Talk me out of a Cadillac CTS-V ? ...

Dav8or said:
I can't talk you out of it. I just can't. If you like the styling, I say go for it. I personally am not a fan of the "Art and Science" design theme Cadillac has adopted and stuck with. It's polarizing. You either love it or hate it.

If you love it, go for it! The car itself is awesome! People that out of hand tell you to just buy a German car either are heavily biased by the past, or some anti GM hatred, haven't been paying attention to developments in the car biz for a decade, or really don't know much about cars at all.

If you like the looks, this car will light up your world! :yes: The ATS-V is no slouch either!
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Thanks. The cars styling is a bit over the top, but I think I could get used to it. Cadillac probably tried to appeal to both sexes. In some dark dungeon their skunk works guru's with the aid of a big blue super computer probably came up with it. :dunno:

The people who count (the one's who actually own a CTS-V or have driven one) have chimed in and they like it. Good 'nuff for me.

As far as German, English, Austrian, African, Jap, or any other, I own a Jag and rue the day. Granted, it's an older one with Lucas electronics, but what a pain. Mercedes meh. They fit the pipe smoking plaid golf pants wearing types or guys that use the word 'uber' a lot. BMW should stand for Bring More Wads of cash to our shop. And the Japs tried to kill my Dad. I could care less GM got bailed out with taxpayers money. EVERYONE is on some type of bailout with QE, ZIRP, and other monetary policies we fund every day. I'm not PC very much.... :lol:
 
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Cadillac once put their badge on a chevy cavalier. There is no getting past that.
 
txflyer said:
It's Caddy's white diamond color and an automatic which makes it a lame duck I guess because most of the reviews on utube the guys were all wanting a black one with manual transmission. It has Recaro ventilated seats, and a few other minor upgrades. ~$72K on the sticker.
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You could spend years searching for a manual sedan. I personally love the white, it was either white or blue for me, but the manual was the biggest thing. I have Recaros, and I would not even consider a car without them. They're just not comfortable IMO. Not for the price tag.
 
Z06_Mir said:
You could spend years searching for a manual sedan. I personally love the white, it was either white or blue for me, but the manual was the biggest thing. I have Recaros, and I would not even consider a car without them. They're just not comfortable IMO. Not for the price tag.
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My C6 is a six speed stick, wouldn't have bought her if she was a automatic.

Every vehicle I've owned, minus one truck, has been a stick, the day that I am too lazy, old, or stupid to shift my own gears, that'll be the day I turn my drivers license in to the DMV :yes:


....especially for a high pro car.
 
You can put it in manual mode and shift with the paddles on the wheel can't ya?

I don't see a lot of difference anymore with these new transmissions. I'm not going to be doing burn outs. Well, maybe one or two. ;)

Houston rush hour traffic with a stick is like being water boarded.
 
Clark1961 said:
when yer bombed ya make **** poor cars
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History says otherwise. It was the post-war restrictions against making airplanes that drove bmw into the automotibe business. Likewise the post war aid japan received led to their burgeoning car manufacturing. Atbthe same time us companies were getting fat and lazy and assumed people would keep buying their crap no matter how bad it got. Turns out the consumer thought better.

I'm considering a ford for our next car after owning only german and japanese cars for some time. But we'll never have another gm or chrysler product even if you gave it to us.
 
bombed has a couple of meanings...
 
txflyer said:
I own a Jag and rue the day. Granted, it's an older one with Lucas electronics, but what a pain.
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Why do the British drink their beer warm? Because Lucas built their refrigerators too.

Lucas is often referred to as "The Prince of Darkness".

One of Mr. Lucas's favorite quotes was "Don't drive after dark!"
 
Neal Howard said:
80% of the cars on the road look nothing like an R8
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Yeah, they had one on the boat next to us in Monaco during the Grand Prix. It was cool and all, but seriously just okay. The manufacturing level really isn't any higher than the Cadillac, or Corvette. The only thing that Audi has done that has impressed me is the phenolic block Diesel. They have done a lot in high performance using mid weight fuels. I think the V-12 could take the 600-750hp utility aircraft market.
 
James331 said:
My C6 is a six speed stick, wouldn't have bought her if she was a automatic.

