The Aurora Was a Cadillac Before It Was an Oldsmobile

 The 1990 Aurora concept previewed the Cadillac that zigged.

Forget the Oldsmobile Aurora. Because years before Ransom Olds's namesake brand introduced its sleek Aurora flagship sedan, Cadillac applied the name to a no-less aerodynamic-looking sedan, which it pulled the wraps off of at the 1990 Chicago Auto Show.

The all-wheel-drive Cadillac Aurora concept reportedly cribbed its underpinnings from the boxy front-drive Cadillac DeVille. Unlike its chassis donor, which mounted its engine transversely, the Aurora featured a longitudinally-oriented, 200-hp 4.5-liter V-8.

While the Cadillac concept's powertrain setup never made its way to a production car, its styling arguably did—albeit as an Opel that later found a home in the Cadillac model line. Yes, we're talking about the Catera. You know, the Cadillac that zigged?

Initially introduced across the pond as the Opel Omega, the rear-drive sedan entered the United States market as the Cadillac Catera for the 1997 model year. Despite ditching the windswept looks, aggressively raked windshield, and integrated rear-wheel fairings of the Aurora, the Catera still cribbed a number of design cues from the concept Caddy, including its ovoid headlight shape, grille decor, distinct fender-to-fender bodyline, and full-width taillights. 

The Catera was a different beast under the sheet metal, though. In place of the Aurora's V-8 engine, the compact Cadillac sports sedan featured a 3.0-liter V-6, which sent its corral of 200 horses to the car's rear wheels. Although the combination of its Aurora-like styling and rear-drive architecture should have made the Catera a darling to enthusiasts, the entry-level Cadillac model never quite managed to make consumers' hearts race. In fact, we favored the Lexus ES300 over the Catera in a 1997 comparison test.

Would the more sultry lines or V-8 engine of the Aurora have overcome the production Catera's inherent deficiencies? Who knows. Fortunately, General Motors fans of the era looking for a relatively affordable luxury car with seemingly wind-tunnel-derived looks and a V-8 engine could find such features in the form of the front-drive Oldsmobile Aurora.