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smk4565

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Everything posted by smk4565

  1. smk4565
    Weight savings are great, but imagine a CT6 with 400 HP base, and 500 in a V8 and 600 in a V-series, rather than 270 HP base, and 335 HP v6 optional and 400 HP V-sport or whatever. And I bet the coming V8 is V-series, because that will be the 5th engine choice in a low volume car. The new 7-series is losing 450 lbs and the E-class is losing 220, that starts to solve the Germans weight problem. The BMW i3 is light, only 2800 lbs, it must have the best handling and performance ever, it is 600 lbs less than an ATS!
  2. smk4565
    By that thinking, the Corvette should lose the V8 in favor of turbo 4 and turbo V6 engines, because the Corvette is lighter than a GT-R or Mercedes SL, and the Corvette can do with less power. A 300 hp Turbo 4 would give the Corvette the same power as in 1996, and a 400 hp turbo V6 would give the same power as 2005, so that should be adequate, since the imports weight more.
  3. smk4565
    Again.. irrelevant and wrong. Cadillac has a 420HP, 460 ft lb V8 in their most recognizable vehicle, the Escalade. They also will have V8 in the CTS-V and CT6. That still completely ignores the fact that their TTv6s from 3.0L to 3.6L encompass ground from 400hp to 464hp. Also in the 2007 Cadillac had a S/C V8 with 469HP and a N/A one with 403HP. U are ignoring all of that for the simpleton sake of your argument...again.. against anything positive from Cadillac I was only using base V8s to make the comparison easy. Because this is also about the mainstream engines, as the Northstar was main Cadillac engine of the 90s. Mercedes had a 622 hp supercharged V8 in the SLR in 2007, I guess I could compare that to the 469 hp Cadillac supercharged V8. But that wouldn't really seem fair.
  4. smk4565
    Looks very Asian, the rear looks like a last generation Sonata. Doesn't really look like a Buick, just a mish-mash of Honda and Hyundai. Is that the American market car too?
  5. smk4565
    If they took the V8 out of the Corvette in favor of a 2.0T base and 3.0 TT V6 optional, and made a V8 available only in the Corvette Z06, with claims of how the Corvette is low weight so it only needs 4 or 6 cylinders and not 8, there would be outrage. That is what they have done to Cadillac, ripped away the V8 and are claiming we have 90s V8 power just out of fewer cylinders. But the other luxury brands aren't making 90s horsepower. To my original point of how Cadillac has lagged in horsepower, let's look at BMW, Mercedes, Cadillac and Corvette V8s. 1988 BMW (no V8, only a 182 hp straight six or 300 hp V12) 1988 Cadillac 4.5 liter: 155 hp, 245 lb-ft 1988 Corvette 5.7 liter: 245 hp, 345 lb-ft 1988 Mercedes 5.6 liter: 238 hp, 287 lb-ft 1996 BMW 4.4 liter: 282 hp, 310 lb-ft 1996 Corvette 5.7 liter: 300 hp, 335 lb-ft 1996 Cadillac 4.6 liter: 300 hp, 295 lb-ft 1996 Mercedes 4.2 liter: 275 hp, 295 lb-ft 1996 Mercedes 5.0 liter: 302 hp, 339 lb-ft 2007 BMW 4.8 liter: 360 hp, 360 lb-ft 2007 Corvette 6.0 liter: 400 hp, 400 lb-ft 2007 Cadillac 4.6 liter: 320 hp, 315 lb-ft 2007 Mercedes 5.5 liter: 382 hp, 391 lb-ft 2015 BMW 4.4 liter: 455 hp, 480 lb-ft 2015 Corvette 6.2 liter: 455 hp, 460 lb-ft 2015 Cadillac: (no V8) 2015 Mercedes 4.7 liter: 449 hp, 516 lb-ft Cadillac lagged in the late 80s, but in 1996 BMW, Mercedes, Cadillac and Corvette were all about the same. By 2007 Cadillac was falling behind, then the just gave up on the V8. 20 years ago, 300 hp was a powerful engine, with inflation in today's numbers it is 450 hp.
