smk4565

I am not so sure China will eat this up, for one it is huge, and secondly, they don't buy that many Cadillacs. Cadillac sold 2,000 cars in China last month, half of those were SUVs. Mercedes sold 16,500, BMW sold 18,000 and Audi sold 27,700. Although with those Audi sales, it does seem that the Chinese like bland, boring, FWD and AWD sedans with stubby trunks.

FWD = Booooooooo. They better not go down that road again. They need something smaller and cheaper than the XF, but that should be a rear drive car with a V6, and 4 and 6 cylinder diesel options. The XF 2.2 diesel gets 50 mpg, they don't need crap FWD to hit a CAFE target. And Jaguar sells so few cars, they probably don't even factor in. Hopefully this is just rumor.

I am not a fan of the high belt line look in general, it sort of works on the Chrysler 300. But to me the MKS is a tall, bulky car, the Buick LaCrosse looks very tall to me also, the dimensions just don't seem right. I think the XTS will be the same. And big sedans don't have to look bulky, the Jaguar XJ for example is a big car and it looks sporty, athletic and ready to pounce.

500 lbs lighter = WINNING

Boring. I actually think Lincolns look decent, the styling isn't the problem. The problem is that their cars aren't that good.

I posted this in the other XTS thread and will post it here, as it appears as Cadillac has laid down a bunt with this car. Looks huge and tall like a Lincoln MKS, and the grille looks a lot like the STS, which is a boring car. To me, they make an MKS with a Cadillac grille, this is lame. I am not a fan of this trend to make headlights go back halfway over the hood either, and multiple automakers seem to be doing that recently. Looks rather slab sided with a high belt line, aside from the one character line they put in it, trunk looks short and stubby, that car is sad.

Buick LaCrosse Joseph Abboud!!! I mean this is 2-tone leather, suede headliner, and a leather wrapped dash, but the wood still looks fake to me. It looks more upscale than the regular LaCrosse, and I think some people will spend the extra for the trim package. However it could also be pushing this car to say $45,000, seems like a lot for a LaCrosse, but if GM can get consumers to pay it, more power to them.

I like this, it looks more upscale and current than the original. What I don't like about the current Genesis Coupe is the Tiburon look and how the hood sort of slopes down and the grille is small. This looks to have a more upright front end and it has a bit of the Ford trapezoid and a little bit of Nissan/Infiniti vibe as well.

In a velvet painting of Elvis sort of way...yes...I can agree with you. As real art, I will take the flower car. Well I wasn't thinking from a car art point of view, but if I had to turn a car into a boat to cruise along the 3 rivers of Pittsburgh, I can think of no car better than a nautical motif Town Car.

Looks huge and tall like a Lincoln MKS, and the grille looks a lot like the STS, which is a boring car. To me, they make an MKS with a Cadillac grille, this is lame. I am not a fan of this trend to make headlights go back halfway over the hood either, and multiple automakers seem to be doing that recently. Looks rather slab sided with a high belt line, aside from the one character line they put in it, trunk looks short and stubby, that car is sad.

In the past on Top Gear when they have made amphibious cars it is always a VW camper van or pick up, but no car is closer to a boat than an 80s Town Car. Imagine a white Town Car with black landau roof, red paddle boat wheels and twin decorative black smoke stacks cruising down the Mississippi. Fantastic.

If they want a high tech luxury car shouldn't they be buying an S-class? And even a Focus or Veloster has Nav, voice commands, traffic and weather updates, bluetooth, etc. The Focus even has self park. A lot of this electronic stuff that is on iPad's and smart phones is in basic cars now. And I agree with Cubical, in that the 70+ crowd buying this car doesn't like electronics anyway.

Those 80's Town Car conversions are excellent. I always thought if I were on Top Gear and had to make an amphibious car, it would be an 80's Town Car in white with a Mississippi paddle boat theme.

Modern as in looking futuristic or as in will still look good 20 years from now? I think the Hyundai Veloster looks pretty modern.