Every vehicle I've owned, minus one truck, has been a stick, the day that I am too lazy, old, or stupid to shift my own gears, that'll be the day I turn my drivers license in to the DMV :yes:


....especially for a high pro car.
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The latest highest performance porsche can only be ordered with a PDK transmission. It is lightning fast, great on down shift and may be operated with auto or with paddles. I own a porsche with a pdk. They are fantastic! You should turn in your license as your wayyyyy behind the times. A PDK will outshift you every time, make you look like a real hick. It will leave that caddy in the dust both in the shift and on a back road. Drive a new cayman and educate yourself.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
The latest highest performance porsche can only be ordered with a PDK transmission. It is lightning fast, great on down shift and may be operated with auto or with paddles. I own a porsche with a pdk. They are fantastic! You should turn in your license as your wayyyyy behind the times. A PDK will outshift you every time, make you look like a real hick.
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It depends why you own and drive the car. It's more a philosophical issue than a physical one. However, a standard standard transmission does not have a hydraulic pump for the clutches so you don't lose that horsepower/fuel. That's why the automatic American versions of small European cars get such lousy fuel economy compared to the manual. 5-10hp to a pump is a lot when you only have 60-80 to begin with. 5-10hp continuous uses a lot of fuel.
 
Henning said:
It depends why you own and drive the car. It's more a philosophical issue than a physical one. However, a standard standard transmission does not have a hydraulic pump for the clutches so you don't lose that horsepower/fuel. That's why the automatic American versions of small European cars get such lousy fuel economy compared to the manual. 5-10hp to a pump is a lot when you only have 60-80 to begin with. 5-10hp continuous uses a lot of fuel.
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Be sure and drive a PDK before you utter an " expert opinion". If your buying this lumbering caddy , fuel or performance or driving enjoyment cannot be your highest priority.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
Be sure and drive a PDK before you utter an " expert opinion". If your buying this lumbering caddy , fuel or performance or driving enjoyment cannot be your highest priority.
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It's a far cry from lumbering. Even a 72 Eldorados with a 513 didn't exactly lumber when you laid into the throttle either, it just didn't take corners very well.:lol: If you haven't driven one of the high performance Caddies in the last decade, you speak from a lack of current data. Even the British boys from Top Gear were impressed with the sedan.

The current HP Caddie sedan would smoke any of the factory muscle cars of the 60s and 70s at the drag strip by a good margin.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
The latest highest performance porsche can only be ordered with a PDK transmission. It is lightning fast, great on down shift and may be operated with auto or with paddles. I own a porsche with a pdk. They are fantastic! You should turn in your license as your wayyyyy behind the times. A PDK will outshift you every time, make you look like a real hick. It will leave that caddy in the dust both in the shift and on a back road. Drive a new cayman and educate yourself.
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Yes, the new automatics are faster than a manual. It's been that way for years. But it takes away so much fun!

Also, at least in the V's, you get better fuel economy in the automatic. In my car I get 14-15mpg.
 
Z06_Mir said:
Yes, the new automatics are faster than a manual. It's been that way for years. But it takes away so much fun!

Also, at least in the V's, you get better fuel economy in the automatic. In my car I get 14-15mpg.
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The more horsepower you have, the more an automatic makes sense because it uses the same no matter what. Also torque converters have come a really long way.
 
Z06_Mir said:
Yes, the new automatics are faster than a manual. It's been that way for years. But it takes away so much fun!
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Agreed.

Two of our three vehicles are stick shifts - our 2007 Jeep Wrangler and our 2005 Honda Element.

Karen and I both find shifting for ourselves more "engaging". It can even make even our (very) pedestrian Element feel (almost) sporty in the mountains.

Our Ford Flex can go into manual mode with paddle shifters, but it's not at all the same.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
The latest highest performance porsche can only be ordered with a PDK transmission. Drive a new cayman and educate yourself.
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Well, uh - no. Completely wrong.

Educate yourself.
 
docmirror said:
Well, uh - no. Completely wrong.

Educate yourself.
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Don't be foolish! Research it before you make an ass of yourself. But......if all you want to do is accelerate in a straight line buy the caddy. The cayman will leave it far behind on a back road, even the lower hp model.
 
