balthazar

Design, and features you say, not drive wheels and trans gears? Huh.

No; an inline 6 is an ancient configuration, but besides that, my objection is the origin; BMW. I would NEVER buy a Cadilac with a BMW engine.

As long as it would be a Cadillac V-12; if it's BMW built, I'd rather have a 6.

Always disliked this. The fender scallops remind me of the first Gaylord, which I greatly prefer.

BS, because of price overlap??? There's plenty of overlap, for ex, between the c- & e-class, and they are much closer in purpose than the CTS & XTS.... Or are you admitting that FWD vs. RWD just doesn't matter that much after all???

Point is, mercedees developed a monster flagship with a 5-speed, when it's twin the s-class, with the same engine, had 6 or 7, and they never upgraded it. Either they didn't care, or they believed such things were UNIMPORTANT to the consumer. Either they are stupid, or they agree with me.

Maybach has FIVE. Doesn't matter- number of gears doesn't sell one car over another. The buyers simply don't care. Again- look at what RWD does for the 3-series- sales would likely sink like a stone IF people cared about these intangibles.

WAIT - you said : now you're talking about the boring, platform-sharing, '3rd sausage' 7-series. NO ONE gets either attracted to BMW or excited by the hoary old-man's 7-series. The discussion was 'cool & exciting' - how did it get onto 'flagship sedan'?? Fact of the matter is, regardless of your personal opinion of the styling, the CTS-V has without question been BOTH exciting and drawn people to Cadillac.

"SL-SAM-GUHT" ?? Why, if it's a 6.2L, does mercedees bill it as a 6.3?? They should've made the A/C vents 3-pointed thingies and then could've had 5 MB emblems across the dash. Don't like the design- too busy & cluttered.

I can at least see the argument for belting people with the overblown 'we all pay for everyone else's insurance'... but has an animal ever been documented to have become a 'projectile' and injured/killed a person in a motor vehicle accident?? This is so idiotic. You cannot even turn around twice on the same spot without wondering if it's a ticketable offense. I hate the 21st century.

WAA-PAH! You mean like the Escalade helps the image of the Tahoe, rriigghhttttt????

Hard to exceed the travesty of that move WRT image.

The convert concept could only have more seams, edges & panels if it were constructed of Legos. Too over wrought & busy, not classy & timeless.

An an honest opinion is always worth more than a blanket endorsement.

^ ABSOLUTELY the way it needs to be done.

I have not been in love with the XTS via the pics. I don't hate it, but it's no CTS. And I would not argue the wheelbase vs. overall length thing, either. Will be interesting to see one in person, tho.

>>"World Magnetic Tour was a 2008/2009/2010 concert tour in support of the group's 9th studio album, Death Magnetic, released in September 2008. It ended up being the most successful by Metallica, grossing roughly $417.2 million..."<< I guess not.

I saw that vid, Horsey- tragic. And TJ- you can only monitor so many hours a day. My video-game obsessed buddy would have the solution : Claymores. Him : "You can never have enough Claymores."

Huh? The Shelby GLH-S was over 25 years ago...ancient news. You're not following the conversation, Moltie, keep up. I made the distinction above; mega hi-HP cars are fine in dedicated sports/pony cars, but they don't fit in the sports sedan segment if Cadillac is going to fall UNDER Chevy in the numbers. What Shelby 4dr sedan are you referring to, then? I doubt if Chevy is going to do a ZL1 version of the SS. I was being facetious. Hence the point the Impala should NOT be a 700-HP car, as a Chevy and as a sedan.

"over 600" is not 750, is it? I can see a bump of 50 HP, but you were predicting 100-150. Does HSV have dedicated sports/pony cars to put these engines in? I'm not aware of any, so there's a different dynamic in AU. There's also only 1 car division in GM AU. The difference is, if Chevy has a "600-750" HP sedan, and Cadillac's top performance sedan is in the 550-600 range, it's upsidedown and any non-GM-fanboy / numbers nut will crucify GM over it. Thats why it doesn't work here. If GM, now pared down & running lean & profitable, doesn't start crafting the long-term image of everything in concert, they're not going to move forward. And, if they're focusing on removing weight, why would they need 750 HP?? Huh? The Shelby GLH-S was over 25 years ago...ancient news. You're not following the conversation, Moltie, keep up. I made the distinction above; mega hi-HP cars are fine in dedicated sports/pony cars, but they don't fit in the sports sedan segment if Cadillac is going to fall UNDER Chevy in the numbers.

I don't expect to see the next CTS-V jump 100-150 HP- it's still exceeding mercedees & BMW in it's class. That, and sorry to burst the bubble; but the HP climb cannot continue steadily forward to 1000. Just not going to happen. It IS surprising no one is complaining about the ZL1 & Shelby 4-dr sedans. Huh, I missed that.

For someone who dotes on the spec sheet, this isn't consistent with your usual position. IE; the CTS 'cannot compete' with the XTS on the simple fact that they are too far apart in overall length. Kinda how you proclaimed the CTS didn't compete with the 3 series because they were 10" apart in overall length. See; it's impossible.

^ Disagree on the uber hi-HP model. The wags will only use it as another bullet against how 'GM does everything wrong', and frankly, they're right here. There should not logically be a 600-HP sedan @ Chevy and a 550-HP sedan @ Cadillac. The tiers have been badly out of whack for a long time. I do agree that if there is an uber-hi-HP Chevy sedan, it will be priced too high, another 'wrong'. GM has no direct control over dealership pricing, only indirect. It'll happen.

I realize no car sells on average at full retail; mercedes knocks $15K off the s-class to move them. The point was- it was disingenuous to mention retail sticker price when talking about fleet sales. >>"The XTS is over 1 foot longer than an E-class though"<< 202" inches isn't huge at all. BTW; E-sedan is 192", so that's LESS than a foot, not more. But I really don't think that matters to the majority of buyers, so no; we don't agree here. But all the talk about "targets" is immaterial- the buyers will decide, due to the huge amount of variables, what they will cross-shop, not the manufacturers.