Cadillac Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
57 free Cadillac trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Cadillac trivia quiz runs the full 120-plus years of the brand, from the engineer who talked Henry Ford's jilted investors into building cars instead of liquidating, to the hand-built electric Celestiq. It covers the French explorer whose coat of arms became the crest, the Dewar Trophy that produced the "Standard of the World" slogan, the 1912 electric starter, the V8, V12 and V16 engines, Harley Earl and the LaSalle, the Phillips screw, the Army staff cars of 1917 and the tanks of the Korean War. Then it gets into the postwar glory and the stumbles: the first tailfins and the year they peaked, Dagmar bumpers, the Autronic Eye, the Coupe de Ville, the "last American convertible" of 1976, the Seville, the Cimarron that nearly killed the brand, the German-built Catera, the Northstar engine and the Escalade that hip-hop adopted. There are questions on Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, the presidential limousine known as the Beast, Motor Trend awards, the Formula One entry and the electric Lyriq. Roughly a third of the questions are easy for any car fan; the rest are for people who know their Series 62 from their Series 75. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on the company, its models and the people around it before publication.
30 of 57 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which rock and roll star bought a Cadillac in 1955, had it painted pink and gave it to his mother?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley gave the pink Fleetwood to his mother, Gladys, even though she never drove. It sat under the carport at Graceland for years before moving into the estate's car museum.
Q 02Cadillac is named after a French explorer who founded which city in 1701?
Detroit
Detroit comes from the French word détroit, meaning "strait": Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac built his fort beside the narrow river that links Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie.
Q 03The Cadillac crest is based on what?
The founder-explorer's coat of arms
The founder-explorer's coat of arms came with an invented pedigree: born plain Antoine Laumet, he adopted the grander name la Mothe Cadillac and falsely claimed to be of noble birth.
Q 04Cadillac's founding engineer left in 1917 to start which rival luxury brand?
Lincoln
Lincoln was reportedly named after its founder's hero, Abraham Lincoln. The new firm was soon failing and was sold off in 1922.
Q 05Cadillac was formed from the remnants of which firm after its namesake walked out on his investors?
The Henry Ford Company
The Henry Ford Company was about to be sold for parts in 1902 when the engineer hired to value its plant talked the backers into building a new car instead.
Q 06Which engineer, called in to value a failing carmaker, persuaded its backers to build the Cadillac?
Henry M. Leland
Henry M. Leland had trained as a machinist in New England and worked in the firearms trade, and he brought its fine tolerances to car building. He ran Cadillac until 1917.
Q 07What kind of engine powered Cadillac's very first cars, the 1902 Runabout and Tonneau?
A single-cylinder engine
A single-cylinder engine was all the first Cadillac had, yet after its debut at the New York Auto Show in January 1903 the little car sold by the thousand within a year.
Q 08Cadillac won the Royal Automobile Club's Dewar Trophy in 1908 for demonstrating what?
Interchangeable parts
Interchangeable parts were proved at the Brooklands track near London: three Cadillacs were stripped down, their parts scrambled into one heap, and the rebuilt cars each ran 500 miles.
Q 09Cadillac won the Dewar Trophy a second time in 1912 for putting what into a production car?
Electric starting and lighting
Electric starting and lighting came from Charles Kettering, who had built the first electric cash register; his Delco system let Cadillac drivers do away with the hand crank.
Q 10Which General Motors founder bought Cadillac in 1909?
William Durant
William Durant had founded General Motors only the year before. He was later forced out of the company twice and spent his last years managing a bowling alley in Flint.
Q 11Cadillac's famous slogan, born of the 1908 Dewar Trophy, was what?
Standard of the World
Standard of the World had a British trial behind it: Cadillac's agent there put three stock cars through the Royal Automobile Club's test and came away with the trophy.
Q 12Which 1984 comedy's heroes drive Ecto-1, a converted 1959 Cadillac ambulance?
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters built Ecto-1 on a finned 1959 Miller-Meteor ambulance body. In the film Ray Stantz pays $4,800 for the wreck, then reels off everything that needs fixing.
Q 13Which engine did Cadillac launch in 1930, a first for an American production car?
V16
Q 21Cadillac's bullet-shaped 1950s front bumper guards were nicknamed after what?
A buxom TV personality named Dagmar
A buxom TV personality named Dagmar gave her name to chrome guards that GM's stylists had meant to look like artillery shells, a far more warlike image.