  6. smk4565
    If Cadillac grew horsepower at the same rate as the Corvette, then in 1995 a Seville/Eldorado had about 10% less power than the Corvette base model. 10% less power than a 2015 Corvette is about 400 HP. So the average Cadillac should have 400 HP. The 3.6 V6 could be base engine on CTS, the 400 hp 3.0 twin turbo the mid-level engine and the v-series the top. And they should have put that hybrid system on the twin turbo V6, why does Cadillac love 4-cylinder engines so much, put those in a Chevy. If the Corvette had a hybrid 4-banger giving up 100 HP to a GT-R or 911 and GM said the Corvette will make up the horsepower shortage by having less weight, people would be in outrage.
  7. smk4565
    S-class sold 103,000 cars in 2014, its best sales year ever. I guess buyers didn't miss it. S-class hybrid has 436 hp now, much better than 335. My point was that Cadillac in the 90s had good power. An Aston Martin DB7 had 335 hp, a Corvette had 330, even the Ferrari 348 of the early 90s had 312 hp. Most sports cars were in the 300s. Pretty much every Cadillac was putting out power not far from the GT cars and serious sports cars. Only the high end exotics like the Viper or Ferrari 512TR could really blow it away.
  8. smk4565
    What sucks is the Camaro will probably have better engines than this car. The Camaro will no doubt have more power than an ATS, on which it is based. If you go back 20 years, the Northstar put out 300 hp and a Camaro SS or Trans Am made 275-305 depending on the year, but that was a top end Camaro. And all the Cadillac sedans had 300 hp in an age when a Corvette had 330, a 300ZX twin turbo had 300, and S-class had 389, etc. 300 hp was a lot in the 90s. Now most Cadillacs have 270-330 hp, basically 90s level power and the rest of the market has increased so much.
  9. smk4565
    I'd think twin turbo 4.0 liter. If they have a 2.0 liter turbo four and a 3.0 liter turbo 6, it only makes sense.
  10. smk4565
    The Mercedes V12 is Bin5 ULEV III 125 emissions rating so it meets California emissions for 2025. The S600 scores a 6 on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being an all electric, zero emission car, a CTS also scores a 6 in smog rating. The V12 will be around a while.
  11. smk4565
    Mercedes will never kill that V12, they just redid the 5.5 liter V12 to a new 6.0 liter V12 for 2015 model year, and the plan is to keep it going. BMW won't drop the V12 because they need it for Rolls Royce. Those two brand have enough hybrids and diesels and the Mercedes V12 has start/stop on it to curb emissions.
  12. smk4565
    Volt needs to make money on its own, Cadillac shouldn't have to pay for Chevrolet's failures. Put a Tesla powertrain in the ELR and it might have been a home run cool product. Put a Volt powertrain in there, and it sucked. At least they are getting rid of it. The faster they dump Chevy powertrains out of Cadillacs the better.
  13. smk4565
    This is good news, there need to be more V8s. But 2-3 more years wait? I guess the problem goes back to not keeping the V8s going in the 2009-2015 time frame. So it is back to square one. Hopefully a V12 is to follow, but no business case would exist for one, so they won't do it, even though they should.
  14. smk4565
    They would have been better off making the ELR a Tesla-like 100% electric car with a 300 mile range and 350 hp motor and rear wheel drive. Then for $75k you are getting the same range and performance a Tesla would have, but it coupe form. Instead it is another one and done Cadillac product from the "lets throw it against the wall and see if it sticks" product planners.
  15. smk4565
    Buick LaCrosse could be a livery vehicle. They could make a hearse out of that, and it would be cheaper for funeral homes, and I doubt people are going to complain on what type of car it is.
  16. smk4565
    Price killed this car from the start. An impractical 2 door car such as this is always going to be low volume, but when you put that big a price tag on a dressed up Volt, you are going to have a failure. And I think the greenie types would buy a sedan or hatch and not a coupe with limited space. I hope they learn their lesson here and apply that knowledge to the CT6. You can't put a big price tag on a car with a weak motor.
  17. smk4565
    Should have cut the price $19,000. Then they might be on to something. But they already announced their won't be a Gen 2, so buy now!
