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The 2011 Cadillac CTS Coupe debuts at the LA Auto Show.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)
The CTS has proven to be one of Cadillac's most versatile cars, and a favorite of the company's designers. The CTS Sedan launched with an extreme example of Cadillac's modern Art and Science design language, giving it a very individual look. Since then, Cadillac has added a Sport Wagon version and the high performance CTS-V. Cadillac further modifies the body with the CTS Coupe, taking the design to even more extreme lengths.
At once shorter and flatter than the CTS Sedan, the Coupe looks almost like a hatchback with the high rise of the trunk lid. Inside seating is in a 2+2 arrangement. Although the front of the car is the same as the CTS Sedan, the sides and rear are new. Along with taking off the rear doors, Cadillac made other design changes, such as taking off the door handles, replacing them with electronic touchpads, and changing the configuration of the exhaust tips.
Inside, the Coupe has the same cabin tech as the Sedan, with hard drive-based navigation with live traffic, onboard music storage, iPod integration, Bose stereo system, and Bluetooth.
The hot topic that's being discussed all over the 'Net and at water coolers all over the world is how Tiger Woods ended up crashing his 2009 Cadillac Escalade into a now-famous tree in Florida after what is being rumored as a fight with his wife over reports that he'd been steppin' out with another woman. I'll leave all the gossip and speculation on the why's and how's of that situation to TMZ or the National Enquirer. But I'm the type of person who tries to find light and humor in all situations, so I thought I should poke a little fun at this incident with a web video of a Cadillac Escalade that would definitely not be an underdog against a suburban tree, and here 'tis - the Cadillac Escalade monster truck!
This video comes from a monster truck jam at Lebanon Valley Speedway, and we jump in right away with a Cadillac Escalade that's been made into friggin' huge monster truck ready for destruction. It's pretty much standard monster truck fare until about the halfway point when the Escalade takes a jump over some standard automobiles at an odd angle, and ends up flipping over on its side and catching fire for a moment. After determining that driver George Balhan is OK he gives a celebration speech and basks in the moment.
The Saab deal unravels: Is the Swedish tech innovator dead? What we're looking for at the L.A. auto show. The best time to buy a car may surprise you. BMW revamps the 5-Series and makes a run at the kind of diesel America never loved and Europe always has. And we take a ride in the GMC Terrain.
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EPISODE 146
SHOW NOTES• BMW launches new 5-series online
• BMW set to offer small, 4-cylinder diesels in U.S.
• Bad news for Saab: White knight turns and rides off
• Ferrari hybrid seems imminent according to what looks like a cocktail napkin sketch
• CNET Video: What you'll need to replace your factory car stereo
GM says yes to the Cadillac of Volts, eBay offers some free online car buying protection, electric cars you fill up--not charge up--and a ride in a car that has the Sport on it, but not really in it.
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EPISODE 144
SHOW NOTES• GM will build the Cadillac Converj
• TomTom iPhone app gets better--but not cheaper
• Europe envisions cars forming highway trains
Take a huge engine and drop it in a basic chassis. The VSR follows the classic hot rod formula to a tee.
(Credit: Antuan Goodwin/CNET)Cadillac and General Motors have unveiled the VSR Cadillac V-Series Powered Sports Rod Concept, or VSR for short, at the 2009 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. What's the VSR concept, you ask? Well, according to GM:
"This concept features a contemporary hand-sculpted body and unique blend of Cadillac styling cues, with proportions and form that evoke images of earlier days of race cars/sports cars and 'Hot Rodding.' Race car engineering, state-of-the-art electronics and technology express the modern supercar era."
That means that GM had taken a lightweight and stripped-down aluminum hot rod chassis and slapped a thoroughly modern 6-liter, 400-horsepower Cadillac V-8 engine under its clamshell hood. This engine is probably a close relative to the 6.2-liter mill that powers the CTS-V. It transmits its power and torque through an automatic transmission to a pair of meaty, 22-inch rear wheels shod in TOYO Proxes S/T tires.
Up front, a pair of 20-inch wheels is connected to an electric powered rack-and-pinion system to handle the VSR's steering duties. All four corners are independently suspended on Air-Ride Technology Shock Wave air struts. Halting the VSR to a stop are a quartet of disc brakes with six-piston calipers and 13-inch rotors.
Although on display in a single seating configuration, the VSR actually seats two with its passenger side tonneau cover removed. Both passengers sit in carbon fiber bucket seats, but only the driver gets to tickle the custom steering wheel and play with the Digital instrumentation by Medallion. Cabin tech comes in the form of an iPhone/iPod Touch compatible audio system and a rearview camera system by Peak.
We don't expect to see this baby on the road any time soon, but it's good to know that someone at GM still has an active imagination.
Most dialogue about the Car Allowance Rebate System tends to be wholly serious - especially by those who oppose the government-endorsed program. Not surprisingly, a lot of web video on the subject has been less than humorous. While any government-mandated policy deserves serious analysis and informed opinion, sometimes you gotta make light of such issues and have a little fun. With this in mind, today I present a fun little video where four traded-in "clunkers" have a literal race to the death.
This web video follows the fate of four old and purportedly useless automobiles as they are prepared for execution. The contestants include a Nissan Pathfinder, two Beamers and a Caddy (all cars, in my opinion, are typically fine automobiles, even in their twilight years) are drained of fluids and filled with the so-called "liquid glass".
Now that you know the contestants, stop the video before the 1:25 mark and make your bets on who wins, places, shows and outright loses in this motionless race to the end of their existence on God's gray earth. Drivers take their places inside each of the four vehicles and rev the engines at lightning speeds, and wait to see if your predictions pan out - one car will die before the others, and yet another will outlast the engine destruction longer than its cohorts. Unfortunately, in this contest there really isn't any true winner...they all lose as the liquid glass eventually works into the engine and the poor clunkers die a horrific death. More fun than Guitar Hero, baby!
