Leaderboard

Get new material...

Hollyweird does this all the time, especially with cars, but check this out. From the Denzel Washington movie trailer The Littlest Things... Voiceover states the perp's car 'probably has high miles', and they show a '68-70 Nova but they give it a 6-digit odometer. 'Movie magic'.

Cadillac base prices are vapor- Cadillac doesn’t build a $36K CT5, just like Tesla doesn’t build any $37K Model 3’s. But to address the question; cross-shopping doesn’t happen going uphill, but give a -say- $60K shopper a better driving car at $48K in the same segment and yeah; cross-shopping does occur. Remember, Cadillac wasn’t in the lux sports sedan segment at all 20 years ago - it was all bmw & mb.

Benz couldn’t have “invented” the car when there were cars that pre-dated it, but keep swilling that kool-aid. - - - - - The point where everyone gets confused is; mercedes is akin to General Motors, not to Cadillac. Mercedes is a mass-volume mainstream corporation, not a brand. It’s certainly not a ‘luxury brand’.

Right now, my random yet persisting thought is this: And, you can think about it all you want and never have to think of "Oc(ea)n Blu(e)" because it is not an ocean, but a gulf. Pensacola Beach, FL for the win!

More so than what kind of car to get next, I have been giving more and more ... and MORE ... thought to getting one of these:

Not this movie, but another movie ... It's amazing how powerful Hollyweird can be, though. BBHC (Before Beverly Hills Cop), a Chevy Nova was a Chevy Nova. ABHC, they were epic. You would look to see who was driving one ... and why. If they ever rebooted the Chevy Nova, they can run an "Axel Foley edition." Two likely drawbacks to that: 1) it may not be politically correct, and 2) it is more and more conceivable that larger swaths of the vehicle buying public may not be familiar with, or get, the "once in a decade" movie that is "Beverly Hills Cop."

The reference starting point would be ATP per model (with some allowance toward how each is equipped... but I submit it does not have to be an exact match). That tells you what the consumer is willing to spend. Stripped with zero options and every box checked is irrelevant. IDK of those per-model figures are available. Yeah- the Maybach 1.0 was a rebadge with a 1970's 2-tone paint job. No coupe, no convertible, no SUV. It didn't compete. But more to the point- what a monstrous missed opportunity for MB; RR sold 5152 cars last year; there's a market there for sure. This is a huge feather in BMW's cap vs. Daimler. The problem here is two-fold; 'mercedes' doesn't have anywhere near the rep / clout as RR, and the name 'Maybach' now ranks up there with Edsel as a failed brand. It can never return as an independent brand. Frankly, Rolls needs to charge more, as they also lose money on every car (2019 profit / 2020 production), but half of what Daimler did building a cheaper car. When the news broke that Maybach was being eliminated, Daimler absolutely stated they would "expand the s-class, still hoping to compete with the likes of Rolls Royce & Bentley, aiming to capture more of the market that the 2 storied British brands have successfully expanded into with 'lower end' models that range between $180K and $300K." [ ~ WSJ] The '21 s650 Maybach starts at $202K and you can only build it up to $230K [ I said 'only'], so Daimler is leaving $70K on the table. Of course, they'd never get that in this segment. Maybach was a great opportunity, but it was a miserable, mismanaged failure.

Try getting a manual in an AMG Mercedes sedan...

Moving on from the wash, rinse, repeat nature of debating the same s*** with a Daimler fanatic, I just dig the fact that a six speed manual comes standard on the Blackwing!

It is an investor move really. Daimler is the #1 truck company in the world, as a stand alone company would be worth about $35 billion, of which Mercedes-Benz would be the largest shareholder. Also they will still be able to share any technology with each other. And Mercedes-Benz (the corporation) can push toward EV cars and get investor money as the next Tesla. Also Karl Benz invented the car, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhem Maybach didn't put their car on sale until 1889, so Benz's name should be on the company anyway.

