Cadillac’s Wild New Concept Is Part Off-Road Rally Racer, Part Day Spa
What to drive if wringing ‘opulent velocity’ from your Celestiq-based hypercar involves traversing rough terrain.
Frank MarkusWriterManufacturerPhotographerAug 14, 2025
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The best concept cars look to the future with unbridled optimism. Cadillac’s latest concepts envision a day when the brand is once again unironically described as “The Standard of the World.” Last year’s Opulent Velocity concept was unveiled at Monterey Car Week’s most prestigious event, the Quail, before a swellegant crowd of Those Who Must Be Convinced of this description. This year, Cadillac keeps its eye on that same prize by presenting these same swells the Elevated Velocity concept. If the Opulent Velocity was essentially a Celestiq V, then the Elevated Velocity is the Celestiq V Rally.
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As the name implies, the Elevated Velocity concept takes the hyperspeedy all-electric capabilities of last year’s concept and physically raises the bodywork, fortifying the suspension for high-speed terrain work, as well. Inside, the experiential opulence is figuratively elevated. The customer type that inspired the Elevated Velocity concept is described as an elite desert polo athlete who thrives on adrenaline and mastery, or a devotee of the Dakar Rally and Extreme-E Racing (a unique blend of motorsport, environmental advocacy, and cutting-edge EV technology).
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Appreciating Autonomy
Both concepts offer wheel-and-pedals-retracted full autonomy, with the option to manually drive when desired. With Elevated Velocity, Cadillac is exploring new ways for customers to rejuvenate while technobots do the driving. Enter Elevate mode, described as “an autonomous recovery experience harnessing red-light therapy for physical renewal through modern science.” Cadillac envisions our intrepid desert polo player dismounting after some rousing chukkers at the Al Fursan Equestrian Village in AlUla, in Saudi Arabia, motoring away down the 328 to Madinah while soothing his or her aching back with medical-grade light therapy emanating from triangular openings in the seat backs, lamps in the door panels, dash, etc. The car can also coach guided breathwork, leveraging onboard biometric sensing to monitor our athlete’s heart and breathing rates, oxygenation, and stress levels.
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Evolutionary Exterior
Most of the design language (penned by Aussie Tom Grech under the direction of Cadillac’s new executive director Dominic Najafi) is a clear evolution of Opulent Velocity. Illuminated air curtains provide the vertical lighting signature in front, connected by a line of cascading flutes. This look is echoed by similar vertical lamps at the rear, flanking an infinity-lamp mirrored lighting element across the center of the rear, just as with the Opulent Velocity.
The front and rear overhangs are almost completely bobbed to tackle dunes without digging in or dragging tail, and last year’s A-pillar-hinged swan doors give way to pure top-hinged gullwings. But a single door on each side still serves the front and rear seats, though now the rocker panels drop down and out of the way. Swing these doors up, and the interior form language feels similarly evolved, with bucket seats that appear to hover above improbably minimalist supports. And of course, the wheels still feature illuminated accents, about which Cadillac boss Brandon Vivian says: “It’s a question of, probably, when, not if. The technology exists today; it’s about durability and use case, and that’s what we’re exploring with this concept.”
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Exhilaration Sans Distraction
Just as on last year’s concept, Velocity mode focuses the driver’s attention by limiting information on the screens and windshield head-up display to that which is deemed mission critical. Only now there’s also a Terra Active mode for swift off-road running. Even when riding in autonomous mode, the interior hardly looks cluttered or busy.
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Elevated Interior Materials
The concept’s 2+2 interior is swathed in Morello Red leather, Cerise sleek red textiles, and Garnet red natural wool boucle materials, which come together to form a pastiche of visual depth, complementary textures, and durable performance.
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Bespoke Luggage
Our imagined desert polo star owner has been catered to with a fitted case to hold gloves, helmet, polo balls, mallet, sunglasses, and other must-haves—all in coordinating red hues. The inference is that Cadillac could fashion cases fitted for similarly posh pursuits like falconry, big-game hunting, and dressage.
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Do These Concepts Have a Future?
How bullish are you that the Celestiq will continue to lure the filthy rich? That opening Cadillac’s palette of 100 different colors to buyers of more affordable V Blackwing vehicles will help lure a lower stratum of rich folks to Cadillac? That all such efforts will convince the hoi polloi that Cadillac has once again become The Standard of the World? If it happens, concepts like the Solei and these Velocity twins could absolutely help fill that new hand-building plant inside GM’s Warren Tech Center. GM president Mark Reuss himself confirmed to us that there was a real platform under the Opulent Velocity, not plywood and angle-iron, and the same is almost certainly true of the Elevated Velocity. Consider our fingers crossed.
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Frank Markus
I started critiquing cars at age 5 by bumming rides home from church in other parishioners’ new cars. At 16 I started running parts for an Oldsmobile dealership and got hooked on the car biz. Engineering seemed the best way to make a living in it, so with two mechanical engineering degrees I joined Chrysler to work on the Neon, LH cars, and 2nd-gen minivans. Then a friend mentioned an opening for a technical editor at another car magazine, and I did the car-biz equivalent of running off to join the circus. I loved that job too until the phone rang again with what turned out to be an even better opportunity with Motor Trend. It’s nearly impossible to imagine an even better job, but I still answer the phone…