Cadillac's new flagship will share a platform with the new Buick LaCrosse but will be wider and more luxurious, industry and General Motors sources say.
The Cadillac, code-named XTS, is expected in 2011 and will replace the front-drive DTS and rear-drive STS, the sources say. The X in the code-name suggests that all-wheel drive will be optional or standard.
The car is part of an emerging strategy for Cadillac that mirrors BMW's three-car lineup of small, medium, and large. The CTS would be the medium-size car, and a new small Cadillac also is expected in 2011, sources say.
GM has made little secret of the new flagship, showing a drawing of the concept to dealers at a meeting last month in Detroit. Details are emerging about its platform and production site.
The new flagship may be assembled at GM's Oshawa, Ontario, plant, the Canadian Auto Workers union says.
... Read more
GM bought the Renaissance Center in 1996, occupying four of its towers.
(Credit: Yavno)In 1996 GM bought the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit, and occupied four of its seven towers. But the GM employees in those towers didn't actually build cars, a task left to factory workers around the world. That is one problem addressed by the new General Motors Company that just emerged from bankruptcy. GM CEO Fritz Henderson announced that the company would eliminate 35 percent of its executive positions, flattening its management structure. Henderson said, GM will focus on "its customers, its cars, and its culture," in that order.
GM retains four brands, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC. Before the fall, Cadillac was on the right track, producing the CTS, which easily competes with European and Asian sport luxury vehicles. Product plans are still going forward for the CTS wagon, shown at car shows earlier this year. Likewise, the Chevrolet Volt will remain on track, a car that, if GM had begun development years earlier, might have taken the hybrid mantle away from the Toyota Prius. Buicks sell well as luxury cars in China, which explains the retention of that brand, and GMC still has cachet in the truck market.
In another move that might have saved the company if enacted years earlier, Henderson announced that one factory would be dedicated to producing a new family of small cars. Other models the company will still produce are the Chevrolet Camaro, Cadillac SRX, Cadillac CTS Coupe, GMC Terrain, and the Chevrolet Cruze. Hummer and Saturn are being sold as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, while Pontiac has been discontinued.
If GM developed the Volt years earlier, would it have saved the company?
(Credit: GM)Henderson clearly wants to modernize the company. GM is initiating a new experiment, a partnership with eBay where it will sell new cars on the online auction site.
But has GM stripped away all of the things that originally brought about its downfall? Henderson's announcements at least suggest some common sense thinking, breaking away from the hide-bound company of the past, the product planning of which got sideswiped by external factors such as the high gas prices of 2008.
For GM's sake, and the U.S. public's 60 percent share, the company should be working on products that not only compete internationally, but also lead the way. With upstarts like Tesla Motors and Fisker Automotive taking advantage of this unique time in the automotive world, the decline of the internal combustion engine, GM needs to focus on its own alternative power train strategy. And that will require the flexibility within management to let the past go and embrace future technologies.
GM shows the insides of its six-speed transmission.
(Credit: GM)GM touts its six-speed-automatic transmissions in video and blog form today, highlighting the kind of power train technology that should keep the company competitive. Engineer Jeff Lux provides some insight into GM transmission advances in his blog entry, and another transmission engineer, Scott Damman, narrates a video with some interesting animations showing how these transmissions work.
The blog points out the four percent fuel efficiency that can be gained when using a six-speed transmission over a four speed. GM has nine different six-speed transmissions, and is working on a 10th, with 40 models using them. Those numbers are likely to go down with model and brand cutbacks. We're also not sure why GM needs 10 different transmissions when four should do, such as one for small cars, one for larger sedans and crossovers, one for SUVs, and a performance model for cars like the Corvette. Either the number of transmission shows GM's inefficiency, or the blogger is counting versions with slightly different gearing.
Other work toward improving performance mentioned in the blog involves the software used to control torque converter lock-up, which shows how even power trains are incorporating advanced technology. And we're all for eliminating the slush from automatic transmissions.
Another fuel saving technology GM is rolling out in the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain is an Eco mode, a button that makes the transmission upshift earlier and hold high gears longer, thus improving fuel economy. Here's a suggestion: make that Eco mode the normal Drive mode.
This video is entertaining if you like to see how the innards of a transmission look.
DETROIT--General Motors said last week that it will stop building the Pontiac G6 GXP sedan and coupe at the end of this model year, as well as the Chevrolet Impala SS and Cobalt SS sedans and the Cadillac STS-V.
Pontiac representative Jim Hopson said Friday that the GXP decision is not related to the phaseout of Pontiac, which GM plans to accomplish by the end of 2010. It stemmed from an earlier decision to pare Pontiac down to a niche brand, he said.
"There is a movement here to reduce the build complexity -- that's the number of trim levels we sell, not the nameplates -- so that was the decision behind taking out the GXP," Hopson said.
He added: "We'll have more information in the weeks to come of exactly when each Pontiac vehicle will go out of production."
At Chevrolet, the Cobalt SS coupe will continue "a while longer--to be determined," said Terry Rhadigan, a Chevrolet representative.
"Demand was pretty light for both models, and so it was a business decision that we made based on the demand," he said.
GM just launched the Cobalt SS sedan in 2008--and quickly discovered no demand for it. "It had a pretty short run," Rhadigan said.
GM does not release sales data on trim levels. Through April, GM sold 32,065 total Cobalts, down from 66,660 in the year-ago period. GM sold 45,047 total Impalas through April, compared with 98,478 a year earlier.
(Source: Automotive News)
