All Entries Tagged With: "Cadillac XLR-V"
ADL TV | GM @ 100 Yrs: Cadillac
“MISTER EARL”
There’s nothing quite like having the man who designed the Corvette Sting Ray tell you, the interviewer, that you’re not giving GM’s larger-than-life chief designer Harley Earl enough respect.
My question: “Did you ever work with Harley Earl back in the day?”
Bob Veryzer: “He was around. It was never Harley Earl. It was always Mister Earl.”
To which GM’s VP of Global Design Ed Welburn added, “It was only until recently that people started calling him Harley Earl.”
Apparently, GM’s artistic duo hadn’t seen any of Buick’s “My name’s Harley Earl” TV spots. Nevertheless, at this gala in honor of Cadillac, clear respect for an icon was the order of the evening.
Last summer we drove up to Saratoga Springs, New York where instead of placing bets on horses we braved the worst tempests that the Hudson River Valley could throw our way to tape a story about Cadillac’s past and where it might fit in GM’s tomorrow.
GM had turned 100 years old and the Saratoga Auto Museum threw a party in honor of Cadillac. Many GM big wigs were there, including GM’s G.M. for Cadillac, Jim Taylor.
As grim as Caddy sales looked last July, the financial markets had yet to crash and the General was still almost a year away from filing for bankruptcy protection. We were in, if you like, the eye of the perfect storm.
In this segment with a T.R.T. of 07:15, we watch some of the best and worst of Cadillac’s past; hear comments from the marque’s fans; and get a real sense that in the midst of the celebration, GM’s top brass knew what was to come.
“This is a new world we’re going into,” Mr. Taylor notes, “Quite frankly I don’t think anybody realizes how big a difference there’s going to be. Until you wake up in four or five years and realized what happened.”
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Credits
Executive Producers: Gunnar Heinrich & Neil Rogers
Editors: Michael Russell | Neil Rogers | Kevin Kusina
Camera: Joshua Schnitzer | Gregory Dwyer | Neil Rogers
Writer | Host: Gunnar Heinrich
Special Thanks: GM | Saratoga Auto Museum | Dres. Ward Heinrich, Sr. & Jr.| J.M. Ficca
R.I.P. XLR-V
The Cadillac XLR-V at Lime Rock
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG by Larry Henrikson for ADL
WHEN GM sent us an “Elektra Blue tintcoat[ed]” XLR-V last July, I thought we’d been the recipient of some kind of joke. We just had 10 days with two BMWs which at half the XLR-V’s absurd $108,000 price, seemed to do everything 10 times better. Asking a number of people to guess how much they thought the Cadillac cost…
ADL’s “F” List
Might have sold well in 1999.
“F”for “Awful, Frankly”
Cadillac XLR-V
My co-producer Neil Rogers, my uncle; former NHRA dragster Joe Ficca, the ADL production crew, and half the city of New Haven, Connecticut will disagree with me when I write that the XLR-V is a terrible car. They loved the XLR-V for all the wrong? right? reasons; the Cadillac name, the angular looks, and its chrome street cred.
Neil lovingly called it the “Batmobile” and his eyes welled up a little when GM came to take it back. I said good riddance.
Driving through the Elm City, the homeless and collegiate alike would offer enthusiastic thumbs up. The XLR-V drew attention. One kind old gentleman, was so astonished with the car and my willingness to demonstrate various features like the electrically retractable hardtop that he thanked me with a “God Bless You!” And of all the BMWs we tested on camera, the Caddy and the camera were the fastest of friends.
That said, the XLR-V is Cadillac’s Allante for 2008-09. Cheers to GM for being gracious enough to send us a $60K Vette in heavily clad $100K + Caddy garb to review before anyone else on the east coast.
The test car came to us half-baked from GM design circa 2004. It stems from an old Detroit business plan: you take a cheaper car’s platform put a badge on it and slap a steep premium on the MSRP. Let’s be clear, the XLR-V cannot either by performance or in gadgets substantively compete with a BMW M6 convertible or a Mercedes-Benz SL63 AMG.
Why? Because it has all the quiet dignity of an 80s Firebird, the haphazard build quality of a 90s Peugeot, and is bedeviled in the details; rotten interior materials, mushy brakes, small cabin space, smaller trunk space, on and on… The XLR-V also offers the dullest driving manners round town this side of a Toyota Sequoia.
On track it went like hell-for-leather, but it did so only after wasting precious time waiting for the automatic to do its thang. After it it did, good luck holding that corner. The warmer they got, the more the car’s Pirellis lost their grip.
Cutting back to brass tax, I asked six people to give me their best guess as to how much the XLR-V cost. The highest figure given was $45,000. Bottom line: you’re better off buying an ’07 Corvette for similar money.