Q 22Cadillac won the very first Motor Trend Car of the Year award in 1949 for what?
Its overhead-valve V8 engine
Its overhead-valve V8 engine beat Oldsmobile's similar new V8 to the prize: the magazine noted that Cadillac's made 18.5 per cent more power while weighing a few pounds less.
Q 23The first Seville sedan of 1975 was engineered from the platform of which humble compact car?
A V16 was a daring launch: Cadillac unveiled America's first sixteen-cylinder car in January 1930, in the immediate aftermath of the Wall Street Crash.
Q 14The French explorer whose name Cadillac borrowed went on to govern which colony?
Louisiana
Louisiana waited three years for him: named governor in 1710, he did not arrive until 1713, and his term was over by 1716.
Q 15Which stylist, first hired by Cadillac in 1926, went on to lead General Motors design for three decades?
Harley Earl
Harley Earl grew up in Hollywood, where his father ran a custom coachbuilding shop. At GM he teased the public with the first "dream cars", starting with the 1938 Buick Y-Job.
Q 16Cadillac's smaller "companion marque", sold from 1927 to 1940, was called what?
LaSalle
LaSalle was named, like its parent, after a French explorer. GM revived the badge in 1955 for two Motorama dream cars, a roadster and a sedan, but neither reached production.
Q 17The "turret top" roof that Cadillac adopted in the 1930s was made in one piece from which material?
Steel
Steel in a single stamped sheet replaced the fabric-covered wooden frames that had roofed closed cars until then. GM's Fisher Body division pressed the new tops for Cadillac and its sister brands.
Q 18During the Depression, service chief Nick Dreystadt persuaded GM's board to scrap which Cadillac policy?
Discouraging sales to African Americans
Discouraging sales to African Americans was meant to protect the car's prestige, yet Dreystadt kept meeting wealthy Black owners in the service bays who had paid white front men to buy their Cadillacs.
Q 19Cadillac's assembly line was the first in the car industry to try which newly patented fastener in the mid-1930s?
The cross-head screw
The cross-head screw carries the name of Henry F. Phillips, but he bought the idea from its inventor, John P. Thompson. After the Cadillac trial, nearly every American carmaker had switched by 1940.
Q 20Cadillac's tailfins, first seen on 1948 models, were inspired by the twin tails of which warplane?
P-38 Lightning
P-38 Lightning fighters caught the eye of GM designer Frank Hershey on an airfield visit before the war. The fins that followed kept growing until the 1959 models, then shrank through the early 1960s.
Chevrolet Nova
Chevrolet Nova underpinnings were reworked so heavily that the result earned its own platform code, and stylists hid the kinship under crisp, formal lines so buyers would not spot the cheap cousin.
Q 24From 1951 Cadillac built the M41 Walker Bulldog, which is what?
A light tank
A light tank, the M41 was named for General Walton Walker, the Eighth Army commander killed in a jeep accident in Korea in 1950. It went on to serve in Vietnam.
Q 25The "Autronic Eye", offered on Cadillacs in the 1950s, automatically did what?
Dimmed the high beams for oncoming cars
Dimmed the high beams for oncoming cars: early units could also be fooled by reflective highway signs, and later ones gained a dial so the driver could adjust the sensitivity.
Q 26The hand-built 1957 Eldorado Brougham's power seat could do what?
Remember its position
Remember its position: the memory seat was one of a long list of gadgets, yet at $13,074, more than a standard Rolls-Royce, the Brougham found only 704 buyers in two years.
Q 27The Eldorado name, chosen in a 1952 internal contest, is Spanish for what?
The gilded one
The gilded one was a legendary South American king said to coat himself in gold dust. A member of Cadillac's merchandising staff proposed the name for its golden-anniversary show car.
Q 28The 1976 Eldorado drop-top was heavily promoted by GM as what?
The last American convertible
The last American convertible it was not: the claim pushed sales to about 14,000, but Cadillac brought out a new Eldorado convertible for 1984, to the dismay of collectors.
Q 29From 1956 the Eldorado convertible carried the name of which French seaside resort?
Biarritz
Biarritz marked out the convertible and Seville, after the Spanish city, the hardtop: Cadillac used the two glamorous place names simply to tell the Eldorado body styles apart.
Q 30The 1975 Seville was marketed with which phrase to take on the imports?
International size
International size was Cadillac's phrase for its smallest car. Perhaps to head off any idea that smaller meant cheaper, the Seville was priced above every other Cadillac except the limousines.