The O.C.

The W-body suffers from poor packaging.....say rear seat room versus exterior size as one example. The architecture also lends itself to long front-and-rear overhangs relative to the length of the wheelbase. The long overhangs also tend to add to the nose-heavy feel of these front-drivers. However, GM has been able to strengthen the chassis to the point to where there are very few squeaks or rattles.

I'd say the Intrigue was probably the most satisfying W-car to drive and had the best interior.....but I'd say the Century wins the exterior looks debate..... ....in MY opinion.....

Perhaps you need to be a bit more careful before you something out of your mouth you don't know anything about. I've raved numerous times in other posts....some pretty recently.....about the CTS and specifically the 18-inch wheel/sport package/3.6L version. SO....before you think you can claim to know ANYTHING about MY "backbone".....why don't you ask me FIRST what I think about the car.

......maybe you need to take a drive down to the newly-opened Newport Lexus in Newport Beach. $75M (including the land).....a Tommy Bahama store inside the showroom....an Oakley sunglass store inside the showroom....an italian bistro inside the showroom....and if they get the liquor license finally approved by the city, a wine bar in the showroom. Additionally, there are five fireplaces scattered throughout. Additionally, full-time valet for anyone that comes on the lot.....complimentary....AND even if you are just a "tire-kicker," when the valets take your car, you get a complimentary CAR WASH. The highly-respected Dave Wilson is the owner.....and rumor has it that he "wrote a check" for the deal. BUT....my point is.....I've NEVER seen a Buick dealership that looked like this.....this Lexus store is DRIPPING in prestige. And their business model is to sell 400 cars per month.....right down the street from Fletcher Jones Mercedes-Benz (largest Benz store in the country) and in the city of Newport Beach (one of the most "prestigious" cities in the country.) Buick......in comparison? Nah.....

Considering that the new 328i Coupe offers better performance than the 330Ci, one could say that it's $2300 cheaper than before. 164954[/snapback] I agree.....and that price in the low-$40's for the TWIN-turbo, 300hp 335Ci sounds like a GREAT deal to me......that means that a loaded 335Ci should still be well under $50K.... It sounds like an awesome car......and much better looking in the ass end than the 3-Series sedan.

I'd most likely take the Chrysler......

Oooooooooooooo Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh I'm guessing they swing all the way around in a 360-degree circle.......way too cool!

I actually like the structureless blades. Yes, the S-Class' reversed wipers articulated to the point where they swept damn near the entire windshield....so in this sense it was okay. But I see what you mean.

Why on God's Green Earth do we have to wait until the '08 MY for a LaCrosse Super that basically mimics what we already have in Chevy and Pontiac showrooms?

I appreciate you trying to justify it's existence.....but that's all you're doing. You are totally sidestepping the point I made about today's "successful" imported luxury brands having a consistent product message that is for the most part, shared among all their models. It's all about the much larger picture of building brand equity. If Cadillac is going to continue to succeed, it's got to shed it's old baggage. AND, I disagree with you about a tarted-up DTS not turning someone off of a CTS, et al. That's one of the reasons that Cadillac gets very little respect out here with the exception of CTS and Escalade. It STILL has that resounding image to most Californians of a tarted-up DTS with Vogues, a fake convertible top, and tri-tone pinstripes. As well rec'd as the CTS is in the number of them I see on the road, etc., over the last few weeks, when telling my peers and people my age that I ordered a new CTS, I still get the snickers and jokes about an old-man's car, or the fact that I need to start wearing gold chains. Sure.....I show them the pics on the Lounge of the '07 CTS Sport and EVERYONE agrees it's a great-looking car.....but it doesn't change their perception of the brand as a whole. DTS just plays into that while it's still around. That's ALL I'm talking about.