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Jimmy cooper said:
Don't be foolish! Research it before you make an ass of yourself. But......if all you want to do is accelerate in a straight line buy the caddy. The cayman will leave it far behind on a back road, even the lower hp model.
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Well, peckerhead - I've forgotten more about Porsches than you will ever learn in your lifetime.

http://jalopnik.com/porsche-cayman-gt4-this-is-it-1683600199

I'm not buying a Caddie doof - the OP asked about it until you came in here and bloviated all over this thread about your mom's Porsche with the auto trans.
 
Jimmy cooper said:
A PDK will outshift you every time, make you look like a real hick. It will leave that caddy in the dust both in the shift and on a back road. Drive a new cayman and educate yourself.
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That's old news. Drag racers gave up on manual transmissions back in the '60s and '70s for the same reason. Automatics can shift faster, but is that all there is to driving?

The manual shift is a time honored connection to actually driving the car. You choose when and where the shift occurs and there is a very satisfying feed back to actually moving the lever and delivering the power with your foot.

I get that Porsche and others have developed an auto pilot for drag racing. Sort of a push button launch, but to many, this takes the soul out of driving. Once they eliminate the gas pedal so as to decrease reaction time and take over the steering for safety reasons, the act of driving will be very fast and precise, but more the same experience on gets from being a passenger on a roller coaster.

Flappy paddles on the wheel, or little push buttons are a poor substitute for the driving enthusiast. I bet you those paddles Porsche puts on are never touched. It's likely the one replacement part they never ever have to stock.

Having said all this, I and shocked and amazed that in the world of electric automatic transmissions, that the manufacturers, or the aftermarket, hasn't developed a stick shift, complete with traditional shifting gates and artificial resistance during the shift for automatic sports cars like the Corvette, or Porsche. A manual mode where you have to actually "row the gears". In the old days this would have been impractical, but today it would be simple. :dunno:
 
Dav8or said:
For you I guess not. Many, many others have moved forward.
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You should have heard the dealers - had a friend who was high-up in a major Caddy dealer organization, told me the two biggest clusters GM did to Caddy were teh Cimarron and the Olds diesel.

For the Cimarron, they had to grin and bear it while it played out, but they always sold for huge markdowns- the market was not fooled.

As for the diesels, this particular dealer group had a policy of replacing the engines, no questions asked, when they failed; they said it was better to preserve a customer than to make whatever money they'd get from charging the customer. GM supported them in this fully.

I'd love to get another Caddy, but gotta get the one I have running reliably first (it is a '76 model, Fleetwood Eldorado Cabriolet, 8.2 Litre EFI).
 
Henning said:
The current HP Caddie sedan would smoke any of the factory muscle cars of the 60s and 70s at the drag strip by a good margin.
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And it will smoke nearly all the European sedans that are built now on the track, so not just 1/4 mile, but in the turns too. A nagging fact that has a lot of "car guys" annoyed. It will turn in faster lap times consistently, but all the experts will complain about poor "steering feedback", pedal placement or the quality of the leather... so they would rather have the BMW.:rolleyes2:
 
Jimmy cooper said:
Don't be foolish! Research it before you make an ass of yourself. But......if all you want to do is accelerate in a straight line buy the caddy. The cayman will leave it far behind on a back road, even the lower hp model.
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I hate to break it to you but... no. You are living a fantasy not supported in fact. Here is fact-

The Top 100 Lap Times at Nurburgring

Interesting facts about this list-

  1. The Porsche Cayman, or Boxster aren't on it at all.
  2. The Caddy is the only four door sedan to make the list.
  3. The Caddy did it back in 2009. The current car is way more capable.
  4. Other surprises include Camaros and Mustangs kicking the **** out of some very expensive and highly specialized European cars.
Don't worry, you're not alone. Old ideas die hard and the American car industry has a well deserved reputation that has left a real bad taste in the mouth. However, they are earning their way back and the idea that Americans can't build performance cars that go around corners is just plain false.
 
SCCutler said:
You should have heard the dealers - had a friend who was high-up in a major Caddy dealer organization, told me the two biggest clusters GM did to Caddy were teh Cimarron and the Olds diesel.

For the Cimarron, they had to grin and bear it while it played out, but they always sold for huge markdowns- the market was not fooled.

As for the diesels, this particular dealer group had a policy of replacing the engines, no questions asked, when they failed; they said it was better to preserve a customer than to make whatever money they'd get from charging the customer. GM supported them in this fully.