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Cadillac CTS-4 Direct Injection
This is the most disappointing Cadillac ever made despite being the most handsome executive sedan on the market. And that’s a hard reality to cope with, because on looks alone the mid-price luxury field with its 5er, E-Class, XF, MKS, and GS rivalry – is duller than dishwater, as the man says. It needs a handsome entry like the CTS.
True, GM’s put Caddy badges on worse cars (the XLR-V for instance) but because so much depends upon the marque’s newest and sharpest, everything should be perfect- which, sadly, it ain’t.
It’s like managing to do 95% of the job and then not bothering with the remaining 5% when your competition is operating at 99.5% on up. Even though that’s 16% better than your previous effort, landing fifth or sixth place doesn’t get it off the dealer’s lot.
Where the CTS-V performs magnificently, the standard CTS falls, stupidly.
The D.I. model’s anemic V6 pumps the tamest (and lamest) 300 horses I’ve ever whipped. There’s no bite, no bark, no pull, no thrill. It did manage a so-so 20 mpg, though. Propulsion starts to happen at 4,000 rpm and that’s after the automatic gets its okay from Congress to downshift.
Meanwhile, that angry semi’s looming larger in those oddly shaped rearviews…
Our particular test car neither rode well nor cornered. I tested the CTS on the same right hand corner and over the same bumps back to back with a Mercedes-Benz E350 4-Matic and BMW 528xi.
The BMW carved through the corner at 40 mph; quickest and flattest of the three; while managing to ride comfortably over raw surfaces. The Mercedes rolled a little when negotiating the right hand sweeper, but it tracked true, all while snuffing out potholes. Tyres howling, the Caddy understeered cross the road while riding roughshod over bad surfaces. Painful.
And despite having all-wheel drive, chasing an Audi A6 would’ve sent the midsize porkchop (all 4,000+lbs of car) off road when following in curvy pursuit.
Interior materials also lagged despite the advertised effort to match Mercedes-Benz grade. But then again, Mercedes’ quality hasn’t been up to snuff for a while, either.
Best advice: spend more for the CTS-V or save on a Pontiac G8 GT, instead. Or, if you must, an Audi A6.
[Linked: Cadillac]
Cadillac XLR-V: Generational Perspectives Clash
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG by Larry Henrikson for Automobiles De Luxe
“YOU don’t have an appreciation for this car.”
My uncle, Joe Ficca, is a longtime advocate of American cars. Remembering my aunt’s finicky Alfas and my mom’s “quirky” Jags, to his core he knows that there’s something straightforward, easy, and just plain good about American auto design.
Nearly every car he’s ever owned has come from one of Detroit’s Big Three. And that includes the old Pontiac GTO sitting in his garage.
To this end, he’s much more receptive to the Cadillac XLR-V’s charms than I.
“You’ve got to understand, twenty years ago if you had a four hundred horsepower car – it stank of gasoline, idled rough, was temperamental in traffic, ran hot, or detonated,” smiling softly, he adds, “Grandma can drive this car.”
Pulling the 443 horsepower trigger he looks through the heads-up display as the big Caddy bonnet lifts to the horizon and reels in Connecticut scenery at a dizzying rate. The acceleration is explosive with the supercharger adding a high whine to the V8′s roar.
“Oh, and no brakes.”
Mashing the stop pedal on a downhill, the XLR-V leaves a faint trail of rubber that stretches behind us in the rear view.
My uncle’s perspective and my own tend to clash on these subjects. Coming off of a Teutonic high with two tight BMW droptops for ten days – much my own generation’s preferred mode of transport – it proved difficult to adjust to the XLR-V.
By contrast to the rock solid 328i, the XLR-V complete with high power assisted steering, body roll, and cowl shake feels sloppy, lumbering, and dull – unless you plant your foot on the accelerator in which case you’ve got precious few seconds until you’ve passed the point of legal-no-return.
On the track, the XLR-V seems more at home and is a riot to drive. It’s more fun on track than at any one point on the road. But it makes you wonder how much more fun a Corvette Z06 would be.
BMW’s own rep. Hardy Drackett, a man from my own upper twenties age bracket – was puzzled by the Caddy.
“Who’s this car for, exactly?”
Cadillac lists the standard XLR’s competition as the Mercedes-Benz SL500, Lexus SC430, and Jaguar XK. Logic presumes that the V would be meant to tackle the SL55 AMG or Jaguar XKR.
I’m not sure that any Benz, Lexus, or Jag buyer cross shops this American drop-top. The consensus was the XLR-V is for the 50+ year wealthy Boca Raton retiree who wants a Vette’s flash ‘n drive with a Caddy’s comfort.
And that mix the XLR-V does provide- in spades. It just takes a different generation to appreciate it.