I'm wondering who else out there (besides myself and OCCarNut) find windshield wipers, wipe pattern, and articulation a kind of "style" on a car, or do they mean absolutely nothing to you? I hate getting into a new car and it has an absolutely BORING wiper system. My new C6 is an example. My C4 I used to have had the wipers that parked in the middle and swung out to opposing ends. That just simply looked COOL. In fact, those are one of my favorite wipers......those that swing out from the center (early-gen W-bodies, GM and Chrysler minivans, new Civic, old Corvette, old 220-class Mercedes, etc.) #1 for me, though, has to be old Mercedes wipers that both parked on one side of the windshield (560SL, 300SD) and swung across the windshield almost together.....old 911 Porsches did this too. I also love articulating wipers like the last single-wiper on Mercedes-Benz's.....and most BMWs....even though they have two wipers, the driver side articulates as it sweeps. Finally, anyone remember the S-Class from three generations ago? (The "Princess Killer.") It had relatively a realtively normal two-wiper setup (although it also articulated as it sweeped) but they were REVERSED.....and they swept from the driver side up to the passenger side......like they were made for a RHD car. Just wondering if anyone else out there agrees!

Yeah.....but wasn't the M-Class kinda notorious even within the M-Benz ranks, for it's reliability, or lack thereof? Speaking of S-Classes.....I was at the Crystal Cove car show yesterday and there was an old 300SD Turbodiesel that looked absolutely like NEW. It was white with a camel interior. The car was concours-show-perfect....I was drooling. Now THAT was an S-Class. I'm not sure of the model designation, but it was the last one with two round headlights on each side.....and the exposed "flipper-style" wipers that both parked on one side of the windshield and swung across the windshield together when turned on?

This is the FIRST LS I've liked since the original was introduced. I think it's quite handsome and a classy looker.....and I'm liking it WAY more than the new S-Class.....

Ahhh....I'm not saying I'd run out and buy one.....just that I was surprised that it wasn't that bad of a car..... I'd take an Altima any day over the (old) Sebring.....

.....plus the flapping of his butt cheeks as he speaks (where most of his conversation comes from) distorts the overall impact of his banter and makes it more difficult to understand at times..... (childish, I admit.....but I couldn't resist!)

While not the most exciting, probably one of the cleanest and nicest-looking W-body exteriors ever built. edit: The Century photo, that is.....

I know it's a badge job....but this car could end up being the nicest GM V8 midsizer... I guess it's too much to ask for the Grand Prix's chassis tuning.....eh?

I had a "normal" Grand Prix in Hawaii as a rental and I agree the interior is horrid. Actually the dash top and door panel plastics were quite nice.....soft touch, with a "techno" pimple-dot-matrix effect. But the rest was that typical, GM hollow, brittle, cheap hard plastic on the center stack, lower dash, glovebox door, lower door panels, etc. I couldn't believe how I could wiggle the floor console back and forth with so much free play.... And have you EVER seen a bigger airbag wheel and speedometer??????? Other than that, like you said, a decent car otherwise. A better bet would be an Impala SS with the Grand Prix's chassis tuning, wheel/tire package, bilsteins, and so forth. The Impala's interior is of a much higher quality as well....even the hard plastic in the Chevy is of a much better execution....

It's not so much that I "hate" the DTS (although I think it IS ugly) it's that Cadillac has done some great things with the CTS, Escalade, XLR, and v-Series cars to really make themselves a competitor to the upscale imports and I see the DTS as a big, pussy, zit on the face of today's Cadillac. It doesn't fit. And the longer it stays, the more it counteracts the very image that Cadillac is trying to present to all those luxury-import-buying consumers out there. The floaty, boaty LS430 FITS Lexus' image. The DTS is NOT the same thing to Cadillac. That's all..... In comparison.....although I'd prefer it to be RWD, I think the Lucerne (DTS' platform mate) actually fits Buick's image perfectly.

This is actually true.....

And it's cheaper to engineer a vehicle with only one window system.....and since the majority of people want POWER windows, that's the system that the manufacturers are more likely to develop.

You know.....I had a Sebring as a rental in Cabo last year, and I thought it was a decent package with the 2.4L. It wasn't quick, but performance was more than acceptable and what I was surprised about is how smooth and relatively refined the 2.4L was. The car was certainly alot nicer than the rental-queen status leads you to believe...

I had a Sebring as a rental in Cabo last year and you know, I actually thought the 2.4L was a nice package...... It wasn't that quick, but it was a relatively smooth and refined driver.....it wasn't slow, but performance was okay...... The car was alot nicer than it's rental-queen status makes it out to be.