Retro Stories by David Burrell
The 1946 Cadillac C.O., aka the Interceptor, was one of General Motors’ (GM) most intriguing post-World War II concept cars. It was a secret which few people ever saw.
The CO/Interceptor was styled at the end of WWII by Frank Hershey. Its shape was based on airplane design motifs. According to Michael Lamm and David Holls in their book A Century of Automotive Style (which is in the AMHF collection) its “rounded pudgy forms, wrap around glass and bumpers”, along with fully enclosed front wheels, was what “all designers of that era—not just those at GM—thought cars of the future would look”.
In 1946 GM built an operational CO/Interceptor prototype (some sources claim two were built) for testing GM’s Milford Proving Grounds. But its shape was a problem.
GM’s styling boss, Harley Earl, and Cadillac executives, thought it was too radical and too far ahead of public tastes for the times. Earl reportedly grew tired of the CO/Interceptor’s fat look and said “to hell with that big blown-up thing.” And so, the car was discarded.
Although the car’s total design did not appear on any one GM car, elements of the rounded forms did pervade Harley Earl’s early 1950s output.
For many years mystery surrounded what happened to the CO/Interceptor. Indeed, its existence had gained almost mythical status. However, with the great help of GM Heritage archivist John Kyros, I was able to reconstruct the CO/Interceptor’s fate.
A search of GM’s archives unearthed photos of the car being used to “test” a wraparound windscreen and badged as a Pontiac, with what looks like a 1955 Pontiac hood. There was also a priceless photo of the car’s dashboard. It showed milage of 2096.
And then there was the photographic evidence of the CO/Interceptor’s demise. Two colour images, from 1957, reveal it being used as a crash test dummy. A 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air was sent at high speed into its right-hand side. There are no documents explaining the reason for the test.
That is how one of GM’s most intriguing concept cars ended its days.