I'd love to get another Caddy, but gotta get the one I have running reliably first (it is a '76 model, Fleetwood Eldorado Cabriolet, 8.2 Litre EFI).
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Don't forget their 8-6-4 engine. Cylinder deactivation is a great idea, just the tech wasn't really ready back in the '80s and it didn't do Cadillac any favors by rushing this concept to market.

cadillac-eldorado-biarritz-v8-6-4-engine_100356516_m.jpg
 
Dav8or said:
For you I guess not. Many, many others have moved forward.
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I don't remember the Cavalier platform from Caddie, but I do recall the X-Car platform in the early 80s, that would be the Chevy Citation. The Chevy Volt is being rebadged under the Caddilac marque I believe, probably because the Tesla is doing so well they figured they could do better with the upper market.
 
Dav8or said:
Don't forget their 8-6-4 engine. Cylinder deactivation is a great idea, just the tech wasn't really ready back in the '80s and it didn't do Cadillac any favors by rushing this concept to market.

cadillac-eldorado-biarritz-v8-6-4-engine_100356516_m.jpg
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There was nothing wrong with that engine, I never figured out where people had a problem with them.:dunno: I was driving a Coupe deVille with one of those for a while back in the day because you could buy them with the V-8-6-4 at the auction for nothing 6 months old, you only paid slightly more than for a Diesel Caddy or Olds 88 or 98 fully loaded. Most of the time just swap in a 403 Olds gas engine and run it back through the auction and make a quick turn on the money. But the 8-6-4 I just drove that sucker for a while. Down the highway it was getting 22-24 mpg.
 
Henning said:
I don't remember the Cavalier platform from Caddie, but I do recall the X-Car platform in the early 80s, that would be the Chevy Citation. The Chevy Volt is being rebadged under the Caddilac marque I believe, probably because the Tesla is doing so well they figured they could do better with the upper market.
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My guess is he was referring to the Catera
 
NJP_MAN said:
My guess is he was referring to the Catera
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Yeah, that was the X-Car Caddie, then there was that God awful Cimarron and hideous Seville. The was the true low point in car making for General Motors, and pretty much everyone at that time in the mid 70s through early 90s. The box mobile era.

Edit, I just saw where there is a later Catera than I'm familiar with that does look like a 4 door Cavalier lol. Well, at least the Cavalier was actually a decent car. I thought it was a pretty good value, reliable, and drove okay. I've had a convertible one, bought it for $750, drove it 2 years only needing a pair of coils, gave it to a friend and she is still driving it.
 
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Henning said:
Yeah, that was the X-Car Caddie, then there was that God awful Cimarron and hideous Seville. The was the true low point in car making for General Motors, and pretty much everyone at that time in the mid 70s through early 90s. The box mobile era.
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The Cimarron was a J-car, same as the Cavalier. There was no X-car Cadillac. The XLR is an $80K rebodied Volt (gee, I wonder why it doesn't sell?)
 
flightwriter said:
The Cimarron was a J-car, same as the Cavalier. There was no X-car Cadillac. The XLR is an $80K rebodied Volt (gee, I wonder why it doesn't sell?)
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Back in the 80s when they made the Chevy Citation, wasn't that an "X-chassis"? There was a Cadillac built on that platform as well.
 
No, Caddy Cimarron. Rebadged Cavalier.
 
Henning said:
Back in the 80s when they made the Chevy Citation, wasn't that an "X-chassis"? There was a Cadillac built on that platform as well.
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The Citation was an X-car, along with the contemporary (1980-1985ish) Buick Skylark, Olds Omega, and Pontiac Phoenix. There was no Cadillac derivative, though; I think you're confusing it with the larger K-platform Seville and similar E-body Eldorado (both FWD after 1979/1980).
 
flightwriter said:
The Citation was an X-car, along with the contemporary (1980-1985ish) Buick Skylark, Olds Omega, and Pontiac Phoenix. There was no Cadillac derivative, though; I think you're confusing it with the larger K-platform Seville and similar E-body Eldorado (both FWD after 1979/1980).
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Hmmm, ok, could have sworn my neighbor had a Citation with Caddie badges, long ago though.

The Eldorados, Toronados, and Rivieras were FWD since 67, those were cool cars at the beginning. IIRC there was a '59 Eldorado 'Concept Car' that made the circuit that was also FWD.
 
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