https://www.best-selling-cars.com/brands/2019-full-year-global-mercedes-benz-sales-worldwide/ Sounds impressive, right? pretty phoquing awesome, right? UNTIL...you get to THIS statement down below... Selling SUVs is not that big of a deal anymore... The REAL focus here SHOULD be...and a complete phoquing lie when analysts keep on banging the luxury car brand thing... A Class and B Class cars are NOT luxury cars. Taxi liveries of of the E Class and NOT luxury cars. The C Class is NOT downright luxury. Its Pontiac level in MOST European and Asian markets. The article does say that the C Class and E Class enjoyed sales increases as well. But when one peels off the REAL story, one realizes that Mercedes Benz does NOT sell nearly as many LUXURY cars as many idiots in the industry claim they sell... Im not going too much into detail, Ive done a similar exercise a year ago. I dont have to assume and guesstimate. Ive got cold hard numbers to work with right here. 2 339 562 - 667 000 = 1 672 562 Im NOT going to minus the taxi liveries and the Chevrolet/Pontiac trim leveled C Class and E Class and GLA and GLB CUV sales. (AND...I wonder of commercial truck sales are included in this figure as well...) But REMEMBER...THAT 1 672 562 sales number becomes soooooo much SMALLER. One thing that is being FORGOTTEN in the mix is that Daimler in 2021 will be (hot news right from the press)...Daimler will be spun off into its OWN brand. What will Daimler be peddling? The trucks. The busses. The sanitation vehicles, the lories, the public transportation busses, the military vehicles. WHY? BECAUSE APPARENTLY, image plays a BIG factor and NEWBIES that want to buy new cars today and folk that have REALIZED that A Class and B Class vehicles are NOT luxury are NOW starting to make a NEGATIVE connection to the commercial stuff that the company builds. Most of that comes from investors and the EV folk so M-B is off shooting Daimler in one direction while M-B could keep a "clean" image to sell EVs and to get investor money to build EVs. https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/daimler-become-mercedes-benz-split-trucks-unit-cars If...Mercedes is the WORLD'S most selling LUXURY car company...then WHAT is the BIG deal regarding commercial trucks? BECAUSE REALITY is that MOST Mercedes branded cars EVERYBODY sees on the roads ARE NOT LUXURY cars. But AVERAGE JOE and COMMERCIAL type vehicles. FAR from the "luxury" nameplate EVERYONE seems to be tooting. Spinning off Daimler and renaming the busses and sanitation trucks as Daimler would eliminate some of that non-luxury appeal and make it easier to sell EVs to folk that know nothing about Mercedes history... Which is IRONIC to what we are talking about here about Cadillac...

Mercedes sold 75,000 FWD-based vehicles in the (down) year of '20 in the U.S. alone. Vast majority of these in both cases are AWD, but at least Cadillac isn't building FWD-based sports sedans.

How many times does this have to explained to you? The CT5 is a tweener size that is closer in size to a E Class than the C-Class. And what you call "al a carte", I call "nickel and diming" you to death. Your bar moving changes nothing here. Again, charging extra for two USB-C ports that should already been in the back of a supposed four door family sedan and $700 for airbags. BTW, those soft close doors are not offered on the E-Class at all unless you opt for the AMG models. That makes those doors a $30-50K option if you really want them since they can only be had on the AMG. Want to try that again? Guess it didn't dawn on you that I am talking about their cars and not their CUVs/SUVs. Not one FWD Cadillac sedan or coupe in the last 13 years. Furthermore (since you wanted to go there), how many FWD based car/CUVs constitute the total number sold by Benz? Oh and that FWD original CLA45 comes in at the same price (just a few grand under) as the CT4 Blackwing so get back to us when that comparison comes out instead of comparing it to a lower trim CT4-V.

^ mercedes caters to people who despise their own money. It's cathartic.

The CT5 Blackwing options list is $40k long because you can run one for these to $125k which seems like a lot.

Gosh how could I have missed him!? I did meet @A Horse With No Name also many years ago

Up Vote the Zoom Meeting of Auto Enthusiast. Love it!

I would be down for a Zoom meeting....think that could be a lot of fun! ? For me, I would have to be a road trip for sure. Seems most of the members here are on the east coast. We did have some folks in MI (Cory was here for a time too), but does not seem like too many left. I do have @William Maley not too far away..... I think my next closest would be @A Horse With No Name

I’ve met and dined with A Horse With No Name and trinacriabob. Good guys.

