Jump to content
News
Reviews
Discussons
Activity
Create New...
Close

smk4565

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    13,685

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    11

 Content Type 

Everything posted by smk4565

  1. smk4565
    No doubt GM has massive economies of scale on front drive. On rear drive they have Camaro/ATS/CTS on one chassis and CT6 on another. That isn't a lot of volume on those platforms. Sure they can share the transmission with the pickups, but the 3.6 is outclassed by Cadillac's competition so that leaves them with turbo V6s that get criticized in a lot of reviews and no V8, because there is no volume to justify a Cadillac only V8, let alone a V12 or hybrid drivetrain. Mercedes might build B-class taxis but they build $150k sports cars and S-class sedans and $240k V12 G-wagens. They have the top end, Buick and even Cadillac don't have that high end. Although I would love to see Cadillac make a $150,000 car, at this point I don't even care if it is coupe, sedan, or SUV, just do something.
  2. smk4565
    VW outsells Buick in China, so what? Buick doesn't sell their cars at Mercedes price point in China, or here. No bar has been moved. I made a Cadillac vs Lexus vs Mercedes comparison. If Buick was a luxury brand, GM wouldn't need Cadillac, but Cadillac is still here, because they need a luxury brand.
  3. smk4565
    So front wheel drive is bad for sedans, but good for crossovers? You seem to hate on Mercedes front drive entry level car, but defend Cadillac's move to use it in mid-size crossover. Personally I wouldn't even consider a front drive car, but I won't consider buying a CLA/GLA either. The market in the $30-40k space doesn't care though as most buyers don't notice the difference. Chevy makes the Spark and Sonic, does that somehow hurt the Corvette and make it crap because the Sonic is a 138 hp front driver? Mercedes makes like 20 models with a 500+ hp V8/V12 if they make 2 with a 208 hp fwd 4-cyldinder I don't think it a big deal.
  4. smk4565
    Oh right, I forgot that Buick is a luxury brand even though the $16,700 Excelle and $20,600 Verano where 547,000 of Buicks 1.2 million Chinese market sales came from. By that measure, the VW Jetta is a luxury car too.
  5. smk4565
    Envision is a bit cheaper than a GLC or Cadillac. But I brought it up because of economies of scale. Mercedes has plenty of economies of scale. Once upon a time the Deville outsold the E-class and C-class combined in the USA, and in time the front drive luxury sedans have basically died off. One day these front drive luxury crossovers will fall too, except maybe for the sub $45k market, they'll hold on, but in the end the rear drive always wins in luxury. Speaking of economies of scale, if Cadillacs crossovers are all front wheel drive, where do they get economies of scale on rear drive cars? The Camaro is a shrinking market, this 3-series segment has a dozen entries in it, and the mid-size luxury sedan segment is shrinking.
  6. smk4565
    The RX and XT5 are mid-size at small price. If an RX was $56k base like the similarly sized BMW X5, Lexus RX sales would be in the dump, like the GX and LX are. For a $35-45k crossover front wheel drive is fine because you don't have more than 300 hp in any of them, and you have awd to route it around and the people buying them don't care about performance. When you go north of $50k and start going after buyers that want more power, more performance you need rear wheel drive. As far as economies of scale go, Mercedes sells about 9,000 GLC a month in Europe, Cadillac sold 761 total cars in Europe last year and Lexus whole brand sales were 44,287. In China XT5 has sold 34,116 units YTD through July, Lexus RX sold 17,023 and GLC has sold 57,670. Oh, no, GLC outsells XT5 and RX combined!
  7. smk4565
    Until the Mustang got independent rear suspension a couple years ago, there was no chance or going a Lincoln on it. While a Lincoln sedan or Mark 9 coupe could be a cool car, who will buy it? It would have to have a Navigator level interior and ecoboost V6 to even get sales at $45k. The Continental hardly gets any sales and that starts at $46k. The Lincoln brand has a trashed image and I think even the Continental has a mediocre interior for it's price, a Volvo S90 is nicer, an A6, 5-series or E-class nicer still, and the Continental doesn't even have any performance attributes to sell. In theory a Mustang based Lincoln would be great, but they would never execute it right, and it would be like Cadillac Allante part 2. When is the last time Lincoln had a home run product? Late 90s Navigator is what comes to mind, and they were the first in that segment and now everyone else passed them up.
