All Entries Tagged With: "Neil Rogers"
Online & In HD: BMW Trio M5 & M6 & 550i
Automobiles De Luxe: BMW M5 (E39) v BMW M6 (E63/E64) v BMW550I from Neil Rogers on Vimeo.
By Gunnar Heinrich
ONE of the great frustrations with airing content through YouTube is that a) YouTube has a time limit of 10 minutes for most submissions and b) the quality is by and large absolute crap.
Let’s say a ten minute video takes up 20 Gigabytes. YouTube’s upload limit is 100 megabytes.
The process to downgrade and compress high definition content into a file that’s less than 100 MB is every bit as painful as washing your new Ferrari using brillo pads and engine cleaner. The result is a butchered facsimile of what was formerly full of glossy detail.
Luckily, there are HD options on the web.
While I hope that you will still use our site’s Mogulus player, if you want to watch ADL videos uncut and in HD you will be able to do so through Vimeo.com.
The first video that we’ve uploaded is the BMW Trio Segment (RT: 16:13) featuring the E39 M5, the E64 M6, and the E60 550i.
You’ll find that not only is the image much sharper, but the sound is much clearer, too. And as I’m sure you’ll agree, great cars seen and heard through HD is a beautiful thing.
The Ride: Cadillac Escalade Platinum
By Gunnar Heinrich with photography by Neil Rogers
FIRST impressions mean so much.
Back in March, the Suburbans that GM transported the ADL crew around the City (for NYIAS) displayed an unreal level of refinement for any Michigan built vehicle that I’ve experienced since – ever.
The Cadillac Escalade Platinum which is essentially the same truck only shorter in length and wheelbase takes the Suburban (Tahoe) level of accoutrement and raises it by a Vegas high roller’s wager.
Anodized-chrome trim dripping over exterior sheet metal broadcasts the truck’s arrival from a distance of give or take three blocks away. Once the presence parades to curbside; step inside and close the door with a satisfyingly soft “whump!” and you soon realize that there’s truth to Jim Taylor’s talk of Cadillac turning a new page.
The marque has changed. And hasn’t if we remember our history.
On first take, fit and finish seems Lexus precise. The new interior’s so nice, so buttery soft, it makes an ’00 STS seem like the act of some ugly transnational cooperative act of friendly commerce gone wrong: Cadillac Built by Zil.
The second impression that hits home is the absolute silence that envelopes a cabin. New York’s war zone asphalt seemed such a distant reality.
There’s a bit of rocking front to back as the truck crossed the more serious dips in asphalt that coincide with each intersection along Park Avenue, but nothing that remotely reassembles the jello mold jiggle float of yesteryear’s Fleetwoods.
But what’s more telling than just about any specific feature in how this Caddy registers, is how the truck registers with people.
Arriving outside Grand Central Station, Team ADL exited the vehicle onto the sidewalk where a middle aged man ground his New Yorker’s gate to a halt; turned, stared, and muttered the simple word that any Escalade owner would really want to hear.
“Wow.”
Preview: Cadillac Escalade Hybrid and Platinum Editions
By Gunnar Heinrich with photography by Neil Rogers
UNDER the soft blue cast of an early New York summer’s eve, Cadillac’s PR staff quietly set the stage in the gated court yard of New York’s Palace Hotel to offer members of the press a preview of the Escalade Hybrid and Platinum editions.
GM’s G.M. for Cadillac Jim Taylor led the talking points by noting how far he felt Cadillac had come since the dour days of the late 90s. The Escalade is the focal point of Cadillac’s cool new image.
And on the subject of image, it’s worth taking notes on just what the Escalade presents to the world.
For those who can’t afford four dollars a gallon, gas prices have made driving truck framed SUVs as palatable as chasing three Martinis with four quarts of Drano. For those who can afford the cost to filler-up, the image association with driving such a beast is akin in its saintliness to supplying the Drano to the hapless boozer.
In this politically correct age of in… incontinent truths, who but Texans and a certain set of oily haired customers from Jersey dare ride high on a 5,700 pound, 74.3 inch high by 79 inch wide by 202.5 inch long carbon footprint whose 6.2 Liter, 403 horsepower V8 guzzles as much dino-juice exiting a parking lot as the Queen Mary II uses when leaving port?
Don’t know for sure.
But, would it help matters if Cadillac put a Caddy sized green on chrome colored “Hybrid” badge over a fake quarter-panel air intake?
Maybe…
Or would it assuage guilty feelings if Cadillac implemented a two-stage hybrid system that kicks in at various levels of speed and load so that it’s neither/nor but either and both gas and electric?
Perhaps…
Or could Cadillac convince you that if a full size SUV is what you need to tow and haul people, that the big Caddy can do it using less gas than any foreign rival of similar size?
It’s 20 mpg urban and 21 mpg highway.
No truck this size has a right to be so frugal.
But for customers who just don’t care (about much of anything, really), there’s the gas powered Platinum edition (12/18 mpg) that shows off with premium leather (worth the upgrade), all kinds of DVD and TV sets, trick LED headlamps, and an assortment of other goods and services to pamper occupants.
Yours (or theirs) for $12,000 over standard MSRP ($60,000 +/-).
Worth it?
I’ll share my notes from that last night’s ride-along in the next post. In the meantime, check out the following gallery of pictures shot by the one and only Neil Rogers.
[Click to enlarge]
Special thanks to General Motors for graciously hosting Automobiles De Luxe.
ADL’s Coming Up Nines
By Gunnar Heinrich
NINES is the magazine for Saab Club of North America.
Following the Turbo X event, the publication’s affable editor-in-chief Seth Bengelsdorf and I shared a ride back to our cars in a Turbo X Sportcombi.
We talked about the day’s event, the Turbo X, my own 9-3 Convertible, and his classic Sonett.
I said I’d happily write an article for his publication and he offered me a copy.
It wasn’t until I’d returned home that I discovered I had already contributed.
On the front cover of May/June 2008′s issue and behind the pictured Saab 9-X display at the NYIAS, the heads of five ADL crew are turned expectantly towards the rear window of an H3.
From the left: Sound Guy Dave Baker; Neil Rogers; Chris Reo; Tiffany Hopkins; and Kevin Kusina.
[Linked: Nines | ADL NYIAS Video]
Video >>> New York Auto Show 2008
Another Heinrich-Rogers production. Our thanks again go out to GM.
& The Crew ~
Chris Reo
Sound Guy Dave Baker
Tiffany Hopkins
Kevin Kusina