@balthazar @Cory Wolfe @Chris_Doane @ocnblu @Flybrian @Camino LS6 @caddycruiser @knightfan26917 @HoLottaBuicks @William Maley I feel like I'm forgetting someone from the meetup at Camino's way back when.

Montpelier-cabbed Dodge COE ~

Annoyed....had the dealership take care of my Equinox , and clean it all up for me. (No more oil mess in engine) I literally have a few miles home, trying to avoid the salt mess in the other lane. I try very hard to keep salt off of it, as I use the Cobalt for that in the winter. Dude sees that my Nox is all clean, speeds up in the other lane to hit a huge slush/salt pile in the next lane. Completely covers the Nox in salt! Then threw a cup out the window towards my car laughing about it..... Trying to stay chill about it, tough when your a car guy. I know that it doesn’t really hurt the car unless it is above freezing (not during the polar vortex!) but if the roads dry up nicely I’m running the poor car to the nearest automated car wash...might be the only day we still get above 20 degrees for almost a week.... Thank you for letting me vent.......

This should play with everyone's mind.

I saw a news article on motor1 that said it was like $125k loaded, that is why I wondered what the options were. Carbon brakes are probably $9k but where is the other $30k going? Also why do you have to get level 3 to get the tan seats? Why can't you pick seat color separate of trim level or option package?

The CT5 is a C-Class competitor with C63 S level performance but it is priced higher than that. As far as soft close doors go, they are part of a $3650 option package on the Escalade Premium Luxury trim, or included on Platinum, and not even offered on any other Cadillac. Mercedes does most options as al a carte so you aren’t forced in to big option packages to get stuff you don’t want.

The CLA45 is faster around Virginia International Raceway than the CT4-V, CT5-V, Jaguar F-Type R, Alfa Romeo Gulia Quadrafolio and 718 Cayman S. And 81,000 of the 129,000 vehicles Cadillac sold last year were front drive based.

The CT5 is exactly the same size as the E-class, but it starts $20,000 cheaper. The Hyundai Sonata and CT5 are also the same size and are only $10,000 different in starting price. Unless the Sonata is a CT5 competitor, then the CT5 is not an E-class competitor. And that is correct on the soft close doors it is only on E53/E63, I thought the E450 offered it. Why do cars differ from SUVs? SUVs are the majority of sales? If I wanted a performance SUV (which I don't since I don't like SUVs) then Cadillac has no option. And 80% of Cadillac sales are SUVs. Also offering a FWD product doesn't have any effect on the rear drive products, unless they replace rear drive with front drive. The CLA was an added model, the C/E/S-classes are all still there and all still rear drive as always, nothing changed. Corvette sells the Spark and Sonic in the same showroom as the Corvette, but that doesn't mean the Corvette isn't a performance car. Now if they made the Corvette front drive, or if Mercedes made the E-class front drive, then that is a problem and I would have issue with that. Fair comparison to pit a $65k CLA45 against a $65k CT4 V-Blackwing and see who wins on a track. The CLA45 on VIR ran a 2.58.2 and the most recent CTS-V ran a 2.56.8 so that little FWD based Mercedes is only 1.4 seconds a lap down to the fastest Cadillac ever. And the CLA is faster than the ATS-V was around that track. Thus my point that the CLA is the CT4 competitor, C-class is the CT5 competitor.

75,000 out of 275,000, not 80,000 out of 129,000. And not counting Mercedes 50k Vans sales, since MB Vans are were on fire last year with the rise of home delivery I imagine. Cadillac builds 2 rear drive sedans, Mercedes builds 5 rear drive sedans (if you count CLS separate of E), 1 rear drive wagon, 3 rear drive coupes, 4 rear drive convertibles and the tis after taking away the SLC and S-class coupe/convertible which are still on dealer lots.. So 13 rear drive cars to 2. Who is more committed to performance?

Because the CT5 starts at $36k and the interior is nowhere near what you should get in a $100k car, let alone $125k. If the CT5 had an interior on par with the 2021 Escalade, then it would be a worthy A6/E/5 competitor. They better bring it with Celestiq, and I hope they do. Cadillac needs serious cars, not Chevy/GMC re-engineered products. Celestiq will not be a Rolls-Royce competitor. They couldn't even compete with an A8 on the CT6, now all of a sudden they are going after the Phantom?