  8. smk4565
    If you put that list in size order it is, Infiniti QX60, Acura MDX, Lexus RX, BMW X5, Cadillac XT5, Mercedes GLE, etc. The bigger vehicles are selling better than the small ones. I do think the Mercedes GLC should sell better, it shouldn't lose to a Q5 or RDX. The other thing about that list, is only 2 of those vehicles have a base price over $50,000 that can be optioned up over $100,000. So we can guess which two are most profitable. And for decades they have had eroding market share and brand image, to the point some higher ups in Ford wanted to kill the brand altogether 3 years ago. The Continental is basically for the 75+ crowd and Classy Cab, which even then Uber will put taxi companies out of business anyway.
  9. smk4565
    Benz has one front drive crossover and 4 rear drive utilities. But one is plenty. Oddly enough on the Mercedes product plan sheet kept says A-class sedan but CLA is not listed. CLS, GT sedan, and GLC fuel cell are listed so it seems like a detailed chart. Maybe CLA is done.
  10. smk4565
    Cadillac's number 1 seller is front drive and the XTS is front drive, XT4 is front drive. That is a lot of front wheel drive. And the bean counters read those sales charts and see front drive selling and CTS and ATS not. Will they be wider and have more interior space?
  11. smk4565
    They might replace ATS and CTS with a sedan based on the Malibu platform for all we know. Never underestimate GM's ability to cost cut and cut corners. I figure as long as the Camaro is around, they'll make a 4 door sedan on the same platform, that is Cadillac's mid-size sedan. CT6 for large sedan, the rest of the line up will be crossovers. Look how crowded the sedan segment is, and a lot of these entry lux sedans are selling 1,000 units a month, hard way to make a profit. 2, 3, 4 liter engines is a no brainier since China has displacement taxes at those numbers. I wonder if JDN is getting paid by Infiniti to run Cadillac into the ground. I don't think he is being coy, I think he is clueless how to beat the Germans, and he trails all 3 Japanese luxury brands now too.
  12. smk4565
    Floating roof strikes again! Why does no one make a floating roof 4-door coupe? Beat those dead horses some more.
  13. smk4565
    I agree with those who say it has derivative styling, the headlights look like they came off a 3-series, there is a lot of Mazda vibe with this car, and that is the problem with the Genesis brand overall, they don't really have a unique design language. It just looks like a mishmash of other brands. The interior looks like it came from a Mazda 6, which is nice for a family sedan, not so good if competing with Mercedes and Audi and BMW. I think that interior will let them down unless they are priced way less than the Germans. Or at CLA/A3 money, not A4/C-class money. The powertrain options look solid, the ATS really needs a turbo V6, that 3.6 liter is down 100 lb-ft of torque to the G70. If Hyundai wants to make a splash they would put the 5.0 V8 in this car with twin turbos, or do some sort of hybrid off the 3.3 V6 that adds like a 150 hp electric motor.
  14. smk4565
    Mercedes was the best in Formula 1 in 1954-1955, you know back when they didn't make luxury or performance cars and just made taxis. They best Ferrari then, now that they are back in the sport they aren't beating Ferrari again. Mercedes is joining Formula E so we'll see if they can win that. McLaren is ditching Honda engines in F1 for Renault next year so they should actually finish a race and be competitive.
  15. smk4565
    This car is biblically terrible. Looks ugly, interior appears to be designed on and Etch-a-sketch by a child with ADHD, and fitted together with Big Lots level switch gear, I think that door handle came out of a 90s Corolla. Gutless engine, as to be expected with a Lexus. Here is a fun fact, Lexus has only sold 1 vehicle ever with over 400 lb-ft of torque and it is the LX570 with 403 lb-ft. That's right, the LC-F, the GS-F and even the LF-A have torque ratings in the 300's.
  16. smk4565
    JDN is a bad manager. Infiniti sales and Audi sales have gone up since he left those organizations and Cadillac has fallen to 7th place in American market sales. GM can do chassis and suspensions, they are pretty good at that, Cadillacs, Corvettes and Camaros all often get high marks in that regard. But look at every comparison test a Cadillac has been in over the past 15 years, and every time, interior, build quality, NVH, refinement, etc always doom them. JDN inherited a known problem, has done nothing to fix it, nothing to elevate the Cadillac brand, nothing to fix the marketing. And people crash their Ferraris because they are upset and frustrated with 4 years of losing to Mercedes.
