Celestiq Ascendant: Cadillac’s Design Boss on Redefining Ultra-Luxury
Cadillac today is not the brand it was 15 or 20 years ago, it’s so much better. The famous American marque is back to making cars that turn heads. In its showrooms, you’ll find a range of highly-rated combustion-engine cars alongside an all-new EV lineup. And, to top it all off, Cadillac now has its sights set (once again) on the ultra-luxury market, taking aim at the likes of Rolls-Royce and Bentley with the wildly ambitious $495,000 Celestiq.
One of the people spearheading Cadillac’s ascension is the company’s design director, Erin Crossley, whose 25-year career has witnessed the brand’s remarkable evolution. We recently sat down with Crossley to discuss how Cadillac has pulled off this coup, defining luxury that goes beyond leather, finding mid-century inspiration, and the one car she regrets selling.
The Celestiq is a big leap for Cadillac. Playing against the likes of Rolls-Royce and Bentley, it’s ambitious. How is the brand going to pull that off?
I think we can pull that off. It’s about paying attention to all the details. A vehicle like Celestiq is made possible because it’s got the passion of the entire company behind it. So all disciplines, all levels, all areas of the company are really passionate about making it work.
From a brand perspective, we have all the cutting-edge technology. We have an incredible artisan centre for the hand-craftsmanship, and it’s bringing all of those pieces together. And it’s not rushing it as well. The amount of time it takes to engineer and refine the processes, to actually build something like the Celestiq is just different. It’s a lot of hands-on. It’s not fast. It’s just putting in the work.
Some of it is creating and committing to a family resemblance for Cadillac. It’s committing to the vision, committing to this face for the brand. Now that we’ve rolled out Optiq, IQ, Vistiq — it’s really incredible to see it in its entirety.
With a vehicle like Celestiq, it’s not being afraid — no matter where you are in the time frame — to look at something and say, ‘You know what? We can make this even better.’ That’s been the beauty of this project.
When did the Celestiq project actually start?
I think the original sketch was 2018. So it’s been a long time coming.
“We would go to small car shows, and being somebody who was into art and design, they were always really interesting art forms to me, and I love all the detail in them. I just always loved the art of the automobile.”
Erin Crossley
As a designer, doing a car like the Celestiq must be a dream, right? Money is no object; just make something great.
The fun part as a designer is that opportunity to look for the ceiling. Is there one? The Celestiq is $495,000 in Canada, but it depends. With options, that pushes up. It’s fully customizable, so the price is really depending on what you want to do with it.
What kinds of opportunities does that open up for you as a designer? You mentioned 3D printing. Any other new materials or technologies?
We’re looking a lot at different sustainable materials as well, like unique synthetic materials. In the Soleil concept vehicle, we feature a material that’s made from mycelium fibre. It’s basically grown, a material that looks and behaves a lot like leather, but you have a little bit more control over appearance because you’re creating it.
Are many luxury buyers looking for leather alternatives?
Leather will always, I think, feel like a luxury material, at least for the foreseeable. But there’s this quest to find the new luxury material. There’s a lot of exploration into textiles and fabrics. We’re seeing that more; we do offer textile on a lot of the Cadillac lineup. Textiles were really big in Cadillacs in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and they were considered really luxurious materials.
The thing that makes these new textiles and fabric work so well with Cadillac is because, from a design perspective, from a form perspective, Cadillac’s forms are minimalistic by design. So, we can really turn up the dial with these unique materials, these unique executions, and really make that a big part of the design statement.
Before becoming the design boss at Cadillac, you began your career as a materials, colour and trim designer. I’m betting not many people even know that’s a job, so how did you get into it?
I went to art school, Syracuse University — a visual and performing arts school — and actually studied surface pattern design, which has absolutely nothing to do with automotive. I started off in industrial design because I wanted to go into automotive, but I just didn’t care for the class. I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing in school. But my roommate was doing surface pattern design and I switched into that, just thinking I’ll figure it all out later.
GM came to interview at the school, and I figured, well, what have I got to lose? So I went and interviewed with them, and they’re the ones that actually looked at my portfolio and were like, ‘Oh, have you ever heard of colour and trim design?’ which I hadn’t. I don’t think anybody had. I don’t think many people know about it. Everything fell into place, kind of by luck, by chance, and I ended up joining GM. Right after I graduated, I moved to Warren, Michigan, and started in the colour and trim department at Cadillac. That’s about 25 years ago.
“We talk a lot about Cadillac and GM design overall being rooted in mid-century modern art. Cadillac design pulls a lot from those mid-century fundamentals of the very clean line, simplistic forms.”
Erin Crossley
What sparked your interest in cars?
I just always really loved cars. My parents are really into cars. My mom had a 1974 Corvette and ’73 Chevy Caprice convertible. And, like, just fun cars. And that gave me an appreciation for cars. We would go to small car shows, and being somebody who was into art and design, they were always really interesting art forms to me, and I love all the detail in them. I just always loved the art of the automobile.
If you’re building a car collection, what’s in it? What were are the machines that inspire you?
When I think of cars that I’ve had, if I could re-buy one of them, it would be the Mazda RX-8. That was cool. I loved that car. It was my favourite colour combination, which is a dark grey exterior with a saddle brown interior, manual transmission. I waited like nine months for that car to come from Japan.
I also love the really old cars you see at a Concours, because the attention to detail is just… You can see the craftsmanship. It’s kind of like looking at a house that was built in the ‘30s and ‘40s that are still standing today, versus the ones that they knocked out in the ‘80s and ‘90s in those subdivisions. One has this deeper beauty to it because of how it was crafted, how it was created.
That’s one of the things that I have loved working on Celestiq, getting to pay attention to all those details and areas of the vehicle that a lot of cars don’t; they just kind of cover them off or gloss over them.
Where else do you draw inspiration? Any particular pieces of art or architecture that really inspires you right now?
We talk a lot about Cadillac and GM design overall being rooted in mid-century modern art. Cadillac design pulls a lot from those mid-century fundamentals of the very clean line, simplistic forms really highlighted by the materials that are used in the design.
Just looking at GM’s Tech Center campus itself, it was designed by Eero Saarinen. And not only the buildings, but the furniture. We just opened Cadillac House, which is our Experience Centre for Celestiq, and it has Harry Bertoia floors. And it has a Harry Bertoia sculpture in there that is, I think, believed to be his largest commissioned piece of work in the world. It was installed in this building when it was built in the ‘50s.
This connection to mid-century modern design and incorporating artistic elements seems central to Cadillac’s identity. How did that influence the specific design elements on the Celestiq? I’m guessing having a higher budget for this project opened up new possibilities for materials and craftsmanship.
We had a few more pennies to spend, but it was really about that kind of universal commitment to do the right thing for the car. One of my favourite pieces on Celestiq is everything that looks like metal is real metal. And that took a huge commitment from our engineering and manufacturing partners to support that.
There are a lot of things, like the steering wheel bezel, it’s 3D printed in aluminum. When we decided we wanted that piece to be metal, everybody’s looking at each other. Like, how do you even do that? It took a lot of commitment from the engineering team to figure it out, and they delivered big. It’s my favourite part of the car.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
