Drew Dowdell

Because BMW Trend tells people to buy BMWs and the 3-series is at the price point a lot of people can afford. The CTS drives and handles so close to the 3-series that the difference can be made up in driver skill yet the CTS is the size of a 5er.

Then I guess the 5er is crap because it takes over 1/2 a meter more to make a turn.

I drive a CTS nearly every day. It is one of the most manuverable cars I've driven. It has a very tight turning radius for it's length and is very easy to park. Here are some turning diameters. BMW 3-series: 10.5 meters Cadillac CTS: 10.82 meters BMW 5-series: 11.4 meters Mini Cooper: 10.6 meters Acura TSX: 12.19 meters Audi A4: 11.09 meters MB C-Clas: 10.7 meters Lexus ES: 11.2 meters The CTS's turning diameter is about the a sheet of paper's difference larger than the 3-series and over half a meter smaller than the 5-series it is nearly identical to in size. Satty, FWD makes a car less manuverable in tight situations. None of the front drivers I looked up could come close to the 3er or CTS. To drive home this point: Solara: 11.4 meters IS250: 10.2 meters

Veeeery interesting development. If these get the 3.6 AND a 6-speed, they should outperform the Vue Redline.

Packaging. They managed to get an 8-cylinder into the nose of a Passat and have it actually suitible for production.

If the platform is used elsewhere, I don't see why Camaro couldn't be at least slightly profitable. If the Mustang is profitable because it shares parts with the LS and S-type, can't the Camaro be profitable if it shares it's naughty bits with the admitedly more bread and butter <than the LS/S-type> Impala, G8, and Invicta?

I fight for that also and get shouted down for it. "Cadillac buyers would never buy a small Cadillac!!!" they say.... uh.... the idea is to try and offer something to non-Cadillac buyers anyway.....

The last gen 3-series had a lower base price. 60k CTSes v. 80k 3-series sedans is a LOT closer than 105k of all 3-series. Lutz has already stated that the next CTS will be available as a coupe.... If the CTS gets the interiors we've seen from 60-Minutes and pricing remains similar... the CTS really WILL be a 5-series at a 3-series price.

Or not...

The Renaissance is Cadillac's move back to mainstream desireability. Sure there are people out there that still have the "Edgar and Mabel Bluehair" image of Cadillac, but that image is fading. In 2001 were there any Cadillac that could be put in a compairson test with any AMG or M-series cars? Today Cadillac has cars that run with the best of Europe. They win some and they lose some, but the fact that they're even invited now is a huge start.

The 3-series comes in convertible, wagon and coupe forms while also having a base price in the high 20s. Cadillac doing 60k in sales when they thought they'd only do ~30k is a sales smash. Now what GM/Cadillac needs to do is fill out the rest of the CTS lineup.

Balthy, check out this page.

near the smoothness of an I6 in the space of an I4.

My first impression is based on ergonomics. Caddy's interior in general might need to be soft, but the CTS is supposed to be a little "harder edge" then the rest of the Caddy line. I don't find the material of the CTS to be out of class with the intention of the car. I think most people find the grain pattern on the panels to be the offending part. If you touch them rather then just look at pictures of them on the web, you'll find that they are indeed padded and soft. The 300's interior has *horrible* ergonomics and the material wheels on the models without a leather wrapped wheel is nasty. I like the looks of all the LX cars. They lose me on the interiors.

BMW bikes are horizontally opposed.

a subi engine isn't mounted transversly.

And here is where we have the problem. VW is routinely praised for their "high quality" interiors while GM, the CTS specifically, is panned for their "low quality" interiors. I happen to have both a Passat and a CTS. Items wrong with the Passat: Broken cup holder Broken center armrest Broken wood trim power mirror control knob fell off <fixed under warrenty> driver side door "whistles" Passenger side power seat controls get stuck in the position they've been activated passenger side airbag cover's corners are curling Items wrong with the CTS: Flakey sun-roof switch <fixed under warrenty> The ergonomics on the CTS are substantially better. The materials on the VW are softer than the CTS and since VW's designs are in voque with the press. VW's interior quality rawks!

Hardly edit: ugh.... while the flat-4 page I directed you to looks fairly acurate.... I clicked on the Wikipedia entry for the V16... and they call the V16 in the Cadillac Sixteen a Northstar V16.... which it isn't.

Honda has already done that in some of their race engines. They use a ceramic tube so to withstand the heat better. It's excellent in super high RPM situations.... the downside is that it makes VVT even harder to do then in "cam in block" designs.

I invisioned a "flat" engine where instead of the pistons facing out, they would face inward. There would be two crankshafts attached to equal sized gears that would connect to the transmission. The camshaft(s) would run up the center over the top of the cylinders. It would be a side valve. The piston heads would face each other so that during a compression stroke, you'd have *both* pistons compressing the gas vapor in the cylinder. It would need to be something around a 4 cylinder/8 piston. It would really change the way we talked about engines... since the number of pistons is double the number of cylinders.

uhm.... Subaru's boxer 4 is a flat 4. It's just a different way of saying the same thing. It's the same distinction as a Wankel engine compaired to a Rotary engine.

Oh yea, I paid a substantial amount of money to the site as well.... and I got squat..... which is precisely what I asked for.

If we need another fund drive, we have another fund drive..... that's all there is to it.

uhm... which car does a 267hp 3.6 come in? 255 + 15% = 293hp I wonder if they can find 7 hp in there somewhere for the '08 CTS.

See Also: Volkswagen Phaeton