  17. smk4565
    True on the C8 and hardly anything is know about the mid-engine corvette. Project One is a whole other level that you almost can't compare anything to it. Lewis Hamilton had this to say: “I love cars. And I’ve been saying to Mercedes for so long, why don’t you do a real car? Like, you’ve got AMG sports cars, but I’m talking about a supercar. Why is Ferrari building these supercars? We can build a better car than them. We build a better racing car than them, why don’t you guys build something that takes Mercedes to another stratosphere. And eventually I guess, after I’ve been saying it for ten years, so eventually they’ve gone ahead with it, and I think that’s cool.” And so now Mercedes is in another stratosphere and can take it to Ferrari on the road, just as they have on the track the past 4 years.
  18. smk4565
    I think the word "small" doesn't fit with Bentley, so I don't know what a small SUV would be. I can't see them doing a Porsche Macan size SUV. Why not make an electric SUV? They have the Continental, I don't think they really need another mid-size sports car, and they have 2 big sedans. EV makes sense for Bentley, but their owners like big cruisers.
  19. smk4565
    There is the X5 M and X6 M also, Range Rover SVR, Alfa Romeo Stelvio, etc. But I feel like Porsche is Mercedes biggest competitor in performance SUVs. Until BMW gets an X3 M and X7 M anyway. Porsche buyers don't care if it costs $140,000 they care that they can get leather wrapped AC vents and illuminated "Turbo S" door sills. And carbon fiber engine covers, got to have those. If there isn't a carbon fiber rear wiper blade option on the Cayenne, Porsche better add that, they are leaving $900 on the table without that.
  20. smk4565
    Project one is estimated to be under 2,800 lbs. One estimate was at 2,650 lbs. F1 technology.
  21. smk4565
    The 707 hp will make it worth the price of admission.
  22. smk4565
    The Porsche 918 gets 67 mpg-e with full charge, the Project One will beat that, it weighs over 1,000 lbs less and has more batteries. The Porsche 918 on gas only still does 26 mpg combined, the Project One should be able to beat that since it 1/3 the displacement and the weight advantage. Perhaps Volt would have been a better comparison than Prius since it is a plug in hybrid.
  23. smk4565
    $100k for an optioned up Trackhawk, and no FCA car has an interior worth $100k, not even the Maseratis.
  24. smk4565
    Depends on how you define performance. Personally I would take a Mercedes SL over an AMG GT because I'd rather have a comfortable cruiser with more luxury than a hardcore feel every pot hole sports car. AMG is working with cars designed to be luxury cruisers first and modifying to be sporty. The one exception, besides Project One, is the GT which AMG did from scratch and it sets faster lap times than a great majority of cars on any track including the Nurburgring where it beats every Chevy ever made. If your definition of performance is lap times are all that matter on a budget than the Camaro is the way to go. We seem to be. But it is pointless. The Project One is in territory no road car has ever seen. This is faster acceleration than a Bugatti Chiron with handling better than an Ariel Atom and gas mileage better than a Prius. Basically that is what they have built.
  25. smk4565
    I liked the XLR 's looks but the interior had cheap materials and with the 320 hp base engine didn't make it worth $77,000 at the time. With a better interior and more motor it could have worked. The SL has 302 hp base back then but they also had a 600 hp V12 and the C6 Vette had 500 hp then. The XLR's problem was it was slower than a Corvette and cost way more with little interior upgrade. They should learn from that though and do another Cadillac sports car above the Corvette. The Cadillac brand is dying and about to be a bunch of dressed up Chevy crossovers, which is the state of Lincoln right now.
×
×
  • Create New...

Hey there, we noticed you're using an ad-blocker. We're a small site that is supported by ads or subscriptions. We rely on these to pay for server costs and vehicle reviews.  Please consider whitelisting us in your ad-blocker, or if you really like what you see, you can pick up one of our subscriptions for just $1.75 a month or $15 a year. It may not seem like a lot, but it goes a long way to help support real, honest content, that isn't generated by an AI bot.

See you out there.

Drew
Editor-in-Chief

I've whitelisted
Continue without support

Write what you are looking for and press enter or click the search icon to begin your search