2011 Cadillac DTS Review

Eras end. Driven by changing tastes and the aging of customers, Cadillac will stop making and selling the big DTS sedan (the modern-day version of the Sedan DeVille) at the end of the 2011 model year.  It will be replaced by the XTS, a car that will almost certainly be targeted to the tastes of Baby Boom luxury car buyers...and thus, at Lexus, Audi and BMW.

It's easy for Boomers to ignore and even ridicule the DTS, a car you're most likely to find in retirement communities, parking lots of restaurants serving the Early Bird special dinners and the occasional rental fleet.

But it's also wrong.

At a base price of $46,680, Cadillac's biggest sedan is $3500 less than the BMW 335is coupe. Apples and oranges, you say? You're right. Let's put the DTS against the least-expensive big Bimmer, the 740i sedan.

The Cadillac is $24,000 less. It has more room, costs less to insure, maintain and license and the highway fuel economy difference (23 mpg for the Cadillac, 25 for the BMW) is negligible.

So what's it like to drive? I hadn't had the opportunity in 7 years (even GM's press fleet folks have been treating the DTS like a stepchild), so I rounded one up for a week.  No, it's not meant for blasting through winding mountain roads (newsflash: neither is any Lexus save the IS-F).

What it is is quiet, smooth, responsive, and, given its size and lack of cutting-edge handling hardware, remarkably agile.  The people who've eagerly shelled out $65K for Escalades but wouldn't give a DTS the time of day would think they're driving a sport sedan by comparison. They'd also find they and their passengers are as or more comfortable and they could make a nice dent in the power bill with the money they save on gasoline.

Something I learned programming popular music radio back in the day: There is such a thing as out-hipping yourself, walking away from things of value to a mass audience in the pursuit of image. A week in the DTS has me strongly suspecting that we'll miss it once it's gone.

(review vehicle courtesy Lund Cadillac) 

Cadillac Escalade Hybrid Review

The temptation was huge to simply let the picture above be the review: A Cadillac Escalade, the ultimate Sumo-class luxury SUV, with the word "H Y B R I D" emblazoned on it.

That would be the easy way out, though. The Cadillac Escalade Hybrid deserves...heck, demands...some serious discussion. After all, the mass perception of hybrids revolves around cars like the Toyota Prius...small fuel-sipping machines that, while luxurious by the standards of even a decade ago, make a show of shunning wretched excess.

Sure, the movement has been to larger hybrid vehicles of late...from the Ford Escape Hybrid to the Nissan Altima Hybrid, but those haven't fully penetrated the public consciousness yet.

And yes, the Lexus LH600 L hybrid sedan, at $105,000 plus, is somewhat more of an apparent contradiction than the Escalade Hybrid, but it's largely invisible...looking like its gasoline-powered variant, the LS460, it slips through traffic unnoticed.

Not the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid. There are NINE...count them...NINE exterior badges proclaiming the word "H Y B R I D", prompting the inevitable questions from fellow motorists, who then have to deal with the answers:

A base price of $72,865.

A curb weight of 5,717 pounds.

403 horsepower from a 6.2 liter V8 gasoline engine.

0 to 60 in 6.8 seconds.

So what could the payoff possibly be? Where's the hybrid come in here? With an EPA estimated 20 miles per gallon city, 21 highway.

Now those aren't earth-shaking numbers, certainly not compared to misers like the Prius (which gets 48 city/45 highway). It misses the TireKicker Top Ten Fuel Saver list. But it is a 50% improvement in mileage compared to the gasoline-powered Escalade, which beats the 38% improvement GM's engineers got with the Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid (although the Chevy's raw mpg numbers are higher).

So, if you have to have a Cadillac Escalade, the Hybrid has its upside in gas savings. Which leaves the question: Do you? Have to have one, I mean?

Well, "have to" is a loaded phrase. As I walked around the Escalade Hybrid when it arrived, looking over the GM PR materials, I was thinking about what a tough sell this particular vehicle was likely to be.

Then I spent a week driving it.

Lord help me, I want one. If GM wants a "yes" vote on bailout money, they just need to send 100 of these to the Senate wing of the United States Capitol with notes saying "Return whenever...or not." The Escalade is luxury and refinement taken to a degree where I'd argue that it's the best car to wear a Cadillac badge in at least 40 years. It imparts a sense that you're not just driving any old thing...you're driving a Cadillac. And covering 150 miles while barely seeing the fuel gague needle move off "F" is a bonus.

Getting 20 miles per gallon in the city out of a three-ton, 400-plus horsepower SUV is something that I would have classified as "the dog riding the bicycle". It doesn't matter how well he does it, it's just that it can be done at all. But the Escalade blows that away by being a really great car that makes you want it. And if that's not proof that American car-building ingenuity is alive and well, then I don't know what is.