The MKZ interior looks as good or maybe better than the MKS. Might as well save money and buy that over the MKS. And I agree that the MKS is too tall, the car (and Taurus) are just huge in all dimensions.

But will the XTS have a front bench for the highly desirable 6-passenger seating? In all seriousness though, I am not a fan of the switchgear below the Nav screen, it looks a bit too Ford Edge/Lincoln MKX for me. And the narrow, horizontal center air vent is a retro cue in an otherwise modern interior. But some may like that. To me the XTS interior is a bit boring, but the real key will be what the production build quality is.

Right, GM already builds the Lacrosse, that is their plush, quiet, full size sedan, why do they need another one? The purpose of keeping Buick around was to be that softer mid-luxury brand to compete with the Avalon, ES350, Lincolns, etc. Then Cadillac could be performance luxury. The CTS is just as quiet as a LaCrosse, so is the 3-series for that matter. Anything the XTS does in terms of quietness and ride, I think would be better on a rear drive platform. And if they want a nicer LaCrosse, then make a Park Avenue and sell it as a Buick. Cadillac should be going for Standard of the World, not fancy Buick.

But XTS will still body roll, a RWD car would ride smoother, and corner flatter. And I don't see why the CTS couldn't be more quiet than an XTS, drivetrain and platform don't have much to do with that. There are some pretty quiet rear drive cars out there.

New grille, new lights, more power, adaptive suspension, and the same problem. It is still a FWD Taurus for $45,000. It still won't sell.

I agree with Moltar's post. The 5-series, 7-series, and Ghost may have similarities but it is still 3 different wheelbases (technically 5 since the 7-series and Ghost have 2 lenghts) and different track width. The Ghost and 7-series share 20% of parts. But all 3 have rear drive which is what the luxury sedan segment is. If the Impala/LaCrosse/XTS all end up on the same platform with the same 3.6 liter v6, same transmission and the Cadillac just gets magnetic ride control (optional I assume), I don't see how you make the luxury car all that different than the standard car in driving dynamics. So then it becomes based on interior and features and you have why the Acura RL doesn't sell. It isn't worth the extra $25,000 for an Accord with a better interior and AWD. My belief is that the XTS will be in the $45-55,000 range to cover where the DTS/STS sit now, so it will be about $5,000 more than an MKS, and $10,000 more than a CTS (unless the CTS price goes up). Is the XTS really going to be $10,000 better than a CTS when it is a LaCrosse underneath, I don't think so. And it doesn't build reputation or brand image, it just maintains status quo of Cadillac being an old man's car.

Jeer. A bad car made crazy.

To the Lincoln with the bed in back. A Park Avenue pick up is like the mullet of cars. It is business in the front and party in the back.

But if the car was lighter, you wouldn't need a huge engine in the first place. Take the CTS sedan for example. A V6 CTS is 3850 lbs (base trim). A CTS-V is 4222 lbs, nearly 400 pounds is added. What if it was the opposite, and a CTS-V took off 400 lbs and weighed 3450 lbs. Then even with 420 hp it would be plenty fast. And imagine the handling advantage a 3450 lb CTS-V would have over a 4222 lb CTS-V.

Corvette automatic gets 15/25 mpg, a Genesis R-spec has 429 hp and gets 16/25 mpg so pretty similar and the Genesis has more weight. The Porsche 911 Turbo S has 530 hp, 17/25 mpg and 0-60 and 0-60 in 3.1 seconds. Or the 911 Carrera S has 400 hp and 18/26 mpg. But still the American car performance formula is to add power by way of a big engine and then the car gets heavy. It would be interesting to explore a new direction of weight reduction. Perhaps go so far as making all V-series cars with a 100% carbon fiber body.

The inline six will provide Mercedes with a new level of BMW-ness, the E350 coupe will have long hood and proper RWD proportions AND no B-pillar for a true hardtop look. This is the only combination possible to build a car better than the Hyundai Sonata.