s design direction and stature, Cadillac responded with a no. “We’ll have full information following the reveal on Thursday,” Cadillac’s product and technology spokesperson, Donny Nordlicht, told TTAC.

Cadillac’s Nordlicht did confirm, however, that the automaker will introduce the Monterey design concept at a private event before it’s put on display all weekend long.

Cadillac has not introduced a concept since it revealed the Elmiraj three years ago.

This year’s Cadillac event can be streamed at Facebook.com/Cadillac on Thursday night. Cadillac’s video preview is viewable below.