1931 Cadillac V-12 Imperial 7-Passenger Sedan
On a 143-inch wheelbase with coachwork by Fisher, the Seven-Passenger Imperial Sedan sat at the formal end of the 1931 V-12 catalog.
Dressed by Harley Earl’s Art and Colour Section, its 210-inch body closely mirrored the equivalent V-16 (only the “12” badge on the headlight tie bar and a four-inch shorter hood revealed the distinction). A partitioned interior and auxiliary seating completed the formal configuration.
The engine was Owen Nacker’s work (as was the V-16), built on the same 45-degree architecture and shared tooling. Displacing 368 cu in and producing 135 hp through dual carburetors, it ran quietly on a hydraulic valve train (well regarded at the time for its refined, near-silent operation at speed).
For 1931, no other American manufacturer offered a production V-12 (Packard and Lincoln would both follow in 1932). Priced from $3,795 (about $2,000 less than comparable V-16 body styles), it found 5,733 buyers in its first year against the V-16’s 363. Of that production, 600 were Fisher-bodied Seven-Passenger Imperial Sedans, style 31-163.
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