balthazar

This guy would give it a thumb's up:

"Dream".. of whom??

How about vs. another corporate full-line manufacturer, such as GM then? MBUSA :: + 6.7% GMCo :: +19%

Neither here nor there overall, but to be specific; smart is smart but of course, the sprinter IS a 'mercedes'. Not sure why it's broken out separately in the totals.

Ahhh, the old GM early '70s / Chrysler late 50's swiveling seat concept. Mercedes shows all these 'futuristic' concepts yet never builds any of them.

Pretty positive '57 still had the oil bath air cleaner (compressed steel element, reusable indefinitely. My '64, which when I got it had been sitting since 1971, still had an oiled steel element (tho not an oil bath air cleaner).

Ford Model A pickup, green, mild rod, clean, on trailer whizzing down highway.

I believe he's saying you look scholarly with the specs.

I thought we were all on board with that concept. :shrug:

^ BMW certainly isn't the template I had in mind- the 3-series had variety but the other lines did not. And it's not just Chevy by far, with that we're right back to looking at BMW; the SUV lines all overlap, too.

I can assure you; for the same dollar spent we could have more than just CUVs and sedans. In fact, judiciously planned; it could save money. Long-term/big picture planning is not at the forefront of the auto industry. I see your penchant for the hyperbolic remains steadfast: I said : 'make one (better, more varied) line out of the Sonic / Spark' and you said '72 variations of one car'.

That's actually exactly the direction the industry needs to go in; MORE variation on LESS lines. Having 4 or 6 sedans under the same brand separated by 4" in overall length is poor resource allocation. I have a hard time justifying both a Spark & a Sonic. Fold into one, add 2 more body styles. MUCH better return on the dollar.

I disagree. IMO if the rust is merely a hole in a fender, its an aesthetic. If the headlight falls out, it's functional/structural. The line is where the functionality of the vehicle is altered by the rust. Seat performs the same if there's padding or exposed springs- I had a daily with exposed seat springs once. Add some folded towels & a blanket over all; still drove down the road fine. NBD.

True, but those are aesthetics, not functionalities.

What a cool story. http://www.kare11.com/story/news/local/land-of-10000-stories/2015/01/01/prinsburg-pickup-chevy-bob-sportel-75/21169665/

http://news.yahoo.com/51-years-wreck-7-inch-car-part-found-164436702.html

Some have said the same thing about a Cadillac wagon, but they're stuck in the 20th Century, too. Ironically, there have been Cadillac-based wagons made steadily (tho not continually) by coachbuilders since 1941. Theyare a high-priced custom vehicle with a very small market. Nice to have the option, if that's your thing. Cadillac needs to make more specialty, custom-run vehicles. I would put the past CTS-V wagon on that list; well known, sought after, but extremely rare. They were likewise a very expensive, custom-built product with a very unusual demographic; they were never supposed to 'catch on'. In an era when a Coupe deVille started at $8600, the Mirage was right around $20,000. Consensus is 204 units were built over 2 years. That's the same volume (for a much 'weirder' vehicle) that the 2nd gen Eldorado Brougham did. - - - - - At circa 182", there's not going to be much of anything cargo-capacity-wise in an ATS wagon. I'm not saying 'don't build one' but 'don't expect many sales'.

Yes I would agree that for Tesla Roadster, the original .36 was pretty crappy. So be interesting to see what the new roadster looks like. Course that Trans Am was also fully enclosed compared to the open air Roadster from Tesla which is what this .36 is for. So I guess a .31 for the new Roadster 3.0 removable roof version is pretty good then. Most of the pics I see on Google show a lid/roof panel, assumedly the released number is with that in place. Guess the 'formal' rear glass is killing the flow, tho the windshield looks rather upright, also. Just surprised to hear it's where it is.

Isn't .36 cd pretty crappy for 2015? Trans Am was at .29 in 1982. IMO, this again points to the 95th percentile of automotive design progress that we are in.

Where & how is this quantified? Please don't tell me 'sales volume' is the source.

Well which is it? You've adamantly mentioned a laundry list of Cadillac so-called 'problems' all along , now you're just going to shrug and point to a single intangible? (Of course, by tomorrow, it'll be right back to the laundry list.) IMO, 'Cadillac' is minorly tarnished, and a major chunk of that is a few individuals continually harping that it's an "image problem", perpetuating the rumor. For example; 15 years ago Cadillac had as it's leading 'enthusiast' car: the uninspired Catera. Today we have the CTS-V (or ATS-V). That's light years ahead of 1999, yet the bleating of the whiners is no less abated. It's always 'But– but– but– there's an IIMMAAGGEE PPRROOBBLLEEM!' as if there can never NOT be 'huge problems' with Cadillac, no matter what they do. Somehow, this is seemingly all lost on all the consumers of V cars- wonder how that could be? Image is built on the back of product. I read elsewhere from a self-proclaimed, master-degreed marketer on the West Coast all the time how it's image first, product second, but you cannot market an image without a tangible product. Image if Apple only ever TALKED about successive iPhones but never manufactured any.

Circa '49 Dodge business coupe, super clean resto, grey on white whites, sucking groceries into it's 100 CF trunk at the super market, then chugging off.

Cadillac has been in the black car / livery segment for what- 80 years?? It's certainly not a problem for the brand. I used to see (subtle) livery DTS's running around- most folk wouldn't have recognized them. I've yet to see a confirmed livery XTS- they all look like private cars. That's the BEST way to utilize commercial sales; high-end cars that don't look it, rather than cheap-assed, stripped taxi cabs.

• Likewise, Cadillac livery / black car sales don't hurt them in the U.S. or China. This segment does not look to Buick for these vehicles; to push the segment over to Buick would be another abandonment of a (small) demographic. Besides, some folk have continued to say 'Cadillac should be Cadillac and not follow the German twins' and the XTS does just that. • Saying Cadillac has an 'old man's image' when MB has a mere 5 yr less ABA is ignorant. MB is just as much an old man's car (except that metric is accelerating whereas Cadillac's is falling). • "BESTEST SAHLES EVAR" is the harbinger of luxury degradation; there is no exclusivity when there's a few mercedes' in every parking row at Wal-Mart. In Jersey, they are as commonplace as nissans. Besides, a lot of luxury buyers see MBs (and BMWs) as the prick-owner brand still. • Having 2 sedans at the same relative price points gives options to the buyer- that's a great thing. But MB doesn't make sense here either- the C63 and the CLS sedans start at the same price, too.

^ Hard to get more ignorant than this. Funny how mercedes requires no "protection" from taxi sales, but Cadillac "needs" such from black car sales. Ignorance again.