  18. smk4565
    I think Marchionne wants to sell the company, probably would be a good pay out for him. Mazda and those little guys don't have that much cash, Mazda has $3 billion cash on hand. VW on the other hand has $31 billion of cash, plus Piech is worth over $5 billion, although I imagine most of that is his 10% of Porsche, I don't know how much cash he could raise to buy in. VW could buy out FCA and take ownership.
  19. smk4565
    The Agnelli family may want to keep Maserati, they surely want to keep Ferrari. Even still, Ram sells a lot of trucks and they have a good diesel. Jeep is the jewel. VW could do well with FCA because WV isn't truck or SUV heavy, Jeep doesn't compete right now with VW or Audi products. They could merge their compact car platforms into one to save money, that is where their margins are bad.
  20. smk4565
    A merger with GM could work. GM has no minivan, so that would be easy to slide the Town and Country to Chevy and/or Buick. The Chrysler brand could be killed off. Dodge gives that cheap performance brand, and Dart, Charger, Challenger is enough really, as Chevy would have the other sedans. Jeep sells and makes profit, no need to mess with what works. GMC truck could be killed off because they have Ram trucks, and Ram is different than Chevy. Cadillac could share some stuff with Alfa Romeo and Maserati to make a luxury trio. I think Ferdinand Piech should buy 25% of the FCA stock, and merge them with VW to make his super auto union. It would be a much better feather in his cap than the failed Phaeton.
  21. smk4565
    Maybe the Wreath and Crest, errr Crest just can't pull buyers in regardless of what the specs are. Because the Lexus IS outsells the ATS pretty easily, (4488 to 1500 in March) and that is a sedan only car with gas only engines. The Lexus doesn't really beat anything in the class in fuel economy or power or acceleration or handling.
  22. smk4565
    CT6 is the largest, most expensive Cadillac, so it is their flagship until something else comes along. Just like the RLX is Acura's flagship car. Some companies just have a lousy flagship, such as Acura or Volvo. I think Cadillac thought CT6 would be able to go against the Germans, but the Germans got better, and Cadillac didn't get their DOHC V8 through development in time, so they had to backtrack a little. When Ed Whiticare was CEO in 2011 or whenever, they talked about the omega platform and a full size Cadillac to go against the S-class. $12 billion buys 6 cars really, Mercedes spends $2 billion on a car sometimes, they spend $1 billion on the mid-cycle refresh of the E-class and it looks like they didn't do much to it, money goes fast. If Cadillac gets 6 cars that is: ATS, CTS replacements (CT3, CT5 or whatever) XT5 XT3 small crossover XT7 large crossover CT8 That is 6 cars and the money is gone, the XTS and ELR aren't getting killed off so that saves money. And I didn't even factor in a new Escalade, but they won't need one until after 2020, and most of that cost is from the Tahoe anyway. That still leaves Cadillac with no sports car, just 4 sedans (+ coupe of CT3/CT5) and 4 crossover/SUV.
  23. smk4565
    BMW may have lost some touch due to the electric steering and bigger vehicles, but they BMW buyers keep coming back. I seem to remember a Car and Driver comparison and they said the ATS had the best chassis and best handling but the 0-60 time and fuel economy were worse than the BMW, and C/D didn't like the 6-speed automatic transmission or the CUE system. The ATS doesn't do enough other things well to topple the Germans. Advertising and marketing are a problem, but so is image. Cadillac still has a lousy image with a lot of buyers. They could make the ATS out handle the Z06, it still won't help it get sales, the rest of the car needs to exceed what the Germans are doing to get people to look at it.
  24. smk4565
    I am not a fan of high belt lines, and a lot of cars do it, some are really bad like a Chrysler 300. I like having a more open feeling and being able to see out of the car, something that older cars seem to be better at compared to new ones because of safety regs. They should probably scrap CUE and just buy something from Apple or Android. I miss the wreath, the old logo looked better. But if they want younger buyers to buy the ATS, they should put 4 rings on the grille.
  25. smk4565
    They could probably sell a luxury truck but they even said it would be like 1,000 units a month. It would never get volume because Mercedes buyers are mostly car buyers. It isn't their line of business, but I am sure they could build a better truck than the F150 if they were so determined to. Their cars are 100 times better than what Ford makes. I'd rather see them stick to cars though and dominate there.
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